This month’s (slightly delayed) open thread on climate science topics.
Reader Interactions
238 Responses to "Unforced variations: May 2018"
nigeljsays
Killian @143, yes the human brain creates electric fields and could in theory be like radio transmitters perhaps. I have often wondered about that, however there’s no strong evidence for ESP, so the effect is probably just too weak.
Instead humans have evolved and discovered other ways of communicating.
nigeljsays
Carrie @146, the discussion recently has all been about atmospheric C02 trends, not emissions trends. No flattening of atmospheric trends but it would be hard to detect in early stages.
Emissions trends from fossil fuels showed a small flattening off from about 2013 onwards, but have increased again last year. You are right agricultural emissions are increasing.
However it doesn’t make sense to list positive feedbacks because if we reduce anthropogenic emissions we reduce feedbacks. Our primary concern is anthropogenic emissions.
Turning this ship around is not going to be easy.
JRsays
135 Nemesis says: “The problem is systemic”
Of course it is. For some people it’s inconvenient and too challenging a concept to discuss openly though. :-)
What to do
Q. “Hey, let’s do another paper on the AMOC instead guys?”
A. “Yeah now that’s a great idea.”
147 MA Rodger provides great news. After many years of skyrocketing temperature anomalies finally the Temps are decreasing and heading in the other direction, Lower as per the Data Evidence:
…….. Jan-Apr Ave
2016 .. +1.15ºC
2017 .. +0.95ºC
2015 .. +0.85ºC
2010 .. +0.77ºC
2018 .. +0.76ºC
Over the equivalent period Jan-Apr Global Temperatures have cooled by 0.39 C in two years and are now lower than in 2010, 8 years ago. Whatever we are doing is finally working really well and heading in the right direction – Lower Global Temperatures. So all we need to do now is to keep doing what we are doing now.
# 120 MA Rodger confirms this in the Gisstemp evidence too. The Data states we have turned the corner now.
…….. Jan-Aug Ave
2016 .. +1.22ºC
2017 .. +1.03ºC
2015 .. +0.83ºC
2018 .. +0.82ºC
2010 .. +0.82ºC
Temperature anomalies have fallen to 2010 levels after heading downward from the Peak Record years of 2015-2017. The Planet is Cooling! Temperatures are no longer skyrocketing upward. No one can say temperatures are still rising when the data says otherwise until and unless new data becomes available in the future. Right?
This may be further evidence why CO2 growth rates are no longer skyrocketing up. We can trust the data and the math. If people you don’t understand this then it’s all their fault. The data is undeniable. And simple. The word has slayed the global warming dragon.
Al Bundysays
Ric Merit,
Then you’ve obviously never met anyone who has done further research on the subject of quantum magic. As claimed by that TV show, the data is out there – and irrefutable. Probability and reality are easy to modify. If you’d like to see a sample of the eviden
Al Bundysays
If I were designing a system, then I’m pretty sure that I’d never release it if the friggin send button kept disappearing. I had to erase most of my response to Ric to get it to reappear. Eh, must be my subhuman unacceptable self’s fault.
Ray, I am basing everything on scrupulous science. Over 60 years of experiments so far. The factoid that you aren’t aware of the science, well, give me a shout and I’ll provide you with some science.
Ray Ladburysays
Yes, Carrie, I meant CO2. Sea-level rise is pretty definite.
However, did the rest of your spew have a point other than making yourself feel better? Because I don’t think you will find too many people here who disagree with you about the need for action. Most of the scientists have been advocating for action since before you were born.
All I can suggest: Learn how science works. Maybe then you will be able to use it’s conclusions more effectively.
“In the 1970s, Troup’s father was one of millions who purchased a book called The Late Great Planet Earth, which interpreted events in Israel as evidence that the great war of Armageddon would happen by the late 1980s. The non-fiction bestseller of the decade, it was followed by the wildly popular end times conspiracy tome The New World Order, by the televangelist Pat Robertson, and then the Left Behind novels and films, which concerned violent clashes in Israel that would bring about biblical prophecy.
To outsiders, these pieces of doomsday pop culture seem like far-fetched lunacy. For millions of Christians, they are a roadmap to the end of the world. . .
‘We’ve been through all this before,’ said Bruce McCluggage, a former evangelical who now identifies as a ‘follower of Christ’. Throughout his youth, in the 1970s and 80s, McCluggage was part of the Christian movement that interpreted the signs of Israel as evidence of the last days. But for McCluggage, after a slow-burn of things not coming to pass, that conviction slowly faded. . .
This ‘post-evangelical’ generation was raised on a steady diet of low-budget movies and pulp novels that injected a potent fear of the coming Rapture, a dynamic most eloquently described by the late Billy Graham. ‘I pick up the Bible in one hand,’ he said, ‘and I pick up the newspaper in the other. And I read almost the same words in the newspaper as I read in the Bible. It’s being fulfilled every day round about us.'”
It was December 1984, and President Reagan had just been elected to his second term, Dynasty was the top show on TV and Madonna’s Like a Virgin topped the musical charts.
It was also the last time the Earth had a cooler-than-average month.
Last month marked the planet’s 400th consecutive month with above-average temperatures, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday.
[…] “We live in and share a world that is unequivocally, appreciably and consequentially warmer than just a few decades ago, and our world continues to warm,” said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt. “Speeding by a ‘400’ sign only underscores that, but it does not prove anything new.”
I always found quantum mechanics interesting. Not because of it’s mathematics, as I don’t understand a bit of it, but because of it’s implications for human perception in general. Quantum mechanics implicates, that there is no such thing as some “final elementary particles” in terms of “physical matter”, or at least we will never get a grip on it. Reality is not like “here am I and there is the particle”, it’s more like “I and the particle interact in a systemic/holistic matrix as a complex unit”, particle and observer are not identical, but yet at the same time they can’t be seperated, there’s no archimedian point from where the observer could ever reach “total objectivity”, his view will always be a little bit fuzzy, you can minimize the fuzzyness, but you will never eliminate fuzzyness completely. That’s life, real life. Life is fuzzy.
The modern paradigm is scientifically and economically sheer materialism/physicalism, it’s all about “things” you can hunt down and grab, like atoms and particles and money (=colored paper) and silver and gold ect, it’s all about material stuff. But what about the invisible, “things” you can’t see, you can’t touch, you can’t hear or smell nor measure, but these things are real, maybe they are even more real than “physical matter”. What about “wisdom”, what about “emotions” , what about introspection and meditation, what about compassion and poetry and intuition? What about spirituality? What’s our spiritual condition right now? Is there any at all? 8) Btw:
” What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
… that’s a slap in the face of every materialistic/physicalistic science :) Let’s make life an art, not a business.
JRsays
“I’m not new to the climate activism world.” says Jamie Margolin, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Seattle.
She doesn’t spend her days seeking out climate science deniers across the internet landscape to argue with and ridicule them relentlessly. She didn’t create a website forum to complain about and blame deniers for every failure of the global community to address the cause of global warming. She doesn’t spend her time telling the public they are to blame when they don’t get the details of the science or say something ‘dumb’. Nor does she label them as stupid idiots for not fully understanding the implications of climate science knowledge.
No she doesn’t. Nor does Therese Etoka, a 17-year-old climate activist from Boise, Idaho. Or Edgar McGregor, also 17, who tweets about his anxiety from living in drought-prone southern California. They ignore ‘deniers’ instead choosing to act constructively. I believe they and everyone like them deserve your support and encouragement. Along the way you may even learn something useful from these teens.
About previous comment on uncertainty examples. Maybe ‘hedging’ is a possible option for ‘prevarication’ for how the results of research are presented? Another might be ‘Equivocate’ or even ‘Palter’. These are traits used to avoid being definitive so as not to be held to account for statements. Then there’s ‘Tergiversate’ also, maybe that’s the right fit? It’s really hard to be certain where human actions are concerned. The possible variables are many and therefore unknown at present. More data is needed which will require further research and analysis. Until then the real drivers may remain uncertain.
And maybe stuck with vague ill-defined motherhood statements like the “rapid reduction in ghg emissions” as the scientist’s consensus solution to global warming?
Al Bundysays
Ray,
Just to clarify, I don’t believe. Instead I use the suspension of disbelief. Much of my motivation is driven by the fact that I’m a writer who works with a new genre, Weaving. The goal is to write the most fantastical story using irrefutable facts. Some of the facts from my first book included details about Sputnik, the obliteration of two of the top five top secret US military projects, and 23 deaths. (My current book includes a Martin Luther. The results were amazing)
So, I’ve been stacking improbabilities via doubles and triples, which are two or three extremely improbable events within a single short chapter. Cuz, unless the story is highly unlikely to be approximated anywhere in the universe during the life of the universe, there’s no significant evidence.
Eh, it’s a hobby. I loved that English teacher’s reaction when I gave her a couple of pages to read. She tried to melt through a counter.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor: “Sound familiar?”
No. And the fact that you think it does shows just how little you understand our current situation, climate science and science in general. You are the poster child for stupidity sent to college.
nigelj @151,
Do note the reported 2017 increase in FF CO2 emissions is given by IEA for energy-related CO2 emissions at +0.46Gt(CO2) = +0.013Gt(C). This is smaller than the 2016 drop in CO2 emissions (FF + cement + LUC) of +0.20Gt(C) given by GlobalCarbonProject.
Dipping back to your yet-to-be-replied-to comment @129, you seem to agree that the statement “CO2 is accelerating” does rather hyperbolise the situation (in the literary sense) as CO2 has been at this “accelerating” for half a century. Your “historical rate” does address this on-going nature of AGW. I have been arguing (not without reason) that the long-term acceleration can been seen as halted. (This of course still leaves the upward linear trajectory.)
Sadly it is evident that there is a bunch of catawauls on this thread that are incapable of sensible discussion of the measure of rising atmospheric CO2 levels. My reason for pursuing such discussion (and thus generating the protests) was because these objections, shall we name it ‘accelerati talk’, appeared as being nought but the refuge for continued ‘skyrocketry’. And these ‘accelerati’ statements have since so often demonstrated/implied ‘skyrocketry’. Further, the idea of discussing emissions rather than atmospheric concentrations, of replacing the decadal acceleration of atmospheric CO2 with a potentially more precise annual acceleration of our CO2 emissions (which has been running at an annual increase of ½Gt(CO2)/year since the 1950s) is a step too far for them. I consider (not without reason) that such a step is found so difficult because they are loathed to dismiss natural feedbacks in such discussion. Thus the exhibited ‘acceleratism’ is almost wholly ‘skyrocketry’.
This could be put another way. While ‘skyrocketry’ disregards the science, ‘acceleratism’ disregards entirely today’s global efforts to cut emissions.
Of course, there is good reason to consider the present effort to cut emissions as inadequate. Yet that effort cannot be disregarded while the potential results from such massive effort are appearing as levelling-off of our annual rate of emissions. Such an achievement (potential or actual) should not be dismissed on this forum as “pedantry.”
But such dismissal is what we see.
And I have still yet to address the issue of that misrepresented “405-ppm threshold” that has been waved about up-thread, another potentially thorny issue for the ‘accelerati’.
Nemesissays
@JR, #152
” 135 Nemesis says: “The problem is systemic”
Of course it is. For some people it’s inconvenient and too challenging a concept to discuss openly though. :-)
What to do
Q. “Hey, let’s do another paper on the AMOC instead guys?”
A. “Yeah now that’s a great idea.” “
Yes, the systemic root cause of social inequality, exploitation and eco-destruction through sheer brute force is the ultimate, final elephant in the room. There’s way too much money and fossil fueled power in the system (take out fossil fuel assets and the global economy will collapse^^). Just think about the US military, it’s the biggest global enterprise and fossil fuel consumer by far and it serves solely to preserve the system/Empire (the root cause of the mess) at ANY cost. They will never ever give up their fossil fueled power, never ever. Think about that. The ugly rest is just a matter of time. This is why I say that climate mitigation debates are completely obsolete, we are in free fall.
” We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That’s the essence of samsara – the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.”
Erm no, I am no buddhist or “hindu” for sure, I’m an anarchist, just a transit passenger, but that Samsara thangie is true, for granted.
mikesays
N at 149: I am pretty certain, as certain as I can be anyway, that Schrodinger was not a cat person.
Al: I think JR took some liberties at 152 with your post at 147. Am I right about that? I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at his numbers because I do CO2, not temps, but I think he is doing some standard lukewarmer/denier cherrypicking and trying to act like the recent EN LN cycle can be ignored, but the temp thing is your strong suit, JR is way off on at 152, right?
One thing that you haven’t understood and/or I have not communicated effectively is that when I talk about the current rate of increase, I am talking the average of the annual rate of increase for the past 5 years and the future 5 years, so there is a 5 year lag on crunching the numbers to determine the decadal (background to me) rate of increase.
so, what about JR’s suggestion that the climate dragon has been slain? Do you think that suggestion is as crazy as I do?
BEST is reporting April 2018 with an anomaly of +0.90ºC, a small increase on March’s +0.85ºC. (GISS & NOAA both recorded a slight fall.)
It is the 4th warmest April in BEST (GISS had it 4th, NOAA 3rd), sitting below 2016, 2017 & 2010 and above 2007, 2014 & 2015. April 2018 is 16th in BEST’s all-month rankings (GISS was =25th, NOAA =27st, these a correction from those given @120&@147).
With a third of the year complete, 2018 sits 4th in the BEST year-so-far table below (4th in GISS, 5th NOAA), the displacing of the final calender year rankings due mainly to ENSO which provides a rocket-booster for temperatures during the early part of year like 2010. But then JR (and I though that fictional character had been shot and had now departed) should actually know all about that. And especially for JR, a graph of the various monthly temperature records (GISS, NOAA, HadCRUT, BEST, RSS, UAH) back to 2010 (an El Nino year) is available here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’).
…….. Jan-Apr Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.20ºC … … … +0.97ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +1.04ºC … … … +0.86ºC … … … 2nd
2010 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.70ºC … … … 4th
2018 .. +0.85ºC
2015 .. +0.80ºC … … … +0.83ºC … … … 3rd
2007 .. +0.79ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 7th
2002 .. +0.73ºC … … … +0.61ºC … … … 11th
2005 .. +0.71ºC … … … +0.68ºC … … … 6th
2014 .. +0.68ºC … … … +0.69ºC … … … 5th
1998 .. +0.67ºC … … … +0.60ºC … … … 13th
2006 .. +0.66ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 8th
I know you’re writing ironically–and congratulations on the drop-dead-dry tone of it, by the way!–but just for the record, that all sounded remarkably familiar to me:
Premise: The red fire engine is good for putting out fires.
Premise: Your Tesla is red.
Conclusion: Your Tesla is good for putting out fires.
Omega Centaurisays
Nigelj @151
Remember most positive CO2 feedbacks operate through temperature, not atmospheric concentration. We know temperature lags concentration because there is considerable thermal inertia, especially in the oceans. So its possible, indeed highly plausible that these feedbacks have been gradually ramping up, and this may indeed be the explanation of the increasing gap between claimed anthropic emissions and CO2 trendlines.
mikesays
JR at 159: why are these teenagers wasting time doing climate work now? Have you let them know that the climate warming dragon has been slain? (your post at 152)
Greater future global warming inferred from Earth’s recent energy budget
End of Brown Caldeira:
” … it is sometimes argued that the severity of model- projected
global warming can be taken less seriously on the grounds that
models fail to simulate the current climate sufficiently accurately
38.
Our study confirms important model-observation discrepancies,
indicating ample room for model improvement. However, we do not
find that model errors can be taken as evidence that global warming
is over-projected by climate models. On the contrary, our results
add to a broadening collection of research indicating that models that simulate today’s climate best tend to be the models that project
the most global warming over the remainder of the twenty-first
century”
I don’t think that Patrick and Caldeira have been convinced that emission reports that some find persuasive are going to turn into the flattening of temp increases on the planet.
I hope/expect that the scientists and elsewhere find time to review this report to see if it is flawed in ways that might suggest it is overstating the warming that we might see in this century.
Warm regards all,
Mike
Nemesissays
@mike, #166
” N at 149: I am pretty certain, as certain as I can be anyway, that Schrodinger was not a cat person.”
The journal Ocean and Coastal Management reported that Miami Beach saw instances of tide-induced flooding jump by more than 400 percent between 2006 and 2013. People in swaths of South Florida know to drive to work with their shoes wrapped in grocery bags when the tide is especially high — rain or no rain. All while local officials race frantically to install those pumps.
Why would anyone pour several hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of wealth into such scary trends?
For their part, it appears foreign investors believe they can time the market.
The Miami Herald’s Nicholas Nehamas took a Pulitzer Prize for his examination of foreign money in the skyline.
“Foreign investors think they’re going to sell before climate change affects the price of their units,” he says. “It’s a case of the segment of the market most driving the market being divorced from reality.”
JRsays
172 mike?
You’re telling me you could not pick up on all the satire and irony of 152 taking the piss out of Mr Rodger and his complete lack of logic and duplicitous rhetoric over a series of posts?
You did not pick up the humour? People are not very smart nor astute here on rc. No wonder the deniers have such fun at others expense here and are better communicators to the public.
nigeljsays
MA Rodger @164
I hear where you are coming from on skyrocketry etcetera. More or less.
“I have been arguing (not without reason) that the long-term acceleration can been seen as halted. (This of course still leaves the upward linear trajectory.)”
If we are talking keeling chart atmospheric levels I dont see any halt. But nor do I see an acceleration higher than the acclerating rate since about 1960.
“Of course, there is good reason to consider the present effort to cut emissions as inadequate. Yet that effort cannot be disregarded while the potential results from such massive effort are appearing as levelling-off of our annual rate of emissions. Such an achievement (potential or actual) should not be dismissed on this forum as “pedantry.”But such dismissal is what we see.”
I agree on all points. There have been positive signs in emissions trends, and cynically dismissing them gets tiresome and depressing. However it will take some time for them to show up in the atmospheric trends I would have thought. But because of this they are important.
I think its best to avoid both understating or exaggerating the climate problem and ditto with the progress we are making solving it (such as it is).
Killiansays
#148 Nemesis said @Killian, #143
” Conclusions: There is a literal human neural network, and it may include non-humans.”
That’s for granted, the complete planet is a neural network, everying is interconnected and constantly exchanging information, there’s no space between our skin and the rest of it.
I am not a fan of the mistaken form of the Gaia hypothesis. I agree about proximity and energy transfer, and so in some form information transfer – just look at trees and fungi – but I was referring specifically yo a neural network, not merely an energetic network. I’m not quite to the place of saying rocks have brains.
Dearest nigelj,
If you prefer to believe that people thinking about a crossword creates magical sharing of information vs. an actual, verified physical phenomenon, well, dude, have at it.
jgnfldsays
@175
Developers take property and flip it within short years. Their climate risk is very low.
Buyers are subject to climate risks for many decades. Their climate risk is much higher.
Developers have every reason to keep building and rebuilding in coastal areas and flood plains as they do now. They make lots of profits. It’s the consumer who bears the losses.
PaulSsays
Hi Gavin,
Just noticed on twitter your GISTEMP 2018 prediction following the April data and thought I’d comment here because that’s long dead on the twitter-cycle.
I’m a bit confused that your plot appears to show 2018 averaging the same as 2014 – about 0.74K anomaly – even though all months in 2018 have so far been warmer than the 2014 average and the 2018 Jan-Apr average is more than 0.1K warmer than that for 2014. It also appears to suggest that 2018 is extremely unlikely to be as warm as 2015 even though YTD averages for 2015 and 2018 are pretty much identical.
Maybe I’m missing something important about how the prediction works, but it got me wondering if you might have mixed up baseline references on the plot.
[Response: No, I think it’s correct. YTD is about the same as 2015 and 2010 as you note, but the sampling is from all years, not just the warmest, and there are many years where the YTD is larger than the annual mean. This is not conditioned on expectations of ENSO towards the end of the year, so that sample is all it’s using. – gavin]
JRClarksays
#152
Long ago I heard that having a good sense of humor plus being able to recognize humor when you see it was one of the indicators for higher than average intelligence. Nemesis and Kevin seem to be alert. :-)
In fairness though it is hard to follow multiple discussions when everyone is talking at once while stuck on a school bus trip to the countryside.
#173
” … it is sometimes argued that the severity of model- projected
global warming can be taken less seriously on the grounds that
models fail to simulate the current climate sufficiently accurately”
From everything (scientific) I have seen over the years my opinion is this is the more accurate most plausible message to be taken seriously is this:
“… the past model-projected global warming forecasts cannot be taken seriously on the grounds that models fail to simulate the increasing severity of the future climate sufficiently accurately because they repeatedly underestimate the rate of total present and ongoing GHG emissions from both man-made and natural sources whilst severely underestimating and at times totally ignoring the positive climate feedback forcings from the present rapid warming phase and into the future to 2040 and beyond.”
While many models are technically sound and almost fit for purpose the assumptions being made on the changing inputs is seriously lacking and therefore flawed and not fit for purpose.
Show me a reliable model that foretells with any certainty the impacts on the climate system and NH regional weather patterns and increasing temperatures and increasing GHG emissions from an annual Arctic BoE over a decade time span then ongoing.
Then show me one GCM that includes inputs from that model out to 2100 and beyond while including real world fossil fuel, cement, and ongoing LUC projections and LUC positive feedback forcings ongoing.
If they exist then I would like see the published papers that prove it.
The numbers don’t lie. No cherry-picking necessary. El Nino La Nina is barely a minor wobble which cancels each other out in the long run. And Mr Rodger already explained at some point that El Ninos are not getting worse as temperatures and GHG levels rise. So no big deal there.
The current numbers prove beyond all doubt that temperatures are falling. That’s the current short term trend so to say anything else would be skyrockety exaggeration and hand waving hyperbole.
The data stops in April 2018. You cannot say global temperatures are continuing to rise or that that rate of rise is increasing until the data says they are. To do that you need to wait for the data to come in. So we’ll need to wait at least another 5 years before we have sufficient data to know what the real decadal trend MIGHT BE when 2018 is in the middle.
And until all that decadal data is published in the peer reviewed literature then no one can say a word about it as per Mr Rodger’s expert advice. Any and all claims in the interim of global temperatures are rising is wild skyrocketyness writ large.
… we asked the question: are the world’s capital markets carrying a carbon bubble? This question related to the fact that there is unburnable carbon, and some of that is owned by listed companies. In terms of carbon there is a clear overhang of fossil fuels beyond what can be burned in a 2°C scenario; there is a lively debate about the financial implications….
So what benefit could there be to requiring disclosure of the specific individuals diagnosed with black lung, when the EPA is considering health problems associated with coal mining?
Nemesissays
@Killian, #178
” I am not a fan of the mistaken form of the Gaia hypothesis… I’m not quite to the place of saying rocks have brains.”
I didn’t think of, nor did I talk about any “gaia hypothesis” (I don’t know this hypothesis). And I don’t think rocks have brains either, because obviously they haven’t.
” I agree about proximity and energy transfer, and so in some form information transfer – just look at trees and fungi – but I was referring specifically to a neural network, not merely an energetic network.”
Ok, but a neural network is an electrical resp energetic network ;) Call it neural, energetic, mystic, chemical, informational, whatever you prefer, there’s a global, a cosmic network and it’s interconnected through causality and information transfer.
without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views
nigeljsays
JR says “No wonder the deniers have such fun at others expense here and are better communicators to the public.”
The deniers have impact because they tell a pack of lies. Scientists are not in a position to lie like that, and I hope you are not seriously suggesting they should.
Its not a simple case of scientists adopting the same disgusting, dirty marketing trickery of a PR consultant. This would be a fast way to destroy the credibility science, and the fact that you don’t understand this is disturbing.
nigeljsays
Omega Centauri @171, very good point.
nigeljsays
JR Clark @182, seriously what is all that crap you have written about? :)
nigelj @177,
You conclude “I think its best to avoid both understating or exaggerating the climate problem and ditto with the progress we are making solving it (such as it is).” I would suggest we can be more definite. It is plainly the case that under/overestimations should be avoided, should be shaken out of the conversation. And it should be a trivial task to set out a realistic understanding of where CO2 forcing is going. It can be achieved with the wobbly global temperature data and the noise on the atmopheric CO2 record (relative to its rate of rise) is thirty times smaller than the noise on the global temperature record. Yet such a simple task is not currently possible on this thread with the likes of the redoubting JR/JRClark not content with overtly “taking the piss” but relishing the act by repeating his ridiculous nonsense. In truth, the implications of his inappropriate ribaldry are that climatology knows nothing. It is nothing more than the sort of nonsense we expect to be picked up by Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy. So it is not really stuff that is appropriate in an RC UV thread.
mike, I don’t think your quote from the paper supports your conclusion that you “…don’t think that Patrick and Caldeira have been convinced that emission reports that some find persuasive are going to turn into the flattening of temp increases on the planet.”
Their paper argues for higher sensitivity; the question of emissions flattening (or not) is a question about forcings, not sensitivity. And to the extent that sensitivity does come into it, higher sensitivity would accelerate, not retard, detection of any ‘flattening’ of temp increases. Remember, in principle sensitivity works both ways…
Now, what Patirck and Caldeira think about forcings and their probable future trajectory is another story. I have no idea what they may think about that. It’s not in their paper, though.
mikesays
JR at 172: oh, you were joking. When I get tired, I sometimes miss that. sorry about that.
I don’t do temp numbers, so I just skim Al’s numbers and trust his number crunching on temp.
There is a lot of friction about the rate of increase CO2 (proxy for ghg) and it strikes me as a bit of distraction because current level is a problem and any increase makes the problem worse. I recognize and agree that this is a measurement of a system with a lot of momentum, so small trend changes will be difficult to spot amid the noise and may only be clearly seen when there are additional years of data to confirm a trend in the noise.
An analytical problem arises when folks like Al use strange terms like skyrockety when the proper term may be simply “wrong”. I think this is some variation on ad hominen attack. My interest in the climate ball games and various kinds of alpha dog behavior on the internet is exceedingly low.
I know that the current level of CO2(proxy)is bad and any increase makes it worse. I know it is going to take years for changes in human behavior to show up in the important measurements of temp and ghg numbers. I suspect if/when we see changes, they will be small and possibly nowhere near the Paris targets. Meanwhile RCP 8.5 is gaining traction and that’s not good: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-model-scenario-rcp85-global-warming-illinios-study-a8353346.html
so, hey, what’s a person to do? I am not sure. Batten down the hatches, I guess. Going to Portland today, will pick up battens if I find them at a good price.
CO2? How are we doing? More peachy than skyrockety I think:
May 22: 410.05 ppm
May 21: Unavailable
May 20: 411.84 ppm
May 19: 411.97 ppm
May 18: 411.48 ppm
In January 2018, there was a sub-thread about max CO2 this year. Thomas made some rough probabilistic comments, as did I. People were, predictably, rude about it, misconstrued comments, etc.
My few minutes of eye-balled analysis led me to post a guess of 413+/- 0.5.
Results?
At least 8 daily averages at or over 412.
At least one, maybe two daily averages at or over 412.5
4 to 7 days with hourly readings over 413.
Perhaps Mike knows where the data sets are to confirm or deny these claims and will let us all know.
My “skyrockety” prediction just stomped on MA’s peanuts.
JRClarksays
190 MA Rodger says:
23 May 2018 at 5:48 AM
“I would suggest we can be more definite. It is plainly the case that under/overestimations should be avoided, should be shaken out of the conversation.”
Good luck with that. Read some papers by climate scientists speaking about the under/overestimations of other climate scientists work. Or read an article by same right here. Happens all the time. Perfection is an illusion where your pronouncements are concerned with the ‘ridiculous nonsense’ and ‘inappropriate ad hominem ribald’ barely half as good.
“And it should be a trivial task to set out a realistic understanding of where CO2 forcing is going.”
Up.
“In truth, the implications of his inappropriate ribaldry are that climatology knows nothing.”
Weak strawman falsities only makes your comments look even more precious.
“So it is not really stuff that is appropriate in an RC UV thread.
Because RC UV threads are meant for definitive science terms like Skyrockety without an ounce of scientific objectivity for the Data. The only Skyrockety thing around here is the overinflated opinion you have about yourself Mr Rodger. There’s the rarefied atmosphere from where thou doth talk down to lesser mortals from oh so high too I suppose.
JRClarksays
The Climate Action Tracker rates (I)NDCs, 2020 pledges, long-term targets and current policies against whether they are consistent with a country’s fair share effort to the Paris Agreement 1.5°C temperature goal.
The Paris Agreement has increased the incentive to verify reported anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions with independent Earth system observations. Reliable verification requires a step change in our understanding of carbon cycle variability. Glen P. Peters,
Published online: 13 November 2017 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0013-9
it raises
important questions about our ability to
detect a sustained change in emissions from
the atmospheric record.
This verification will only
be possible if we can fully filter out the
background variability in atmospheric CO2
concentrations driven by natural processes, a challenge that still escapes us.
We project global fossil fuel and industry
emissions to increase by about 2.0% (0.8–3.0%)
in 2017, based on increased emissions ….
Even though the projected 2017 emissions
match those of the record year in 2015, they
are not expected to increase atmospheric CO2
concentration as much as in 2015 because of
reinvigorated carbon uptake in natural
reservoirs after the 2015–2016 El Niño event.
While measurements of atmospheric
concentrations have low uncertainty, the
attribution of concentration changes from
year-to-year to specific sources and sinks
is plagued by large uncertainties. These uncertainties, combined with the inherent
inter-annual to decadal variability in the
land and ocean sinks, limit our ability to
independently verify reported changes in
fossil fuel and industrial emissions.
Major improvements in emission
estimates will come from better estimates of
standing biomass carbon and changes in carbon
density across landscapes that include land
degradation and disturbances currently
poorly understood or not captured, and from better quantification of emissions associated
with land management such as harvesting,
afforestation, and shifting cultivation.
With sustained changes in emission trajectories
from 1% per year to 0% per year, it may take
10 years to distinguish the different emission
trajectories using atmospheric observations
and carbon cycle models with a probability
of 68% (Fig. 2). This detection delay is too
long to inform the stocktake of the Paris
Agreement, which occurs every five years.
Steps to reduce key uncertainties
A step-change in our ability to understand
and quantify the inter-annual to decadal
variability in emissions and sinks of CO2 is needed before reported emissions can be
challenged by Earth system observations.
Emission uncertainty persists at the country
level, limiting our ability to accurately
understand emission trends and drivers. Considerable improvements are needed in
estimating recent emission trends and their
drivers, particularly in rapidly emerging
economies and developing countries.
High-precision measurements of 14CO2 could
quantify, objectively and transparently,
the contribution of fossil and biogenic
CO2 sources.
The two dominant fluxes that make up
the net flux from land-use change are
emissions from land clearing and sinks
from regrowth, such as afforestation,
reforestation, land abandonment and
shifting cultivation practices. Major
improvements in emission estimates will
come from better estimates of standing
biomass carbon and changes in carbon
density across landscapes that include land
degradation and disturbances currently
poorly understood or not captured, and from better quantification of emissions associated
with land management such as harvesting,
afforestation, and shifting cultivation.
Land sink. Variability in the land sink
is estimated from terrestrial ecosystem
models driven by observed changes in
environmental conditions. However, understanding of the land sink is limited
by the lack of spatially explicit observations
of changes in carbon in vegetation and
soils. Major improvements can come from systematic bench marking of these
models against the increasing availability
of observations of key components of
the biosphere (for example, biomass,
productivity, and leaf area), and also
taking advantage of emerging constraints
from atmospheric CO2 data to reduce
uncertainties in the sensitivity of fluxes to
climate variability, CO2, and nutrients.
Ocean sink. Our understanding of the
ocean sink is limited primarily by the
insufficiency of physical, chemical and
biological observations that would allow for
quantitative understanding of the causes of
inter-annual to decadal variability. To reduce the uncertainty in the ocean sink
and quantify its variability sufficiently so
as to make a material contribution to the
five-year-or-less detection goal, two types
of observations are critical: an optimized
system of long-term, sustained observations
to directly monitor the ocean carbon sink,
and targeted field studies that elucidate
critical processes driving inter-annual to
decadal variability.
Providing independent verification in
the context of the Paris Agreement, with
its global stocktake every five years, leads to a new urgency for the scientific
community to focus on reducing key
uncertainties and quantifying natural
variability in all components of the
carbon cycle so that it can collectively
meet the demands of policymakers and
society.
Is that Paper Right? Clear enough? Confusing? Wrong?
Surely Uncertainty in Climate science is a real issue which extends across all aspects of the science. Obviously the extent of Uncertainty is not a broadly known nor accurately understood issue in the public’s mind.
Meanwhile lower your ghg footprint. How much? That’s uncertain too.
Carriesays
I believe that anyone with a PhD should be required to take the Hippocratic Oath like an MD.
I believe that Climate Scientists and others involved in climate change related activities should be held to higher ethical standards than the average person in society including politicians. Not only should they welcome that they should wholeheartedly embrace it. Either that or go find something else to do with their life.
With great privilege and opportunity comes an even greater responsibility.
If not I, who?
If not now, when?
“This is why the efficient operations of the market (modern capitalism always seeks to maximize profit) will never get us where we need to go and, if it does, it will be far too late to save us. The solution to this existential crisis lies outside of capitalism and any effort to implement the solution will always meet resistance from businesses and individuals. This is why I am pessimistic about our future. The science of AGW is sound. The technology needed to solve the problem is available. The will to embrace the social change needed is lacking. We will need to be staring death in the face before we react and it will be too late.” by A Shared Humanity
”(I)t will become increasingly apparent that the world with CO2 numbers above 405 ppm is inhospitable. Dr. Mann said in 2014 (seems so long ago now) that we should avoid crossing 405.”
This is a message which has been much repeated by you although less so in recent months (perhaps because 405ppm is now well exceeded). If we look back we even find your good self bemoaning Mann himself for apparently having ”abandoned” this 405ppm threashold.
I don’t think the basis of this ‘threashold’ is how you make out & so I have promised up-thread to explain properly this 2014 message from Mann. So here it is.
Since pre-industrial itmes, we have been annually adding an increaing amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, driving AGW. Over the last half century annual emissions have been increasing at about half a million tons(CO2) per year.
The scientific message has warned for decades that this will indeed lead to an inhospitable world. We could pause a while to review how that scientific message has changed over the decades but on the whole it has tightened the limits on our emissions while conversely our emissions have yet to show a decline in rate.
By 2014, we were soon to have the final parts of the UN IPCC AR5 which would set out the latest limits. The Mann 2014 OP in Scientific American was pre-empting those reports with a strong message on those limits. The limits eventually set out by the IPCC AR5 can be found in AR5 SYR Table 2.2 which gives CO2 budgets (assuming non-CO2 forcing conforms to RCP8.5) which can be converted into thresholds of atmospheric CO2 in ppm by assuming a value for the Airborne Fraction (Af), the proportion of our CO2 emissions that is staying in the atmosphere. At Af=43%, the 2ºC warming limit sits at 462ppm (so roughly the 450ppm limit) and the 1.5ºC warming limit at 421ppm.
The derivation of the 405ppm threshold oft-quoted in UV threads of late modified the 450ppm/2ºC limit to account for a couple of things.
☻ Firstly it addressed the assumption made by IPCC AR5 SYR that pre-industrial equates to 1861-80 and substituted a pre-industrial datum point 0.2ºC cooler. To do this it considered NH temperatures rather than global ones. NH temperatures have also risen a little more than global ones.
☻ Secondly it accointed for the negative forcings which would disappear when FF-use ends and woild add some 0.5ºC to glonal warming.
From these two considerations, the 450ppm limit is an adjusted down to 405ppm. This reasoning is set out in a 2015 OP which says it is updated for 2017 and which also considers the 1.5ºC warming limit. These dates show no evidence of anything being ”abandoned”. Rather the 405ppm is/was seen in the same light as the 350ppm level. And despite its presence as a bullet point heading the 2014 OP, both the 2014 OP and the 2015/17 OP shows it was never a do-or-die limit for CO2.
The 2015/17 OP concludes describing the “bottom line.” That surely is the take-away message, not some 405ppm limit.
”So what’s the bottom line? Well, we’re actually closer to the dangerous 2C warming mark than many experts acknowledge. And yet there is still hope for limiting warming to 2C despite claims to the contrary by some (see also this response).
“Doing so would require rapid decarbonization of our economy and, perhaps, implementation of strategies and technologies for removing carbon from the atmosphere. If we decide that 2C is still too much warming, and seek a lower target of 1.5C, the challenge is more uphill. Reducing emissions alone won’t be adequate, and sequestration of atmospheric carbon will be critical.
“We can do this. No, we must do this.”(Links & emphasis from OP)
Killina @194,
Your ‘peanut stomping’ prediction was not from January 2018 and not the only prediction you made of this year’s CO2 peak. While we await the end of the month just in case a CO2-rich cloud is wafting MLO-wards, I would suggest that your ‘peanut stomping’ is probably far more imprecise than you make out. You could of course examine what is adhereing to the bottom of your boot, but from here it smells like you were way off your target.
Killian @143, yes the human brain creates electric fields and could in theory be like radio transmitters perhaps. I have often wondered about that, however there’s no strong evidence for ESP, so the effect is probably just too weak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception
Instead humans have evolved and discovered other ways of communicating.
Carrie @146, the discussion recently has all been about atmospheric C02 trends, not emissions trends. No flattening of atmospheric trends but it would be hard to detect in early stages.
Emissions trends from fossil fuels showed a small flattening off from about 2013 onwards, but have increased again last year. You are right agricultural emissions are increasing.
However it doesn’t make sense to list positive feedbacks because if we reduce anthropogenic emissions we reduce feedbacks. Our primary concern is anthropogenic emissions.
Turning this ship around is not going to be easy.
135 Nemesis says: “The problem is systemic”
Of course it is. For some people it’s inconvenient and too challenging a concept to discuss openly though. :-)
What to do
Q. “Hey, let’s do another paper on the AMOC instead guys?”
A. “Yeah now that’s a great idea.”
147 MA Rodger provides great news. After many years of skyrocketing temperature anomalies finally the Temps are decreasing and heading in the other direction, Lower as per the Data Evidence:
…….. Jan-Apr Ave
2016 .. +1.15ºC
2017 .. +0.95ºC
2015 .. +0.85ºC
2010 .. +0.77ºC
2018 .. +0.76ºC
Over the equivalent period Jan-Apr Global Temperatures have cooled by 0.39 C in two years and are now lower than in 2010, 8 years ago. Whatever we are doing is finally working really well and heading in the right direction – Lower Global Temperatures. So all we need to do now is to keep doing what we are doing now.
# 120 MA Rodger confirms this in the Gisstemp evidence too. The Data states we have turned the corner now.
…….. Jan-Aug Ave
2016 .. +1.22ºC
2017 .. +1.03ºC
2015 .. +0.83ºC
2018 .. +0.82ºC
2010 .. +0.82ºC
Temperature anomalies have fallen to 2010 levels after heading downward from the Peak Record years of 2015-2017. The Planet is Cooling! Temperatures are no longer skyrocketing upward. No one can say temperatures are still rising when the data says otherwise until and unless new data becomes available in the future. Right?
This may be further evidence why CO2 growth rates are no longer skyrocketing up. We can trust the data and the math. If people you don’t understand this then it’s all their fault. The data is undeniable. And simple. The word has slayed the global warming dragon.
Ric Merit,
Then you’ve obviously never met anyone who has done further research on the subject of quantum magic. As claimed by that TV show, the data is out there – and irrefutable. Probability and reality are easy to modify. If you’d like to see a sample of the eviden
If I were designing a system, then I’m pretty sure that I’d never release it if the friggin send button kept disappearing. I had to erase most of my response to Ric to get it to reappear. Eh, must be my subhuman unacceptable self’s fault.
Ray, I am basing everything on scrupulous science. Over 60 years of experiments so far. The factoid that you aren’t aware of the science, well, give me a shout and I’ll provide you with some science.
Yes, Carrie, I meant CO2. Sea-level rise is pretty definite.
However, did the rest of your spew have a point other than making yourself feel better? Because I don’t think you will find too many people here who disagree with you about the need for action. Most of the scientists have been advocating for action since before you were born.
All I can suggest: Learn how science works. Maybe then you will be able to use it’s conclusions more effectively.
From “‘End times fatigue’: evangelicals find biblical case for Israel less compelling” in Today’s Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/19/evangelicals-israel-usa-end-times
“In the 1970s, Troup’s father was one of millions who purchased a book called The Late Great Planet Earth, which interpreted events in Israel as evidence that the great war of Armageddon would happen by the late 1980s. The non-fiction bestseller of the decade, it was followed by the wildly popular end times conspiracy tome The New World Order, by the televangelist Pat Robertson, and then the Left Behind novels and films, which concerned violent clashes in Israel that would bring about biblical prophecy.
To outsiders, these pieces of doomsday pop culture seem like far-fetched lunacy. For millions of Christians, they are a roadmap to the end of the world. . .
‘We’ve been through all this before,’ said Bruce McCluggage, a former evangelical who now identifies as a ‘follower of Christ’. Throughout his youth, in the 1970s and 80s, McCluggage was part of the Christian movement that interpreted the signs of Israel as evidence of the last days. But for McCluggage, after a slow-burn of things not coming to pass, that conviction slowly faded. . .
This ‘post-evangelical’ generation was raised on a steady diet of low-budget movies and pulp novels that injected a potent fear of the coming Rapture, a dynamic most eloquently described by the late Billy Graham. ‘I pick up the Bible in one hand,’ he said, ‘and I pick up the newspaper in the other. And I read almost the same words in the newspaper as I read in the Bible. It’s being fulfilled every day round about us.'”
Sound familiar?
A tidbit from Soylent News:
I always found quantum mechanics interesting. Not because of it’s mathematics, as I don’t understand a bit of it, but because of it’s implications for human perception in general. Quantum mechanics implicates, that there is no such thing as some “final elementary particles” in terms of “physical matter”, or at least we will never get a grip on it. Reality is not like “here am I and there is the particle”, it’s more like “I and the particle interact in a systemic/holistic matrix as a complex unit”, particle and observer are not identical, but yet at the same time they can’t be seperated, there’s no archimedian point from where the observer could ever reach “total objectivity”, his view will always be a little bit fuzzy, you can minimize the fuzzyness, but you will never eliminate fuzzyness completely. That’s life, real life. Life is fuzzy.
The modern paradigm is scientifically and economically sheer materialism/physicalism, it’s all about “things” you can hunt down and grab, like atoms and particles and money (=colored paper) and silver and gold ect, it’s all about material stuff. But what about the invisible, “things” you can’t see, you can’t touch, you can’t hear or smell nor measure, but these things are real, maybe they are even more real than “physical matter”. What about “wisdom”, what about “emotions” , what about introspection and meditation, what about compassion and poetry and intuition? What about spirituality? What’s our spiritual condition right now? Is there any at all? 8) Btw:
https://www.livescience.com/62523-physicists-crowdsource-a-reality-check.html
” What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
… that’s a slap in the face of every materialistic/physicalistic science :) Let’s make life an art, not a business.
“I’m not new to the climate activism world.” says Jamie Margolin, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Seattle.
She doesn’t spend her days seeking out climate science deniers across the internet landscape to argue with and ridicule them relentlessly. She didn’t create a website forum to complain about and blame deniers for every failure of the global community to address the cause of global warming. She doesn’t spend her time telling the public they are to blame when they don’t get the details of the science or say something ‘dumb’. Nor does she label them as stupid idiots for not fully understanding the implications of climate science knowledge.
No she doesn’t. Nor does Therese Etoka, a 17-year-old climate activist from Boise, Idaho. Or Edgar McGregor, also 17, who tweets about his anxiety from living in drought-prone southern California. They ignore ‘deniers’ instead choosing to act constructively. I believe they and everyone like them deserve your support and encouragement. Along the way you may even learn something useful from these teens.
https://grist.org/article/meet-the-teens-schooling-us-on-climate-change/
About previous comment on uncertainty examples. Maybe ‘hedging’ is a possible option for ‘prevarication’ for how the results of research are presented? Another might be ‘Equivocate’ or even ‘Palter’. These are traits used to avoid being definitive so as not to be held to account for statements. Then there’s ‘Tergiversate’ also, maybe that’s the right fit? It’s really hard to be certain where human actions are concerned. The possible variables are many and therefore unknown at present. More data is needed which will require further research and analysis. Until then the real drivers may remain uncertain.
And maybe stuck with vague ill-defined motherhood statements like the “rapid reduction in ghg emissions” as the scientist’s consensus solution to global warming?
Ray,
Just to clarify, I don’t believe. Instead I use the suspension of disbelief. Much of my motivation is driven by the fact that I’m a writer who works with a new genre, Weaving. The goal is to write the most fantastical story using irrefutable facts. Some of the facts from my first book included details about Sputnik, the obliteration of two of the top five top secret US military projects, and 23 deaths. (My current book includes a Martin Luther. The results were amazing)
So, I’ve been stacking improbabilities via doubles and triples, which are two or three extremely improbable events within a single short chapter. Cuz, unless the story is highly unlikely to be approximated anywhere in the universe during the life of the universe, there’s no significant evidence.
Eh, it’s a hobby. I loved that English teacher’s reaction when I gave her a couple of pages to read. She tried to melt through a counter.
Weaktor: “Sound familiar?”
No. And the fact that you think it does shows just how little you understand our current situation, climate science and science in general. You are the poster child for stupidity sent to college.
nigelj @151,
Do note the reported 2017 increase in FF CO2 emissions is given by IEA for energy-related CO2 emissions at +0.46Gt(CO2) = +0.013Gt(C). This is smaller than the 2016 drop in CO2 emissions (FF + cement + LUC) of +0.20Gt(C) given by GlobalCarbonProject.
Dipping back to your yet-to-be-replied-to comment @129, you seem to agree that the statement “CO2 is accelerating” does rather hyperbolise the situation (in the literary sense) as CO2 has been at this “accelerating” for half a century. Your “historical rate” does address this on-going nature of AGW. I have been arguing (not without reason) that the long-term acceleration can been seen as halted. (This of course still leaves the upward linear trajectory.)
Sadly it is evident that there is a bunch of catawauls on this thread that are incapable of sensible discussion of the measure of rising atmospheric CO2 levels. My reason for pursuing such discussion (and thus generating the protests) was because these objections, shall we name it ‘accelerati talk’, appeared as being nought but the refuge for continued ‘skyrocketry’. And these ‘accelerati’ statements have since so often demonstrated/implied ‘skyrocketry’. Further, the idea of discussing emissions rather than atmospheric concentrations, of replacing the decadal acceleration of atmospheric CO2 with a potentially more precise annual acceleration of our CO2 emissions (which has been running at an annual increase of ½Gt(CO2)/year since the 1950s) is a step too far for them. I consider (not without reason) that such a step is found so difficult because they are loathed to dismiss natural feedbacks in such discussion. Thus the exhibited ‘acceleratism’ is almost wholly ‘skyrocketry’.
This could be put another way. While ‘skyrocketry’ disregards the science, ‘acceleratism’ disregards entirely today’s global efforts to cut emissions.
Of course, there is good reason to consider the present effort to cut emissions as inadequate. Yet that effort cannot be disregarded while the potential results from such massive effort are appearing as levelling-off of our annual rate of emissions. Such an achievement (potential or actual) should not be dismissed on this forum as “pedantry.”
But such dismissal is what we see.
And I have still yet to address the issue of that misrepresented “405-ppm threshold” that has been waved about up-thread, another potentially thorny issue for the ‘accelerati’.
@JR, #152
” 135 Nemesis says: “The problem is systemic”
Of course it is. For some people it’s inconvenient and too challenging a concept to discuss openly though. :-)
What to do
Q. “Hey, let’s do another paper on the AMOC instead guys?”
A. “Yeah now that’s a great idea.” “
Yes, the systemic root cause of social inequality, exploitation and eco-destruction through sheer brute force is the ultimate, final elephant in the room. There’s way too much money and fossil fueled power in the system (take out fossil fuel assets and the global economy will collapse^^). Just think about the US military, it’s the biggest global enterprise and fossil fuel consumer by far and it serves solely to preserve the system/Empire (the root cause of the mess) at ANY cost. They will never ever give up their fossil fueled power, never ever. Think about that. The ugly rest is just a matter of time. This is why I say that climate mitigation debates are completely obsolete, we are in free fall.
” We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That’s the essence of samsara – the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.”
– Pema Chodron
https://ilovekadampabuddhism.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/samsara.jpg
Erm no, I am no buddhist or “hindu” for sure, I’m an anarchist, just a transit passenger, but that Samsara thangie is true, for granted.
N at 149: I am pretty certain, as certain as I can be anyway, that Schrodinger was not a cat person.
Al: I think JR took some liberties at 152 with your post at 147. Am I right about that? I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at his numbers because I do CO2, not temps, but I think he is doing some standard lukewarmer/denier cherrypicking and trying to act like the recent EN LN cycle can be ignored, but the temp thing is your strong suit, JR is way off on at 152, right?
One thing that you haven’t understood and/or I have not communicated effectively is that when I talk about the current rate of increase, I am talking the average of the annual rate of increase for the past 5 years and the future 5 years, so there is a 5 year lag on crunching the numbers to determine the decadal (background to me) rate of increase.
so, what about JR’s suggestion that the climate dragon has been slain? Do you think that suggestion is as crazy as I do?
Cheers,
Mike
BEST is reporting April 2018 with an anomaly of +0.90ºC, a small increase on March’s +0.85ºC. (GISS & NOAA both recorded a slight fall.)
It is the 4th warmest April in BEST (GISS had it 4th, NOAA 3rd), sitting below 2016, 2017 & 2010 and above 2007, 2014 & 2015. April 2018 is 16th in BEST’s all-month rankings (GISS was =25th, NOAA =27st, these a correction from those given @120&@147).
With a third of the year complete, 2018 sits 4th in the BEST year-so-far table below (4th in GISS, 5th NOAA), the displacing of the final calender year rankings due mainly to ENSO which provides a rocket-booster for temperatures during the early part of year like 2010. But then JR (and I though that fictional character had been shot and had now departed) should actually know all about that. And especially for JR, a graph of the various monthly temperature records (GISS, NOAA, HadCRUT, BEST, RSS, UAH) back to 2010 (an El Nino year) is available here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’).
…….. Jan-Apr Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.20ºC … … … +0.97ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +1.04ºC … … … +0.86ºC … … … 2nd
2010 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.70ºC … … … 4th
2018 .. +0.85ºC
2015 .. +0.80ºC … … … +0.83ºC … … … 3rd
2007 .. +0.79ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 7th
2002 .. +0.73ºC … … … +0.61ºC … … … 11th
2005 .. +0.71ºC … … … +0.68ºC … … … 6th
2014 .. +0.68ºC … … … +0.69ºC … … … 5th
1998 .. +0.67ºC … … … +0.60ºC … … … 13th
2006 .. +0.66ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 8th
Gavin, thank you for stepping in above.
#152, JR–
I know you’re writing ironically–and congratulations on the drop-dead-dry tone of it, by the way!–but just for the record, that all sounded remarkably familiar to me:
https://hubpages.com/politics/When-Did-Global-Warming-Stop
Victor, #156–
Great logic.
Premise: The red fire engine is good for putting out fires.
Premise: Your Tesla is red.
Conclusion: Your Tesla is good for putting out fires.
Nigelj @151
Remember most positive CO2 feedbacks operate through temperature, not atmospheric concentration. We know temperature lags concentration because there is considerable thermal inertia, especially in the oceans. So its possible, indeed highly plausible that these feedbacks have been gradually ramping up, and this may indeed be the explanation of the increasing gap between claimed anthropic emissions and CO2 trendlines.
JR at 159: why are these teenagers wasting time doing climate work now? Have you let them know that the climate warming dragon has been slain? (your post at 152)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24672
Greater future global warming inferred from Earth’s recent energy budget
End of Brown Caldeira:
” … it is sometimes argued that the severity of model- projected
global warming can be taken less seriously on the grounds that
models fail to simulate the current climate sufficiently accurately
38.
Our study confirms important model-observation discrepancies,
indicating ample room for model improvement. However, we do not
find that model errors can be taken as evidence that global warming
is over-projected by climate models. On the contrary, our results
add to a broadening collection of research indicating that models that simulate today’s climate best tend to be the models that project
the most global warming over the remainder of the twenty-first
century”
I don’t think that Patrick and Caldeira have been convinced that emission reports that some find persuasive are going to turn into the flattening of temp increases on the planet.
I hope/expect that the scientists and elsewhere find time to review this report to see if it is flawed in ways that might suggest it is overstating the warming that we might see in this century.
Warm regards all,
Mike
@mike, #166
” N at 149: I am pretty certain, as certain as I can be anyway, that Schrodinger was not a cat person.”
D’accord, he was just a scientist ;)
https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=611919853
Foreign Investors Shrug Off Miami’s Rising Sea Levels
172 mike?
You’re telling me you could not pick up on all the satire and irony of 152 taking the piss out of Mr Rodger and his complete lack of logic and duplicitous rhetoric over a series of posts?
You did not pick up the humour? People are not very smart nor astute here on rc. No wonder the deniers have such fun at others expense here and are better communicators to the public.
MA Rodger @164
I hear where you are coming from on skyrocketry etcetera. More or less.
“I have been arguing (not without reason) that the long-term acceleration can been seen as halted. (This of course still leaves the upward linear trajectory.)”
If we are talking keeling chart atmospheric levels I dont see any halt. But nor do I see an acceleration higher than the acclerating rate since about 1960.
“Of course, there is good reason to consider the present effort to cut emissions as inadequate. Yet that effort cannot be disregarded while the potential results from such massive effort are appearing as levelling-off of our annual rate of emissions. Such an achievement (potential or actual) should not be dismissed on this forum as “pedantry.”But such dismissal is what we see.”
I agree on all points. There have been positive signs in emissions trends, and cynically dismissing them gets tiresome and depressing. However it will take some time for them to show up in the atmospheric trends I would have thought. But because of this they are important.
I think its best to avoid both understating or exaggerating the climate problem and ditto with the progress we are making solving it (such as it is).
#148 Nemesis said @Killian, #143
” Conclusions: There is a literal human neural network, and it may include non-humans.”
That’s for granted, the complete planet is a neural network, everying is interconnected and constantly exchanging information, there’s no space between our skin and the rest of it.
I am not a fan of the mistaken form of the Gaia hypothesis. I agree about proximity and energy transfer, and so in some form information transfer – just look at trees and fungi – but I was referring specifically yo a neural network, not merely an energetic network. I’m not quite to the place of saying rocks have brains.
Dearest nigelj,
If you prefer to believe that people thinking about a crossword creates magical sharing of information vs. an actual, verified physical phenomenon, well, dude, have at it.
@175
Developers take property and flip it within short years. Their climate risk is very low.
Buyers are subject to climate risks for many decades. Their climate risk is much higher.
Developers have every reason to keep building and rebuilding in coastal areas and flood plains as they do now. They make lots of profits. It’s the consumer who bears the losses.
Hi Gavin,
Just noticed on twitter your GISTEMP 2018 prediction following the April data and thought I’d comment here because that’s long dead on the twitter-cycle.
I’m a bit confused that your plot appears to show 2018 averaging the same as 2014 – about 0.74K anomaly – even though all months in 2018 have so far been warmer than the 2014 average and the 2018 Jan-Apr average is more than 0.1K warmer than that for 2014. It also appears to suggest that 2018 is extremely unlikely to be as warm as 2015 even though YTD averages for 2015 and 2018 are pretty much identical.
Maybe I’m missing something important about how the prediction works, but it got me wondering if you might have mixed up baseline references on the plot.
[Response: No, I think it’s correct. YTD is about the same as 2015 and 2010 as you note, but the sampling is from all years, not just the warmest, and there are many years where the YTD is larger than the annual mean. This is not conditioned on expectations of ENSO towards the end of the year, so that sample is all it’s using. – gavin]
#152
Long ago I heard that having a good sense of humor plus being able to recognize humor when you see it was one of the indicators for higher than average intelligence. Nemesis and Kevin seem to be alert. :-)
In fairness though it is hard to follow multiple discussions when everyone is talking at once while stuck on a school bus trip to the countryside.
#173
” … it is sometimes argued that the severity of model- projected
global warming can be taken less seriously on the grounds that
models fail to simulate the current climate sufficiently accurately”
From everything (scientific) I have seen over the years my opinion is this is the more accurate most plausible message to be taken seriously is this:
“… the past model-projected global warming forecasts cannot be taken seriously on the grounds that models fail to simulate the increasing severity of the future climate sufficiently accurately because they repeatedly underestimate the rate of total present and ongoing GHG emissions from both man-made and natural sources whilst severely underestimating and at times totally ignoring the positive climate feedback forcings from the present rapid warming phase and into the future to 2040 and beyond.”
While many models are technically sound and almost fit for purpose the assumptions being made on the changing inputs is seriously lacking and therefore flawed and not fit for purpose.
Show me a reliable model that foretells with any certainty the impacts on the climate system and NH regional weather patterns and increasing temperatures and increasing GHG emissions from an annual Arctic BoE over a decade time span then ongoing.
Then show me one GCM that includes inputs from that model out to 2100 and beyond while including real world fossil fuel, cement, and ongoing LUC projections and LUC positive feedback forcings ongoing.
If they exist then I would like see the published papers that prove it.
166 mike says:
20 May 2018 at 12:01 PM
167 MA Rodger says:
20 May 2018 at 12:23 PM
…….. Jan-Apr Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.20ºC … … … +0.97ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +1.04ºC … … … +0.86ºC … … … 2nd
2010 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.70ºC … … … 4th
2018 .. +0.85ºC
The numbers don’t lie. No cherry-picking necessary. El Nino La Nina is barely a minor wobble which cancels each other out in the long run. And Mr Rodger already explained at some point that El Ninos are not getting worse as temperatures and GHG levels rise. So no big deal there.
The current numbers prove beyond all doubt that temperatures are falling. That’s the current short term trend so to say anything else would be skyrockety exaggeration and hand waving hyperbole.
The data stops in April 2018. You cannot say global temperatures are continuing to rise or that that rate of rise is increasing until the data says they are. To do that you need to wait for the data to come in. So we’ll need to wait at least another 5 years before we have sufficient data to know what the real decadal trend MIGHT BE when 2018 is in the middle.
And until all that decadal data is published in the peer reviewed literature then no one can say a word about it as per Mr Rodger’s expert advice. Any and all claims in the interim of global temperatures are rising is wild skyrocketyness writ large.
The data doesn’t lie. People lie.
https://www.carbontracker.org/terms/carbon-bubble/
Hat tip to: https://www.asyousow.org/clean200
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/22/613400710/new-studies-confirm-a-surge-in-coal-miners-disease
So what benefit could there be to requiring disclosure of the specific individuals diagnosed with black lung, when the EPA is considering health problems associated with coal mining?
@Killian, #178
” I am not a fan of the mistaken form of the Gaia hypothesis… I’m not quite to the place of saying rocks have brains.”
I didn’t think of, nor did I talk about any “gaia hypothesis” (I don’t know this hypothesis). And I don’t think rocks have brains either, because obviously they haven’t.
” I agree about proximity and energy transfer, and so in some form information transfer – just look at trees and fungi – but I was referring specifically to a neural network, not merely an energetic network.”
Ok, but a neural network is an electrical resp energetic network ;) Call it neural, energetic, mystic, chemical, informational, whatever you prefer, there’s a global, a cosmic network and it’s interconnected through causality and information transfer.
Kids, if you’re reading RC for the first time, check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
JR says “No wonder the deniers have such fun at others expense here and are better communicators to the public.”
The deniers have impact because they tell a pack of lies. Scientists are not in a position to lie like that, and I hope you are not seriously suggesting they should.
Its not a simple case of scientists adopting the same disgusting, dirty marketing trickery of a PR consultant. This would be a fast way to destroy the credibility science, and the fact that you don’t understand this is disturbing.
Omega Centauri @171, very good point.
JR Clark @182, seriously what is all that crap you have written about? :)
nigelj @177,
You conclude “I think its best to avoid both understating or exaggerating the climate problem and ditto with the progress we are making solving it (such as it is).” I would suggest we can be more definite. It is plainly the case that under/overestimations should be avoided, should be shaken out of the conversation. And it should be a trivial task to set out a realistic understanding of where CO2 forcing is going. It can be achieved with the wobbly global temperature data and the noise on the atmopheric CO2 record (relative to its rate of rise) is thirty times smaller than the noise on the global temperature record. Yet such a simple task is not currently possible on this thread with the likes of the redoubting JR/JRClark not content with overtly “taking the piss” but relishing the act by repeating his ridiculous nonsense. In truth, the implications of his inappropriate ribaldry are that climatology knows nothing. It is nothing more than the sort of nonsense we expect to be picked up by Gentlemen Who Prefer Fantasy. So it is not really stuff that is appropriate in an RC UV thread.
Hurrah!! GRACE-FO successfully launched yesterday, with its improved accuracy replacing GRACE that ended operations in October last year.
mike, #173–
mike, I don’t think your quote from the paper supports your conclusion that you “…don’t think that Patrick and Caldeira have been convinced that emission reports that some find persuasive are going to turn into the flattening of temp increases on the planet.”
Their paper argues for higher sensitivity; the question of emissions flattening (or not) is a question about forcings, not sensitivity. And to the extent that sensitivity does come into it, higher sensitivity would accelerate, not retard, detection of any ‘flattening’ of temp increases. Remember, in principle sensitivity works both ways…
Now, what Patirck and Caldeira think about forcings and their probable future trajectory is another story. I have no idea what they may think about that. It’s not in their paper, though.
JR at 172: oh, you were joking. When I get tired, I sometimes miss that. sorry about that.
I don’t do temp numbers, so I just skim Al’s numbers and trust his number crunching on temp.
There is a lot of friction about the rate of increase CO2 (proxy for ghg) and it strikes me as a bit of distraction because current level is a problem and any increase makes the problem worse. I recognize and agree that this is a measurement of a system with a lot of momentum, so small trend changes will be difficult to spot amid the noise and may only be clearly seen when there are additional years of data to confirm a trend in the noise.
An analytical problem arises when folks like Al use strange terms like skyrockety when the proper term may be simply “wrong”. I think this is some variation on ad hominen attack. My interest in the climate ball games and various kinds of alpha dog behavior on the internet is exceedingly low.
I know that the current level of CO2(proxy)is bad and any increase makes it worse. I know it is going to take years for changes in human behavior to show up in the important measurements of temp and ghg numbers. I suspect if/when we see changes, they will be small and possibly nowhere near the Paris targets. Meanwhile RCP 8.5 is gaining traction and that’s not good:
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-model-scenario-rcp85-global-warming-illinios-study-a8353346.html
so, hey, what’s a person to do? I am not sure. Batten down the hatches, I guess. Going to Portland today, will pick up battens if I find them at a good price.
CO2? How are we doing? More peachy than skyrockety I think:
May 22: 410.05 ppm
May 21: Unavailable
May 20: 411.84 ppm
May 19: 411.97 ppm
May 18: 411.48 ppm
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/monthly.html
Warm regards all, plant peaches if you can
Mike
In January 2018, there was a sub-thread about max CO2 this year. Thomas made some rough probabilistic comments, as did I. People were, predictably, rude about it, misconstrued comments, etc.
My few minutes of eye-balled analysis led me to post a guess of 413+/- 0.5.
Results?
At least 8 daily averages at or over 412.
At least one, maybe two daily averages at or over 412.5
4 to 7 days with hourly readings over 413.
Perhaps Mike knows where the data sets are to confirm or deny these claims and will let us all know.
My “skyrockety” prediction just stomped on MA’s peanuts.
190 MA Rodger says:
23 May 2018 at 5:48 AM
“I would suggest we can be more definite. It is plainly the case that under/overestimations should be avoided, should be shaken out of the conversation.”
Good luck with that. Read some papers by climate scientists speaking about the under/overestimations of other climate scientists work. Or read an article by same right here. Happens all the time. Perfection is an illusion where your pronouncements are concerned with the ‘ridiculous nonsense’ and ‘inappropriate ad hominem ribald’ barely half as good.
“And it should be a trivial task to set out a realistic understanding of where CO2 forcing is going.”
Up.
“In truth, the implications of his inappropriate ribaldry are that climatology knows nothing.”
Weak strawman falsities only makes your comments look even more precious.
“So it is not really stuff that is appropriate in an RC UV thread.
Because RC UV threads are meant for definitive science terms like Skyrockety without an ounce of scientific objectivity for the Data. The only Skyrockety thing around here is the overinflated opinion you have about yourself Mr Rodger. There’s the rarefied atmosphere from where thou doth talk down to lesser mortals from oh so high too I suppose.
The Climate Action Tracker rates (I)NDCs, 2020 pledges, long-term targets and current policies against whether they are consistent with a country’s fair share effort to the Paris Agreement 1.5°C temperature goal.
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/
Towards real-time verification of CO2 emissions
The Paris Agreement has increased the incentive to verify reported anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions with independent Earth system observations. Reliable verification requires a step change in our understanding of carbon cycle variability. Glen P. Peters,
Published online: 13 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0013-9
it raises
important questions about our ability to
detect a sustained change in emissions from
the atmospheric record.
This verification will only
be possible if we can fully filter out the
background variability in atmospheric CO2
concentrations driven by natural processes,
a challenge that still escapes us.
We project global fossil fuel and industry
emissions to increase by about 2.0% (0.8–3.0%)
in 2017, based on increased emissions ….
Even though the projected 2017 emissions
match those of the record year in 2015, they
are not expected to increase atmospheric CO2
concentration as much as in 2015 because of
reinvigorated carbon uptake in natural
reservoirs after the 2015–2016 El Niño event.
While measurements of atmospheric
concentrations have low uncertainty, the
attribution of concentration changes from
year-to-year to specific sources and sinks
is plagued by large uncertainties. These
uncertainties, combined with the inherent
inter-annual to decadal variability in the
land and ocean sinks, limit our ability to
independently verify reported changes in
fossil fuel and industrial emissions.
Major improvements in emission
estimates will come from better estimates of
standing biomass carbon and changes in carbon
density across landscapes that include land
degradation and disturbances currently
poorly understood or not captured, and from
better quantification of emissions associated
with land management such as harvesting,
afforestation, and shifting cultivation.
With sustained changes in emission trajectories
from 1% per year to 0% per year, it may take
10 years to distinguish the different emission
trajectories using atmospheric observations
and carbon cycle models with a probability
of 68% (Fig. 2). This detection delay is too
long to inform the stocktake of the Paris
Agreement, which occurs every five years.
Steps to reduce key uncertainties
A step-change in our ability to understand
and quantify the inter-annual to decadal
variability in emissions and sinks of CO2 is
needed before reported emissions can be
challenged by Earth system observations.
Emission uncertainty persists at the country
level, limiting our ability to accurately
understand emission trends and drivers.
Considerable improvements are needed in
estimating recent emission trends and their
drivers, particularly in rapidly emerging
economies and developing countries.
High-precision measurements of 14CO2 could
quantify, objectively and transparently,
the contribution of fossil and biogenic
CO2 sources.
The two dominant fluxes that make up
the net flux from land-use change are
emissions from land clearing and sinks
from regrowth, such as afforestation,
reforestation, land abandonment and
shifting cultivation practices. Major
improvements in emission estimates will
come from better estimates of standing
biomass carbon and changes in carbon
density across landscapes that include land
degradation and disturbances currently
poorly understood or not captured, and from
better quantification of emissions associated
with land management such as harvesting,
afforestation, and shifting cultivation.
Land sink. Variability in the land sink
is estimated from terrestrial ecosystem
models driven by observed changes in
environmental conditions. However,
understanding of the land sink is limited
by the lack of spatially explicit observations
of changes in carbon in vegetation and
soils. Major improvements can come
from systematic bench marking of these
models against the increasing availability
of observations of key components of
the biosphere (for example, biomass,
productivity, and leaf area), and also
taking advantage of emerging constraints
from atmospheric CO2 data to reduce
uncertainties in the sensitivity of fluxes to
climate variability, CO2, and nutrients.
Ocean sink. Our understanding of the
ocean sink is limited primarily by the
insufficiency of physical, chemical and
biological observations that would allow for
quantitative understanding of the causes of
inter-annual to decadal variability. To
reduce the uncertainty in the ocean sink
and quantify its variability sufficiently so
as to make a material contribution to the
five-year-or-less detection goal, two types
of observations are critical: an optimized
system of long-term, sustained observations
to directly monitor the ocean carbon sink,
and targeted field studies that elucidate
critical processes driving inter-annual to
decadal variability.
Providing independent verification in
the context of the Paris Agreement, with
its global stocktake every five years,
leads to a new urgency for the scientific
community to focus on reducing key
uncertainties and quantifying natural
variability in all components of the
carbon cycle so that it can collectively
meet the demands of policymakers and
society.
Is that Paper Right? Clear enough? Confusing? Wrong?
Surely Uncertainty in Climate science is a real issue which extends across all aspects of the science. Obviously the extent of Uncertainty is not a broadly known nor accurately understood issue in the public’s mind.
and on it goes https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0013-9
Meanwhile lower your ghg footprint. How much? That’s uncertain too.
I believe that anyone with a PhD should be required to take the Hippocratic Oath like an MD.
I believe that Climate Scientists and others involved in climate change related activities should be held to higher ethical standards than the average person in society including politicians. Not only should they welcome that they should wholeheartedly embrace it. Either that or go find something else to do with their life.
With great privilege and opportunity comes an even greater responsibility.
If not I, who?
If not now, when?
“This is why the efficient operations of the market (modern capitalism always seeks to maximize profit) will never get us where we need to go and, if it does, it will be far too late to save us. The solution to this existential crisis lies outside of capitalism and any effort to implement the solution will always meet resistance from businesses and individuals. This is why I am pessimistic about our future. The science of AGW is sound. The technology needed to solve the problem is available. The will to embrace the social change needed is lacking. We will need to be staring death in the face before we react and it will be too late.” by A Shared Humanity
Mike,
You said up-thread @62:-
This is a message which has been much repeated by you although less so in recent months (perhaps because 405ppm is now well exceeded). If we look back we even find your good self bemoaning Mann himself for apparently having ”abandoned” this 405ppm threashold.
I don’t think the basis of this ‘threashold’ is how you make out & so I have promised up-thread to explain properly this 2014 message from Mann. So here it is.
Since pre-industrial itmes, we have been annually adding an increaing amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, driving AGW. Over the last half century annual emissions have been increasing at about half a million tons(CO2) per year.
The scientific message has warned for decades that this will indeed lead to an inhospitable world. We could pause a while to review how that scientific message has changed over the decades but on the whole it has tightened the limits on our emissions while conversely our emissions have yet to show a decline in rate.
By 2014, we were soon to have the final parts of the UN IPCC AR5 which would set out the latest limits. The Mann 2014 OP in Scientific American was pre-empting those reports with a strong message on those limits. The limits eventually set out by the IPCC AR5 can be found in AR5 SYR Table 2.2 which gives CO2 budgets (assuming non-CO2 forcing conforms to RCP8.5) which can be converted into thresholds of atmospheric CO2 in ppm by assuming a value for the Airborne Fraction (Af), the proportion of our CO2 emissions that is staying in the atmosphere. At Af=43%, the 2ºC warming limit sits at 462ppm (so roughly the 450ppm limit) and the 1.5ºC warming limit at 421ppm.
The derivation of the 405ppm threshold oft-quoted in UV threads of late modified the 450ppm/2ºC limit to account for a couple of things.
☻ Firstly it addressed the assumption made by IPCC AR5 SYR that pre-industrial equates to 1861-80 and substituted a pre-industrial datum point 0.2ºC cooler. To do this it considered NH temperatures rather than global ones. NH temperatures have also risen a little more than global ones.
☻ Secondly it accointed for the negative forcings which would disappear when FF-use ends and woild add some 0.5ºC to glonal warming.
From these two considerations, the 450ppm limit is an adjusted down to 405ppm. This reasoning is set out in a 2015 OP which says it is updated for 2017 and which also considers the 1.5ºC warming limit. These dates show no evidence of anything being ”abandoned”. Rather the 405ppm is/was seen in the same light as the 350ppm level. And despite its presence as a bullet point heading the 2014 OP, both the 2014 OP and the 2015/17 OP shows it was never a do-or-die limit for CO2.
The 2015/17 OP concludes describing the “bottom line.” That surely is the take-away message, not some 405ppm limit.
Killina @194,
Your ‘peanut stomping’ prediction was not from January 2018 and not the only prediction you made of this year’s CO2 peak. While we await the end of the month just in case a CO2-rich cloud is wafting MLO-wards, I would suggest that your ‘peanut stomping’ is probably far more imprecise than you make out. You could of course examine what is adhereing to the bottom of your boot, but from here it smells like you were way off your target.