Victor, our man of many names, cites a graph that shows more intense heat waves in the 30s. Fair enough, except that just about every other graph on the page he cites shows increasing numbers of high temperatures and decreasing numbers of low temperatures.
“The most notable feature of the pattern of the annual number of extreme heat waves (Figure 2.3a) through time is the high frequency in the 1930s compared to the rest of the years in the 1895-2005 period. This was followed by a decrease to a minimum in the 1960s and 1970s and then an increasing trend since then. There is no trend over the entire period, but a highly statistically significant upward trend since 1960. The heat waves during the 1930s were characterized by extremely high daytime temperatures while nighttime temperatures were not as unusual (Figure 2.3b,c). An extended multiyear period of intense drought undoubtedly played a large role in the extreme heat of this period, particularly the daytime temperatures, by depleting soil moisture and reducing the moderating effects of evaporation. By contrast, the recent period of increasing heat wave index is distinguished by the dominant contribution of a rise in extremely high nighttime temperatures (Figure 2.3c).”
Thanks for demonstrating that the current warming is in fact global, with only 1 region (a region dominated by Antarctica) warming at less than 1c/century.
Global Warming Contour Maps are designed to show the truth.
Remember that the warming rates that I displayed for the 8 regions, are the average warming rate from 1970 to 2018.
If I made Global Warming Contour Maps for a different date range (say, 2001 to 2014, when there was a slowdown), then the warming rates would probably be different.
Would you like me to make Global Warming Contour Maps for 2001 to 2014?
Mr. Know It Allsays
56 – Sheldon
Yesterday I was looking at your site (think it was yours) and there was a circular graph depicting the earth and with your 8 areas of latitude shown. Today I can’t find that graph. Where is it?
Also, does your legend go to about -5 deg C warming rate for indigo areas? Just wondering since your range in post 56 was from about 3.98 to 0.26, all positive numbers.
nigeljsays
MA Rodger @96 (and Al Bundy).
You make a whole lot of good points, but might be talking a little at cross purposes with AB or something.
I think Al Bundy meant ( and I stand to be corrected) that modelling of global “temperatures” includes only greenhouse gases and the water vapour feedback and excludes feedbacks such as the methane / tundra effect, certain arctic feedbacks, increased microbial activity boosting CO2 etc, and that this is all rather dubious and should be included in models, but subject to error bars or some other form of qualification. Its a thing I have wondered about myself, because it makes it look like the models are conservative for reasons that are hard to justify.
I would find it interesting if you, or other experts can explain why certain known feedbacks arent included (if they indeed aren’t included), for benefit of lay people, of which I’m more or less one.
Perhaps its just they are too uncertain, or its thought negative feedbacks which are also somewhat uncertain cancel things out. I’m also aware several feedbacks operate very long term beyond 2100, and this may be part of the reason?
Victorsays
94 Ray Ladbury says:
“The fact that we had a SINGLE HOT DECADE in A SINGLE COUNTRY does not negate the 40-year-and-growing trend we now experience. Again, it’s climate CHANGE, so it’s the changes that matter–the is, the trend.”
The graph I cited puts heat wave statistics into perspective. That’s why I posted it. The extremes of the “dust bowl” era are only one part of the total picture. And yes, there has been a very slight upward trend in recent years, but seen in the light of the much larger picture afforded by that graph, it’s not very different from similar minor trends in the past. Real scientists look to the big picture, not the extreme events of a single year, yet that’s what’s now being peddled in any attempt to convince the world that the cc alarmists were “right all along.”
As for “the 40-year-and-growing trend” to which you refer, sorry I’m not finding it. For 40 years there was a steep upward trend that had little to do with CO2 emissions, which were relatively low at the time (early 20th century). For the next 40 years, the atmosphere cooled and then remained relatively steady. From 2000 on, we see an abrupt tapering off of temperature rise, despite soaring CO2 levels. The trend you see is a mirage, based on what you, and so many other climate “scientists” want to see. And yes, temperatures rose steeply during the last 20 years of the previous century, which, combined with the steep runup of the first 40 years, produced the record temperatures we are experiencing today. I see no reason to attribute much if any of that to CO2 emissions.
And by the way, real scientists don’t resort to the sort of personal attacks emanating from you on a regular basis. Grow up!
Victorsays
Even if we assume that “climate change” really IS real, in the sense now so widely trumpeted, then: what is the agenda? What are we expected to think and what are we expected to do? Is it really possible to turn back the clock on climate change, to literally control the climate of the entire planet? If the Earth is destined to get continually warmer and warmer thanks to CO2 emissions, would it really help if we “turned off the spigot,” even if that were possible, which clearly it is not? Most climate scientists are very un-reassuring on that score, especially since so many of our leading lights keep finding reasons to believe that things are actually far worse than anyone had ever imagined. If the genie is already out of the bottle, as so many seem to believe, then what would be the point in turning the world economy upside down if all that could do was delay the inevitable by maybe a year or so? I must repeat: what is the agenda? What is it that all these well meaning people sounding the alarm really want when first they remind us that things are spinning hopelessly out of control and practically in the same breath assure us that “it’s not too late”? Not too late for what?
This fundamental contradiction in so much mainstream thinking about the climate is what helped turn me toward skepticism regarding the entire AGW paradigm. Because none of it makes much sense. Seems to me the real agenda here is not finding ways to “save the planet” but pushing an extremely naive and dangerous ideology which, at heart, has little to do with either climate change or sustainability.
Al Bundysays
MAR,
When I speak of negligence it is not so much an insult as it is human nature. I’m often negligent. I’m sure you are too. We’re human and so we screw up. Climate scientists are human too. And note that Monday morning quarterbacking is both easy and fun.
alan2102says
50 Al Bundy says: 5 Aug 2018 at 6:09 PM – [regarding personal CO2 budget] “Alan, Thanks for the analysis. However, the second part refutes the first. If the budget is blown by societal emissions alone then there is no way that a flight can fit in the budget.”
Superficially true, of course, but think again. The real point of the personal-CO2-awareness-and-budgeting exercise is less to meet some hard cut-off, and more to do what you CAN do, under the circumstances as you find them, regardless of whether or not society has forced you to “do” (in a sense) what you would never have consciously signed-up for. With respect to personal consumption, I will continue to do what I can reasonably do while living in Babylon (until Revelation or other influences persuade me to leave it). You might wish to do the same. The matter is also raised: what are each of us doing to change what Babyl… er, society is now forcing us to “do”?
And, pardon for not posting that on forced responses. I did not understand the diff between the two threads.
Dan H.says
MartinJB,
Yes, that discussion shows the differences between then and now. In earlier years (particularly the 1930s and 50s), heat waves were characterized by extremely high daytime temperatures, such that most record highs from that time still stand today. A similar occurrence happening in the 50s, but to a lesser extent. Recent heat waves have not have the record daytime highs as in the past, but have had higher nighttime temperatures. The water may be playing a large role. Overall, this is rather consistent with global warming theory; higher temperatures during the cooler periods, with little change or slightly lower temperatures during the warmest periods. This gets amplified with higher water content in both the air and soil.
Nemesis @80,83&84.
Your continued denial of being the author of your own words is risible, as is your failure to contenance the error in the Independent article you attempt to hide behind. What you are saying is that it is credible for the average rate of AGW over the coming three decades to be seven-times greater than the average we have seen over the last three decades.
Okay, you nail your colours to pure lunacy.
And in so doing, @80 you recruit hot-off-the-press Steffan et al (2018) ‘Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene’ to strengthen your message. But what does this paper tell us? It concludes “We argue that a planetary threshold in the Earth System could exist at a temperature rise as low as 2 °C above preindustrial.” So, while the Steffan et al argument may differ as to the impact of those planetary thresholds, how does this differ from IPCC AR5 before the thresholds are met? Where does it say there will/could be an immediate seven-fold increase in the rate of AGW?
Then @83 you further recruit a Guardian article quoting one of our hosts. The article quotes Prof Michael E Mann saying that limitations in computer modelling make AGW attribution studies “inherently conservative.” But you misrepresent this account. You tell us:-
“The models are “Inherently conservative”, that’s the real culprit we are dealing with. These models have been “inherently conservative” for political/economical reasons resp. because of calculated optimism for too long, not for scientific reasons. We’ll learn that through sheer pain quickly.”
I think you’ll find the specific criticism of the models provided by Mann et al (2017) (which goes further than the Guardian article in discussing “intrinsic conservatism” within climatology) in no way dismisses climate models for being “inherently conservative for political/economical reasons.” Or have I blundered into some nightmare debate of the Marxist dialectic? The audio of a Mann interview you link to @84 doesn’t dismiss climate models either.
Elsewhere in the audio we hear reference to Mann’s 2018 message 20-years on from the Hockey Stick within which we find the general message of “overly conservative” models. But it is not an outright condemnation of “inherently conservative” models. Mann tells us “If anything, climate model projections have proved overly conservative; they are certainly not an exaggeration.”
And the message of avoiding the worst of AGW “There is great urgency to act now if we are to avert a dangerous 2- degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) planetary warming. My own recent work suggests the challenge is greater than previously thought. Yet I remain cautiously optimistic we will act in time.” This all sounds rather IPCC to me.
(The skyrocketeers amongst us may be disappointed to hear Mann’s audio message also includes the comment “There are some reasons for cautious optimism. We’ve seen global carbon emissions start to sort of level off. It was a bit of an up-tick last year so we’re not quite there yet but we are close to bending that curve downward.”)
Finally @84 you talk of “mass die-off, especially insect die-off and what have you … BLEAK projections undermine the calculated, capitalist optimism of the system.” Is this indicating that the reason for your pessimistic view of our AGW future needs further explanation from you?
Alfsays
The Slush ™, formerly known as Arctic Sea Ice, detached and retreats from northern Greenland.
Is there something unusual happening in the Arctic?
…Are you talking about the paper, or the responses? Because the paper, as the author states, doesn’t offer solutions. He thinks there are none, just adaptation. Of course, the SANE response is to realize, as several papers this week point out, if it gets *that* bad, there may be no surviving it at all, so the only thing to do is mitigate, adapt until mitigated, then thrive rather than believing you can adapt to oceans full of goo.
This is OT here, though. This should be in the Forced thread, not this one.
As I stated in the opening line of my comment “Some food for thought”
However, to be honest, within the context of all four of those links together I didn’t really think the ‘Deep Adaptation’ link to be OT. I added it only as perspective on a particular way of framing current viewpoints. To be clear, I agree that the author does not offer any solutions, whether you agree with him or not, I think that is precisely his point, i.e. he doesn’t see any. Furthermore, I didn’t include that link because of any particular agenda of my own.
I also happen to be of the opinion that the participants in the Geoengineering Conference link offer even fewer practical real world solutions. See paper in Nature linked below for some thoughts on why SRM probably won’t work as planned.
In any case it looks like we are still mostly on a business as ususual emissions path. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is a co-author of the paper linked in my original post. Here’s a talk he gave at the begining of this year at a conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvu5i2mJsI0
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber: Climate Change Extremes, Tipping Points and Health Risks.
Not sure if after watching that, anyone can still seriously be talking about any solutions! Perhaps,it’s just me and I’m having a bad day, I’m in Florida near Miami,where sea level rise isn’t happening ;-)
Cheers!
Nemesissays
@MA Rodgers, #104
” Or have I blundered into some nightmare debate of the Marxist dialectic.”
Ah, there it is again, you pull off the funny communism mace. I love that as it’s the beautiful proof that capitalists can’t deal with the slightest critizism of capitalism (despite the fact that I didn’t say anything about capitalism or communism in my recent comments at all). You know, pointing at dead communism whenever things in capitalism get ugly is the perfect head-in-the-sand policy. I love that, it’s the proof that capitalism is inherently neurotic and will fail dead seriously. But beware, I’m not a Marxist, I’m just a nasty anarchist :)
” And the message of avoiding the worst of AGW “There is great urgency to act now if we are to avert a dangerous 2- degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) planetary warming. My own recent work suggests the challenge is greater than previously thought. Yet I remain cautiously optimistic we will act in time.” This all sounds rather IPCC to me….
The skyrocketeers amongst us may be disappointed to hear Mann’s audio message also includes the comment “There are some reasons for cautious optimism. We’ve seen global carbon emissions start to sort of level off. It was a bit of an up-tick last year so we’re not quite there yet but we are close to bending that curve downward.” ”
Yeah, it sounds too IPCC, too optimistic indeed:
” The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0–4.9 °C, with median 3.2 °C and a 5% (1%) chance that it will be less than 2 °C (1.5 °C)…”
So just hold on to that “cautious optimism” of a fat 5% resp. 1% chance and please never give up the funny repetitive capitalist mantra for my amusement:
” Communism is evil, so capitalism cannot fail!”
Ray Ladburysays
Mr. KIA asks:
“56 – Sheldon
Yesterday I was looking at your site (think it was yours) and there was a circular graph depicting the earth and with your 8 areas of latitude shown. Today I can’t find that graph. Where is it?”
Sadly, it died of embarrassment.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor says, “And by the way, real scientists don’t resort to the sort of personal attacks emanating from you on a regular basis. Grow up!”
Bwaaahaaaahaaaahaaaa! Oh, Jeez! Dude, stop! Yerkillinme! Seriously, have you ever even read a book about science? There is probably no field of human endeavor that is more filled with insults, abuse and vituperation than science–and those are the things we say about friends and colleagues we respect!
But seriously, the 1930s on the Great Plains of the US were an outlier–as made clear by the many, many articles referenced by other folks, and which you could read if you were not more interested in disinformation than the truth. Yes, the 1930s on the US great Plains were interesting, just not germane.
As to your other question regarding what one is to do if one is willing to accept reality and is a decent person, those options are closing off quickly. Had we actually decided to do something when the science was merely incontrovertible (back in the 80s), we would have more options now. As it stands, there are still actions we can take to preserve hope:
1) Try to burn as little fossil fuel as is practical while still keeping the global economy working sufficiently to provide for the needs of the >7 billion people on the planet. Plenty of low-hanging fruit here, and plenty more that can be reached with effort. This won’t save us from severe consequences. It will buy time to find solutions and at the very least will put of the worst consequences.
2) Accept the science and do what you can to advance it. This includes using the results to prepare for and mitigate adverse effects that we cannot now avoid.
3) Accelerate investment in technologies that will ameliorate the situation.
4) Vote only for candidates who accept the reality of the climate crisis and are willing to act in the interests of reaching solutions.
5) Work to empower women–not only can we not do without their contributions, but this will also help to limit population below severely damaging levels.
6) Work to raise the living standards of impoverished people and nations for the same reasons as 5) above.
7) Work to convince others to do 1-7.
In other words, pretty much what one should be doing if one is a decent human being to begin with.
Sheldon, its lovely that you’re so proud of your contour plots, but I was just looking at your 40-year trends. Honestly, I don’t really care what the 5-year trend for 2006-2011 is or any other short-term trends. You’ve already been quite helpful demonstrating tha the warming has been global. Thanks!
I have not made any circular graphs, so it was not on my website.
Have a look in your browser history, to find out which site it was.
My legend uses dark-indigo for warming rates less than or equal to -5.0 degrees Celsius per century. This usually appears on global warming contour maps for La Nina’s, and the cooling phase of El Nino’s. The range of warming rates from +3.98 to +0.26 are the average warming rates for each region, for the date range from 1970 to 2018. Yes, they are all positive numbers, but look at the RANGE of warming rates (and how near zero the most southern region is (this region is 1/8 of the earth)).
V 107: Is it really possible to turn back the clock on climate change, to literally control the climate of the entire planet?
BPL: That’s what we’re doing NOW, only we’re turning the knob in the wrong direction.
Killiansays
113 Fred Magyar said Killian @ 87 says:
…Are you talking about the paper, or the responses? Because the paper, as the author states, doesn’t offer solutions. He thinks there are none, just adaptation.
…This is OT here, though. This should be in the Forced thread, not this one.
The more I think about this “paper”, the more frustrated I become. It is about adaptation to failure, and that is absolutely a topic for the other thread. I understand your inclusion in the post overall, but that doesn’t change what the site owners wish. No skin off my nose, though.
The problem with the “paper” is it begins with a false premise: It is too late to mitigate. Now, that might be true because of the nature of tipping points and the fact the planet has never been in this scenario before, so we’re doing an awful lot of educated guessing as to what *will* happen, but the overall science seems to indicate we still have some time. Those who state we have definitively tipped are not making scientifically valid statements, they are giving in to their darker selves, their fears, etc.
However, his adaptation strategy is to regenerate natural systems, design to changing conditions, and simplify.
Uh… where, and from whom, have we heard this before? Uh… me. Permaculture.
He even talks about permaculture then acts as if he has some great revelation to share. It’s absurd.
Anywho… My point was rather fine-tipped: The paper’s author is confused, and engaging in speaking aloud his suicidal ideations, imo, and that part of your post belongs over on the other thread. Not a criticism, just an observation.
Not sure if after watching that, anyone can still seriously be talking about any solutions! Perhaps,it’s just me and I’m having a bad day, I’m in Florida near Miami,where sea level rise isn’t happening ;-)
Cheers!
Well, he doesn’t know what I know, so his analysis is ill-informed.
Killiansays
#112 Alf said The Slush ™, formerly known as Arctic Sea Ice, detached and retreats from northern Greenland.
Is there something unusual happening in the Arctic?
The Arctic is incredibly difficult to predict year-to-year or even over days weeks or months. We have had relatively good sea ice retention conditions since 2012, yet… Some years we get a lot of big storms that do damage, other years there doesn’t seem to be much reason for melt we see. (I am speaking very generally here, so don’t anyone go getting stupid over these comments and taking them out of context.)
The magnitude of blue ocean north of NW and N Greenland is unprecedented after a cursory stroll through EOSDIS Worldview images, but there has been blue water in that area of the coast before, though perhaps not so far west. the cause, however, seems straightforward: Wind. There’s a huge movement of wind that comes up and all the ice starts moving NW, compacting ice toward the Central Arctic Basin. This is likely over all a “good.” Far worse would be all that ice moving east and then out the Fram Straight. When that happens a lot, as in 2007, record low sea ice is far more possible. An important percentage of ice loss is export via the Fram. If you go to Worldview, you will find there is virtually none right now, and that it has been quite reduced from average this season.
Best thing to do is go to Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog and ask your question.
By the end of the year, six out of eight models suggest El Niño thresholds will be reached. El Niño WATCH means that there is approximately a 50% chance of El Niño developing in 2018, which is about twice the normal likelihood. About 50% of the time a WATCH was reached, an ENSO event subsequently occurred http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/outlook/#tabs=Outlook
“During El Niño, winter-spring (ie June-Nov 2019) rainfall in eastern Australian is typically below average while daytime temperatures are typically warmer than average in the south.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) remains neutral. Three of six international climate models indicate a positive IOD event may develop, with a fourth model close to meeting thresholds. A positive IOD event typically reduces winter–spring rainfall in central and southern Australia, and can exacerbate any El Niño driven rainfall deficiencies.”
PS the-right-answer-to-the-wrong-question Here is what you should worry about: Is this summer’s widespread extreme weather a climate surprise? Is this what happens when we warm the planet by .8ºC?? If so, what happens when we reach 1.5º C in 30-40 years or two degrees after that??
Here is the bad news: That 1.5 C is happening no matter what. It’s already baked into the system. It’s unlikely we can even hold below 2ºC.
We could have if we’d acted 30 years ago, but too many people listened to politicians telling them what they wanted to hear. https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2018/08/07/the-right-answer-to-the-wrong-question/
Al Bundy @108,
Employing my British 20:20 hindsight to interpret “Monday morning quarterbacking,” I can wholeheartedly agree with at least part of your comment. Where I disagree is in your interpretation of the role of human nature in science. You tell us “We’re human so we screw up.” We are human so, yes, we all make mistakes. But the idea of science is that the process hoovers up those mistakes and chucks them in the bin. Science is not mistake-free but it tries to be as mistake-free as it can and the process has shown that it can serve mankind exceptionally well.
You might not consider that your description of the IPCC process @86 as being “pure negligence” is “not so much an insult as it is (the result of) human nature.” I cannot accept that.
The IPCC is a review of the sclence and so it isn’t incorrect to state (as you did @85) that the process sees “scientists water down their conclusions.” But this does not make the IPCC or its contributors untruthful or in any way ‘negligent’.
I am conscious of nigelj @105 also dealing with my comment @96, and asking for specifics. But let me here give a broad-brush explanation of this matter.
We hear it was said of AGW back in 1968 (and not for the last time) that “man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the Earth.” Fifty years on and the statement remains true. One of the reasons for wanting to limit AGW to well-below 2ºC is because science still does not know what terrors await us beyond 2ºC of AGW. All it can say is that BAU will deliver us something like 4ºC of AGW and on top of that unleash god-knows what else besides.
What I find distasteful in this science blog is that many commenters are proclaiming that the ‘god-knows what else besides’ is even now unleashed and will soon be upon us, or that we have already stoked up an inevitable ‘4ºC of AGW’. Such comment has no place in any scientific discussion of AGW – unless backed up with science. Yet in these many comments I see no such ‘scientific back-up’. So I call it out and I will continue to call it out, doing so robustly if necessary. Why would you expect any different?
alan2102says
107 Victor 8 Aug 2018:
“things are actually far worse than anyone had ever imagined”
“the genie is already out of the bottle”
“all we can do is delay the inevitable by maybe a year or so”
“things are spinning hopelessly out of control”
Victor, who believes those things? Are you talking about Guy McPherson and his coterie?
I never said nigel was wrong. I pointed out only that his comments are flawed. Without that CO2 rise of up to 50 ppm, any impact from the other two elements would either not happen or the ice would have rebounded from any temporary low. Why you can’t figure this shit out, I do not know.
At no point have I been incorrect. I said clearly the ice started melting as CO2 crossed 300 ppm if one account for the lag effect of CO2. This is a fact. Period. You want to play games with what percentage of what effect was the driver, go ahead. What matters is that the effect never reversed, so if it had been primarily the other two issues, the effect would have disappeared as we moved into the 60s and 70’s. It did not. REGARDLESS, get the damned point: How sensitive does the planetary system have to be for melt to begin way below 350 and never stop? If the other effects are so important and CO2 so unimportant, **why didn’t it stop?**
Finally, the science has been incomplete (incorrect) on any number of points. I had scientists telling me flat out we could see no effect from clathrates for 100 years. Could not. Or that Antarctica wouldn’t have mass loss until late this century. Would not. Or that SLR could not be 3M or more this century. Could not.
Or that El Nino couldn’t affect ASI melt. Could not. Yet… I predicted… not scenario, prediction, the low ice concurrent with and after the El Nino event. We had huge numbers of days, weeks and months with record ice melt and 2016 and 2017 bcome in at #2 and #3 for September melt, specifically. Remember my thesis is that warmth from the Pacific makes its way to the Arctic, enhancing melt. Then this came out this past week:
This new research suggests that the importance of changes occurring in the Pacific may have a stronger impact on Arctic climate than previously recognized…
The scientists looked at several mechanisms that could be causing the changes and found that the strong global and Arctic changes depended on the magnitude of water vapor transfer from the mid-latitude oceans to the Arctic. When warm moist air is carried poleward towards the Arctic, it can lead to more low-lying clouds that act like a blanket, trapping warmth near the surface. The poleward movement of heat and moisture drive the Arctic’s sea-ice retreat and low-cloud formation, amplifying Arctic warming.
…The authors note that the unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Northeast Pacific paralleled the uptick in Arctic warming, possibly signaling a stronger link between these regions than generally recognized.
“While this is a highly idealized study, our results suggest that changes in the Pacific Ocean may have a larger influence on the climate system than generally recognized,” remarked Carnegie coauthor Ken Caldeira.
Hmmm… moisture from the Pacific. Affecting Arctic Sea Ice… Who’d’a thunk it, eh? Oh, right… me. (Yes, I said heat, but increased heat = increased humidity. They are not separable. It’s a distinction without a difference.)
I have little doubt the voices will ring out saying El Nino is not a Northern Pacific event. No, but it has a global effect and there is no way the heat and moisture does not affect the Arctic. Zero chance.
Let the scientists work out the full extent, but anyone claiming El Nino doesn’t impact the Arctic Sea Ice melt hasn’t looked at the correlations closely enough, imo. I posted them in 2015. El Nino showed a potential effect within the summer or two of and after the EN. I believe every EN showed some potential effect, iirc. La Nina had no correlation.
Stop telling me I don’t know what I am talking about. So far as I know, nobody else here has predicted anything while I have a more than ten year record of accuracy.
Nigel, alan and bundy do not have the analytical skills to tell. Learn to listen.
Carriesays
122 Killian says: The problem with the “paper” is it begins with a false premise: It is too late to mitigate.
Killian, are you sure about that? Every Paper focuses on it’s own specific issue / emphasis under discussion. That’s normal. For background he says and refs all kinds of things and other papers/articles.
for example, page 4 Certainly, there has been some progress on environmental issues in past decades, from reducing pollution, to habitat preservation, to waste management. Much valiant effort has been made to reduce carbon emissions over the last twenty years, one part of climate action officially termed “mitigation” (Aaron – Morrison et. al. 2017). There have been many steps forward on climate and carbon management – from awareness, to policies, to innovations (Flannery, 2015). Larger and quicker steps must be taken. That is helped by the agreement reached in December 2015 at the COP21 intergovernmental climate summit and now that there is significant Chinese engagement on the issue. To support the maintenance and scaling of these efforts is essential. In addition, increasing action is occurring on adaptation to climate change, such as flood defences, planning laws and irrigation systems (Singh et al, 2016). Whereas we can praise these efforts, their existence does not matter to an analysis of our overall predicament with climate change.
link http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
The above doesn’t fit your framing above. He repeatedly addresses the issue of “psychological impacts” of bad news and balancing the information.
for example page 3: “I am aware that some people consider statements from academics that we now face inevitable near-term social collapse to be irresponsible due to the potential impact that may have on the motivation or mental health of people reading such statements. My research and engagement in dialogue on this topic, some of which I will outline in this paper, leads me to conclude the exact opposite. It is a responsible act to communicate this analysis now and invite people to support each other, myself included, in exploring the implications, including the psychological and spiritual implications.”
and for example “This process of seeking to “balance out” is a habit of the informed and reasoning mind. Yet that does not make it a logical means of deliberation if positive information being shared does not relate to the situation being described by the negative information.“
He also says he’s been in the field of Sustainability for 25 years at an academic level so I doubt he is totally ignorant on the subject.
Food for thought? I have long opined that sudden unexpectedly rapid & abrupt climate change consequences (in the climate system and it’s effects on society norms) is what is coming – given all kinds of Mitigation is grossly insignificant and thus inadequate in the past now and projected into the near term future of 20 years.
That what breaks a system is it’s weakest link – and it only take one screw or cog to stop a factory in an instant. Society is far more complex than a factory and so it will not take much to break down before all social norms begin collapsing and breaking down too. Which just like extreme weather events will first occur suddenly in only small regions here and there, now and then. They’ll be quickly rectified. As time goes on a time will come where several things breakdown in the cogs of society and across more regions at the same time – just like the numbers of heatwaves is summers have jumped and are spread across multiple countries at the same time.
To me saying that isn’t fearmongering it’s realistic and based on historical know how. It does really matter what causes a social catastrophe be it civil war, violent street protests or weather the coming consequences of climate change will have similar effects. How soon how bad is a mystery.
cheers
Carriesays
RE: Yet in these many comments I see no such ‘scientific back-up’.
Life’s too short to get bogged down in re-presenting known scientific studies and evidence that’s been out there for ages already as a Prerequisite to make simply basic logical comments (or express personal conclusions and opinions) about what that science and energy LU data means today and going forward.
How many times does a ref url need to be REPEATEDLY posted here before it’s read and understood and before it’s meaning sinks in? Thousands of Papers are now being published on Climate Science each month – a comment on a blog is NOT a peer-reviewed science paper nor PhD Thesis and does not need to be.
Besides rank hypocrisy – doing the very thing one accuses others of – is always a very bad look.
Has there been a massive unprecedented heatwave, low soil moisture content, high winds, droughts and wild fires occurring across every nth hemisphere continent this recent spring summer or not?
Pointing out the bleeding obvious isn’t rocket science. Handing out free tips of what to look out for in the coming days, weeks months doesn’t require a scientific reference either!
Unfortunately foolhardy Denialism and disingenuous Pedantry & incompetence comes in many forms too. Victor and KIA et al are not the only people with their heads stuck in the sand ansd who do not understand The Science or what it means.
Re #124 MA Rodger said Where I disagree is in your interpretation of the role of human nature in science. You tell us “We’re human so we screw up.”…
You might not consider that your description of the IPCC process @86 as being “pure negligence” is “not so much an insult as it is (the result of) human nature.” I cannot accept that.
Agreed. Those engaging in this may just be closet deniers. Or they are GM acolytes? In fact, the science proceeds with great care, imo. Any slowness or reticence is systemic, not intentional. Certainly some scientists speak or think more intuitively and others less. Some see only error bars while others see error bars melded with a less scientific analytic view, too.
There is no negligence in this. Comments to the contrary belong in the Bore Hole, imo, as they are slander with no basis in fact.
The IPCC is a review of the sclence and so it isn’t incorrect to state (as you did @85) that the process sees “scientists water down their conclusions.” But this does not make the IPCC or its contributors untruthful or in any way ‘negligent’.
Correct. The politicians are negligent, but not the scientists. But it is a political document. I suspect a document of and from the scientists done on their own dime and own time might be significantly different. But scientists don’t have free reign with work they are paid to do any more than a Raytheon employee can walk out the door and do whatever they want with the work they do.
What I find distasteful in this science blog is that many commenters are proclaiming that the ‘god-knows what else besides’ is even now unleashed and will soon be upon us…
Such comment has no place in any scientific discussion of AGW – unless backed up with science… So I call it out and I will continue to call it out, doing so robustly if necessary. Why would you expect any different?
The owners of this blog have been wise enough to allow a wider-ranging discussion over time. You are wrong. Science with no feedback from the public or policy side is pointless. It is partly due to the pressure of citizens asking for more direct commentary to the public, and less of it so purely scientific and more about risk, that some scientists are speaking out, and more of them all the time, and more forcefully. It matters.
Those of you seeking a pure science experience need to get yourselves a Ph.D. and go to a lab or get out in the field. It’s OK to have some standards, but not OK to keep believing at this late date pure science in public is still the best option. At least, not for all scientists and citizen scientists/analysts.
This, too, is an ecosystem, and no ecosystem survives with only one mode of operation, one input, one output.
Victorsays
116 Ray Ladbury:
“As to your other question regarding what one is to do if one is willing to accept reality and is a decent person, those options are closing off quickly. Had we actually decided to do something when the science was merely incontrovertible (back in the 80s), we would have more options now.”
My point is that the options being urged on us back in the 1980’s were just as unworkable then as the options being urged today. It’s not enough to say “if only we had dealt seriously with this problem 30 or 40 years ago . . . “, because the problem as stated both then and now was and is totally intractable, as should have been obvious even during the eighties. Scientists as intelligent as Michael Mann and James Hansen should have realized from the start that, if “the science” they endorse is as incontrovertible as they’ve claimed, the ONLY really effective option would have been to shut down the world economy in a manner that would have been (and currently remains) totally unacceptable, for reasons political, economic, social and also practical.
Which leads one to wonder: what is REALLY going on here? As I surf through youtube I’m finding more and more presentations containing variations on the same theme: climate change is real, the evidence is overwhelming, its effects are here already and will get much much worse, unless we do something NOW to deal with the problem. Hardly ever do I hear much of anything containing specifics regarding exactly WHAT is to be done. And the few examples provided, such as putting a “price on carbon,” strike me as totally inadequate and painfully naive. The only effective solution (assuming there really IS a problem) would be to take the world back to the pre-industrial era, a solution only a confirmed Luddite would find acceptable.
I tend to agree with most of your numbered points, Ray. I think it a very good thing that people are being urged to pay more attention to the environmental effects of their actions and live a simpler, more efficient and healthy lifestyle. But as I’m sure you realize that sort of thing won’t be nearly enough.
Which is why I wonder about the agenda behind all this huge explosion of angst-ridden concern, fueled as it is by daily media hype. As someone with a background in anthropology, I can’t help but see this in the light of the well known phenomenon of the Doomsday Cult. I’m not saying climate scientists are deliberately deceiving the public in order to feed some insatiable need for power and control. We must remind ourselves, however, that a great many cult leaders have been perfectly sincere.
I’m not talking now about the validity of “the science” (I’m a skeptic on that score, but I could be wrong), but the sheer insanity of the implication, now so widely touted by so many, that we REALLY NEED TO DO something meaningful NOW to avert the presumed disaster when obviously we can’t — and never could.
Victorsays
As an addenda to my previous post, I want to make clear what I mean by the “agenda” behind all the alarm behind the “climate change” meme. Since there can really be no way to meaningfully avert the “coming storm” of disasters being projected, “saving the planet” cannot possibly be the real agenda, though that’s what we are expected to believe. Once again I must draw on my training in anthropology to note that the underlying theme among so many “doomsday” cults is not really the expected day of doom. As is well known, a great many of these cults survive the projected date on which the ax is to fall, with the fateful event being continually postponed (think “the Rapture”).
The pervasive underlying theme, as it seems to me, is sacrifice. Cult members are expected above all to sacrifice — their belongings, their wealth, even their wives and children. And this is what we hear over and over again as an invariable motive of the CC theme — the call to sacrifice, accompanied by all sorts of diatribes against the “self-indulgence” of modern humans.
Seems to me, then, that the real underlying agenda of the CC “movement” is not “fighting climate change” so much as the demand that all of us perform a series of sacrificial acts, to atone for our environmental sins. In other words, we are dealing with a cult.
Nemesis @114.
While discussing the politics of AGW (indeed any politics) with an anarchist would surely be a complete of a waste of time, I would point out your insistence of “the fact that I didn’t say anything about capitalism or communism in my recent comments at all.” You appear to overlook your writing @84 which turns your fact into a non-fact.
You stepped into this exchange with me @45 with a badly mistaken interpretation of Shell’s 2013 emissions scenarios. You now wave Raftery et al (2007) and at least manage to present their findings correctly. Yet what is the relevance of Raftery et al? They are projecting the mitigation policies of the early 2000s into the future, as they say not a BAU scenario but something sitting sitting close to RCP6.0. Their projections show CO2 emissions continuing unabated all the way to 2100 so their finding of a likely 3.2ºC of AGW warming (with the tiny tiny probability of keeping the rise below 1.5 °C) is not difficult to understand.
What is difficult to understand is why you Nemesis would see such a projected future as relevant. Do you believe it possible that humanity will continue with its CO2 emissions at roughly 10Gt(C)/year for the rest of this century?
nigeljsays
Victor @131, the climate problem is not insolvable. Anyone with a grasp of basic economics could see the world could convert to renewable electricity generation if it wanted, without some monumental economic problem. Politics stands in the way.
Granted a lot of ducks need to line up in a row to fix climate change, and its hard work, but it’s far from impossible. Granted that on some days I think it is, but pessimism isn’t of much use.
Yes the media distort things, but you are perfectly capable of seeing through that. And yes there’s an element of doomsday cultism pervading the issue, and perhaps with good reason!
I read an anthropology text a couple of years ago out of curiosity: The Human Past by C Scarre. Fascinating and enlightening.
Carriesays
132 Victor saying crap like that is dumb ignorant & bigoted nonsense. Please get back into anthropology, New Guinea looks like a nice place where you belong and could feel happier and maybe do some good.
Marcosays
“And this is what we hear over and over again as an invariable motive of the CC theme — the call to sacrifice, accompanied by all sorts of diatribes against the “self-indulgence” of modern humans.”
You might want to get your ears and eyes checked. And I mean that seriously. Sure, there are some who come with such calls. But the vast, vast, vast majority don’t.
The most interesting thing is this comment of yours: “the ONLY really effective option would have been to shut down the world economy in a manner that would have been (and currently remains) totally unacceptable, for reasons political, economic, social and also practical.”
This comment shows exactly why you are so forcefully doing everything you can to cast doubt on the science: you believe the only option to do anything is to shut down the world economy, and since this is unimaginable in your view, you have two choices:
a) go into a depression (“we’re doomed!” – in an ironic twist, you are thereby much closer aligned to the doomsday cults than most of us…)
b) go into denial (“can’t be true!”)
Clearly you have chosen option b.
Let’s just say that the IPCC WG3 offers various routes out of this current mess that *don’t* require us to shut down the world economy. It won’t be enough to stop anthropogenic climate change right here and right now, but this isn’t an either/or situation.
jgnfldsays
If you want to get political, EVERY _political_ movement demands sacrifice to something. So that differentiates precisely no one with any political inclination at all.
If you want to get scientific…well it’s obvious you do not as you consistently fail to show the slightest inclination to learn the simplest things such as high school science and stats let alone anything more advanced. You just keep spouting nonscience by the bushel. As here.
By your “reasoning” changing the oil in our cars as members of the mechanically aware “cult” is apparently “a sacrificial act to atone for our driving sins”! Mechanics are simply priests trying to control our behavior in order to take over the world. But then, I suppose you don’t bother to change your oil as you are above being in such “doomsday cults”.
Dan, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The US summer daytime high warming trend isn’t muted because highs aren’t rising now; it’s muted because of huge anomalies in that metric during the Dust Bowl years. I’ve posted a link to a graph of NOAA US high & low temperatures, which I think illustrates that, but I haven’t noticed it coming through moderation yet.
Definition of negligent
1 a : marked by or given to neglect especially habitually or culpably
was a careless workman, negligent of details —Edith Hamilton
b : failing to exercise the care expected of a reasonably prudent person in like circumstances
negligent about traffic regulations
2 : marked by a carelessly easy manner
That word does not mean what you think it means. 1b and 2 are what you apparently meant. Both are insults to conscientious, sincere people.
I teach anything from beginner to advanced English. Feel free to stop by for review of vocabulary.
Killiansays
Re #128 Carrie
Carrie, PLEASE do not start communicating like the vast majority here! I.e., poorly. Perhaps you need to read his paper again, and the comments.
His thesis is it is too late. Not that it is very late, or extremely difficult, or even unlikely, but that we have zero chance of successful mitigation, long- or short-term. You seem to have missed this because then you go on stating the obvious about conditions, tipping points, punctuated change, etc.
And?
The system is sensitive and jumpy? Is that news? No. And it also is not his point. His point is simple: It will all fall down and go boom, so start adapting to that. Forget mitigation. (Of course, pushing mitigation when you’ve just stated a clear case for extinction makes little sense. Pass 2C, with no mitigation in place to reverse it? Good luck with stopping there.)
Am I certain he is wrong that we can definitely say it is too late? Yes. I am. There is nobody on the planet at this moment, so far as I know, that can point to a scientifically valid data point or data set that could be said to be 100% certain of collapse no matter what humans do.
The ironic thing is, I don’t much disagree as far as current trends go. I think it unlikely we will succeed. We are in deep, deep poo here. But I also know we *can* reverse it all the way back to under 300ppm. The caveat is, of course, feedbacks accelerating past that potential. Has that already happened? Entirely possible. But it cannot be determined scientifically. So, we assume we have time until we are certain we do not.
Besides, the solutions for adaptation and mitigation are the same. These goombahs calling for adaptation and forgetting mitigation are a bit clueless in that regard.
Your post is uncharacteristically off-target.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor, Oh, the strawmanity. Where to begin ith the army of straw men with which you’ve chosen to present us. I’ll begin by addressing your last pseudopoint:
1) Weaktor: “As someone with a background in anthropology, I can’t help but see this in the light of the well known phenomenon of the Doomsday Cult.”
Yes, well, I suppose we can chalk that up to lack of vision and imagination on your part. Scientists can hardly be viewed as doomsday cultists, because they are actively trying to accurately assess the risks and come up with actual solutions. As an “anthropologist,” perhaps you should consider another maxim of the field: What you believe is true is true in its consequences.
2)Weaktor: ” the options being urged on us back in the 1980’s were just as unworkable then as the options being urged today… because the problem as stated both then and now was and is totally intractable… the ONLY really effective option would have been to shut down the world economy…”
Complete, utter bullshit of the purest ray serene! No one serious has ever advocated shutting down the global economy. No one is advocating a return to the Stone Age. Yes, the problem is difficult, and the difficulties are myriad. That does not mean it is intractable if we direct our concerted efforts toward solving it. Four years of concerted effort–mainly in a single country–brought us the nuclear age. Another 4 years ushered in the computer. Ten years effort got us to the moon. Lots of very smart people dismissed these endeavors as impossible. When Gordon Moore came up with the law that bears his name, even he did not envision the miraculous development that would follow, and no one thought we would still be talking about that trend when feature sizes were a mere 5 nm in size!
For you with your profound ignorance and misunderstanding of science to dismiss the efforts and creativity of all the smart people on the planet would be risible were it not so pathetic and dangerous. The smart people, through concerted effort can solve this problem. The resource most lacking to them is time. And that is what we must try to buy them through the other efforts I outlined.
I would much rather place my fate in the hands of smart, creative people than in the hands of people like you, who lack the courage to accept reality and the vision to even conceive of what to do about it.
A Princeton geologist has endured decades of ridicule for arguing that the fifth extinction was caused not by an asteroid but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions. But she’s reopened that debate.
Nemesissays
@BPL, #120
” V 107: Is it really possible to turn back the clock on climate change, to literally control the climate of the entire planet?
BPL: That’s what we’re doing NOW…”
Wonderful, enlightening conversation, love it, please go on, gentlemen… 8)
… oh and good luck 8) … I’m sure you will find wonderful solutions once again… what about SRM? Any empirical knowledge so far?^^
You say that you are only interested in long-term trends (30 years or longer?).
You don’t care what the short-term trends are (5 or 10 years?).
If the warming rate for the next 5 years was +10 degrees Celsius per century, would you care?
I imagine that you would care, because it is warming fast.
But if the warming rate for the next 5 years was -10 degrees Celsius per century, then I imagine that you wouldn’t care, because it is cooling fast.
People like you, use global warming to further your own personnel agenda. You are NOT interested in the science. (Hint – a Global Warming Contour Map shows you the science)
I’m not talking now about the validity of “the science” (I’m a skeptic on that score, but I could be wrong),
You are — according to people who are far more knowledgeable.
but the sheer insanity of the implication, now so widely touted by so many, that we REALLY NEED TO DO something meaningful NOW to avert the presumed disaster when obviously we can’t — and never could.
Please read volumes 2 and 3 of the IPCC report.
nigeljsays
Carrie @128
“Has there been a massive unprecedented heatwave, low soil moisture content, high winds, droughts and wild fires occurring across every nth hemisphere continent this recent spring summer or not?”
It’s certainly setting records in several countries, but I’m not sure its absolutely unprecedented. 2010 was a heatwave year setting records in multiple countries:
The important thing for me is the latest event is breaking records and we know heatwaves in general terms are becoming more frequent due to climate change (or I should say agw induced warming). Given the cause of this multiple event is probably due to arctic warming and a meandering jet stream according to the scientists, one doesn’t need to have a Phd to see such things could become a deadly sort of constant problem and considerably more frequent, and more longer lasting and intense than even this latest event. However that is my view, and its up to the experts to put numbers on it.
I lay the blame squarely with people like Trump and Pruitt and the silly fools who elect these people. Not that the alternatives were all that great. However we still have time to improve the situation if we want.
Killian @127 says he predicted that el nino would cause arctic warming, and claims vindication. He quotes some article at phys.org saying that the arctic is warming due to pacific ocean warmth.
Well the article makes no reference to el nino, and is referring to the hot blob in the north pacific and atlantic. Theres simply no connection to el nino.
In addition, clearly killian is partly right that el nino warmth probably finds its way to the arctic, but so what? Its uncontroversial, and part of the earths normal heat transfer from the equator to the poles. There’s no evidence that el nino is becoming more intense (although I have a suspicion it will eventually).
Key statements: “IPCC reports ‘diluted’ under ‘political pressure’ to protect fossil fuel interests. Saudi-led coalition sought to make policy summaries as vague as possible to minimise climate action.”
“Increasing evidence is emerging that the policy summaries on climate impacts and mitigation by the UN Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were significantly ‘diluted’ under political pressure from some of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, including Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil and the United States.”
“Several experts familiar with the IPCC government approval process for the ‘Summary for Policymakers’ (SPM) reports – documents summarising the thousands of pages of technical and scientific reports for government officials – have spoken out about their distortion due to political interests.”
I’m not remotely surprised. I have always suspected this, because just look at the process and the vested interests, hence my previous comments that the IPCC reports seem just a little too conservative to me.
But do scientists negligently understate their findings? There’s no reason they would or evidence that they do.
Victor, our man of many names, cites a graph that shows more intense heat waves in the 30s. Fair enough, except that just about every other graph on the page he cites shows increasing numbers of high temperatures and decreasing numbers of low temperatures.
There is an interesting discussion of the heat wave record in the source study for the heat wave index (page 39 of https://downloads.globalchange.gov/sap/sap3-3/sap3-3-final-all.pdf):
“The most notable feature of the pattern of the annual number of extreme heat waves (Figure 2.3a) through time is the high frequency in the 1930s compared to the rest of the years in the 1895-2005 period. This was followed by a decrease to a minimum in the 1960s and 1970s and then an increasing trend since then. There is no trend over the entire period, but a highly statistically significant upward trend since 1960. The heat waves during the 1930s were characterized by extremely high daytime temperatures while nighttime temperatures were not as unusual (Figure 2.3b,c). An extended multiyear period of intense drought undoubtedly played a large role in the extreme heat of this period, particularly the daytime temperatures, by depleting soil moisture and reducing the moderating effects of evaporation. By contrast, the recent period of increasing heat wave index is distinguished by the dominant contribution of a rise in extremely high nighttime temperatures (Figure 2.3c).”
Sheldon,
Thanks for demonstrating that the current warming is in fact global, with only 1 region (a region dominated by Antarctica) warming at less than 1c/century.
MartinJB @ 103
I try to show people the truth.
Global Warming Contour Maps are designed to show the truth.
Remember that the warming rates that I displayed for the 8 regions, are the average warming rate from 1970 to 2018.
If I made Global Warming Contour Maps for a different date range (say, 2001 to 2014, when there was a slowdown), then the warming rates would probably be different.
Would you like me to make Global Warming Contour Maps for 2001 to 2014?
56 – Sheldon
Yesterday I was looking at your site (think it was yours) and there was a circular graph depicting the earth and with your 8 areas of latitude shown. Today I can’t find that graph. Where is it?
Also, does your legend go to about -5 deg C warming rate for indigo areas? Just wondering since your range in post 56 was from about 3.98 to 0.26, all positive numbers.
MA Rodger @96 (and Al Bundy).
You make a whole lot of good points, but might be talking a little at cross purposes with AB or something.
I think Al Bundy meant ( and I stand to be corrected) that modelling of global “temperatures” includes only greenhouse gases and the water vapour feedback and excludes feedbacks such as the methane / tundra effect, certain arctic feedbacks, increased microbial activity boosting CO2 etc, and that this is all rather dubious and should be included in models, but subject to error bars or some other form of qualification. Its a thing I have wondered about myself, because it makes it look like the models are conservative for reasons that are hard to justify.
I would find it interesting if you, or other experts can explain why certain known feedbacks arent included (if they indeed aren’t included), for benefit of lay people, of which I’m more or less one.
Perhaps its just they are too uncertain, or its thought negative feedbacks which are also somewhat uncertain cancel things out. I’m also aware several feedbacks operate very long term beyond 2100, and this may be part of the reason?
94 Ray Ladbury says:
“The fact that we had a SINGLE HOT DECADE in A SINGLE COUNTRY does not negate the 40-year-and-growing trend we now experience. Again, it’s climate CHANGE, so it’s the changes that matter–the is, the trend.”
The graph I cited puts heat wave statistics into perspective. That’s why I posted it. The extremes of the “dust bowl” era are only one part of the total picture. And yes, there has been a very slight upward trend in recent years, but seen in the light of the much larger picture afforded by that graph, it’s not very different from similar minor trends in the past. Real scientists look to the big picture, not the extreme events of a single year, yet that’s what’s now being peddled in any attempt to convince the world that the cc alarmists were “right all along.”
As for “the 40-year-and-growing trend” to which you refer, sorry I’m not finding it. For 40 years there was a steep upward trend that had little to do with CO2 emissions, which were relatively low at the time (early 20th century). For the next 40 years, the atmosphere cooled and then remained relatively steady. From 2000 on, we see an abrupt tapering off of temperature rise, despite soaring CO2 levels. The trend you see is a mirage, based on what you, and so many other climate “scientists” want to see. And yes, temperatures rose steeply during the last 20 years of the previous century, which, combined with the steep runup of the first 40 years, produced the record temperatures we are experiencing today. I see no reason to attribute much if any of that to CO2 emissions.
And by the way, real scientists don’t resort to the sort of personal attacks emanating from you on a regular basis. Grow up!
Even if we assume that “climate change” really IS real, in the sense now so widely trumpeted, then: what is the agenda? What are we expected to think and what are we expected to do? Is it really possible to turn back the clock on climate change, to literally control the climate of the entire planet? If the Earth is destined to get continually warmer and warmer thanks to CO2 emissions, would it really help if we “turned off the spigot,” even if that were possible, which clearly it is not? Most climate scientists are very un-reassuring on that score, especially since so many of our leading lights keep finding reasons to believe that things are actually far worse than anyone had ever imagined. If the genie is already out of the bottle, as so many seem to believe, then what would be the point in turning the world economy upside down if all that could do was delay the inevitable by maybe a year or so? I must repeat: what is the agenda? What is it that all these well meaning people sounding the alarm really want when first they remind us that things are spinning hopelessly out of control and practically in the same breath assure us that “it’s not too late”? Not too late for what?
This fundamental contradiction in so much mainstream thinking about the climate is what helped turn me toward skepticism regarding the entire AGW paradigm. Because none of it makes much sense. Seems to me the real agenda here is not finding ways to “save the planet” but pushing an extremely naive and dangerous ideology which, at heart, has little to do with either climate change or sustainability.
MAR,
When I speak of negligence it is not so much an insult as it is human nature. I’m often negligent. I’m sure you are too. We’re human and so we screw up. Climate scientists are human too. And note that Monday morning quarterbacking is both easy and fun.
50 Al Bundy says: 5 Aug 2018 at 6:09 PM – [regarding personal CO2 budget] “Alan, Thanks for the analysis. However, the second part refutes the first. If the budget is blown by societal emissions alone then there is no way that a flight can fit in the budget.”
Superficially true, of course, but think again. The real point of the personal-CO2-awareness-and-budgeting exercise is less to meet some hard cut-off, and more to do what you CAN do, under the circumstances as you find them, regardless of whether or not society has forced you to “do” (in a sense) what you would never have consciously signed-up for. With respect to personal consumption, I will continue to do what I can reasonably do while living in Babylon (until Revelation or other influences persuade me to leave it). You might wish to do the same. The matter is also raised: what are each of us doing to change what Babyl… er, society is now forcing us to “do”?
And, pardon for not posting that on forced responses. I did not understand the diff between the two threads.
MartinJB,
Yes, that discussion shows the differences between then and now. In earlier years (particularly the 1930s and 50s), heat waves were characterized by extremely high daytime temperatures, such that most record highs from that time still stand today. A similar occurrence happening in the 50s, but to a lesser extent. Recent heat waves have not have the record daytime highs as in the past, but have had higher nighttime temperatures. The water may be playing a large role. Overall, this is rather consistent with global warming theory; higher temperatures during the cooler periods, with little change or slightly lower temperatures during the warmest periods. This gets amplified with higher water content in both the air and soil.
Nemesis @80,83&84.
Your continued denial of being the author of your own words is risible, as is your failure to contenance the error in the Independent article you attempt to hide behind. What you are saying is that it is credible for the average rate of AGW over the coming three decades to be seven-times greater than the average we have seen over the last three decades.
Okay, you nail your colours to pure lunacy.
And in so doing, @80 you recruit hot-off-the-press Steffan et al (2018) ‘Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene’ to strengthen your message. But what does this paper tell us? It concludes “We argue that a planetary threshold in the Earth System could exist at a temperature rise as low as 2 °C above preindustrial.” So, while the Steffan et al argument may differ as to the impact of those planetary thresholds, how does this differ from IPCC AR5 before the thresholds are met? Where does it say there will/could be an immediate seven-fold increase in the rate of AGW?
Then @83 you further recruit a Guardian article quoting one of our hosts. The article quotes Prof Michael E Mann saying that limitations in computer modelling make AGW attribution studies “inherently conservative.” But you misrepresent this account. You tell us:-
I think you’ll find the specific criticism of the models provided by Mann et al (2017) (which goes further than the Guardian article in discussing “intrinsic conservatism” within climatology) in no way dismisses climate models for being “inherently conservative for political/economical reasons.” Or have I blundered into some nightmare debate of the Marxist dialectic?
The audio of a Mann interview you link to @84 doesn’t dismiss climate models either.
Elsewhere in the audio we hear reference to Mann’s 2018 message 20-years on from the Hockey Stick within which we find the general message of “overly conservative” models. But it is not an outright condemnation of “inherently conservative” models. Mann tells us “If anything, climate model projections have proved overly conservative; they are certainly not an exaggeration.”
And the message of avoiding the worst of AGW “There is great urgency to act now if we are to avert a dangerous 2- degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) planetary warming. My own recent work suggests the challenge is greater than previously thought. Yet I remain cautiously optimistic we will act in time.” This all sounds rather IPCC to me.
(The skyrocketeers amongst us may be disappointed to hear Mann’s audio message also includes the comment “There are some reasons for cautious optimism. We’ve seen global carbon emissions start to sort of level off. It was a bit of an up-tick last year so we’re not quite there yet but we are close to bending that curve downward.”)
Finally @84 you talk of “mass die-off, especially insect die-off and what have you … BLEAK projections undermine the calculated, capitalist optimism of the system.” Is this indicating that the reason for your pessimistic view of our AGW future needs further explanation from you?
The Slush ™, formerly known as Arctic Sea Ice, detached and retreats from northern Greenland.
Is there something unusual happening in the Arctic?
Sea Ice Concentration on 08 Aug 2018. Daily updated ASI map.
Time Series: Arctic Sea Ice Extent (running mean); Antarctic Sea Ice Extent (running mean).
There`s a lot of heat in the system. The Force does not seem to be with us.
As a non-religious believer I begin to ask: When is it time to pray?
p.s.:
@ MA Rodger Re: My posts from May
Thanks for the links to the discussion on the ASI Forum.
My concern lied in the direction the commenter in your second link expressed:
“I’m [concerned about] the condition of the ice in the system as a whole.”
Did this event around 9th of May tell something about the general condition of the ASI?
To me it looks like it was; as I presume it wasn`t artifacts.
see also from May: 20180507, 20180508, 20180509, 20180510, 20180511.
Greetz, Alf
Killian @ 87 says:
As I stated in the opening line of my comment “Some food for thought”
However, to be honest, within the context of all four of those links together I didn’t really think the ‘Deep Adaptation’ link to be OT. I added it only as perspective on a particular way of framing current viewpoints. To be clear, I agree that the author does not offer any solutions, whether you agree with him or not, I think that is precisely his point, i.e. he doesn’t see any. Furthermore, I didn’t include that link because of any particular agenda of my own.
I also happen to be of the opinion that the participants in the Geoengineering Conference link offer even fewer practical real world solutions. See paper in Nature linked below for some thoughts on why SRM probably won’t work as planned.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0417-3
Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions
In any case it looks like we are still mostly on a business as ususual emissions path. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is a co-author of the paper linked in my original post. Here’s a talk he gave at the begining of this year at a conference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvu5i2mJsI0
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber: Climate Change Extremes, Tipping Points and Health Risks.
Not sure if after watching that, anyone can still seriously be talking about any solutions! Perhaps,it’s just me and I’m having a bad day, I’m in Florida near Miami,where sea level rise isn’t happening ;-)
Cheers!
@MA Rodgers, #104
” Or have I blundered into some nightmare debate of the Marxist dialectic.”
Ah, there it is again, you pull off the funny communism mace. I love that as it’s the beautiful proof that capitalists can’t deal with the slightest critizism of capitalism (despite the fact that I didn’t say anything about capitalism or communism in my recent comments at all). You know, pointing at dead communism whenever things in capitalism get ugly is the perfect head-in-the-sand policy. I love that, it’s the proof that capitalism is inherently neurotic and will fail dead seriously. But beware, I’m not a Marxist, I’m just a nasty anarchist :)
” And the message of avoiding the worst of AGW “There is great urgency to act now if we are to avert a dangerous 2- degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) planetary warming. My own recent work suggests the challenge is greater than previously thought. Yet I remain cautiously optimistic we will act in time.” This all sounds rather IPCC to me….
The skyrocketeers amongst us may be disappointed to hear Mann’s audio message also includes the comment “There are some reasons for cautious optimism. We’ve seen global carbon emissions start to sort of level off. It was a bit of an up-tick last year so we’re not quite there yet but we are close to bending that curve downward.” ”
Yeah, it sounds too IPCC, too optimistic indeed:
” The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0–4.9 °C, with median 3.2 °C and a 5% (1%) chance that it will be less than 2 °C (1.5 °C)…”
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3352
So just hold on to that “cautious optimism” of a fat 5% resp. 1% chance and please never give up the funny repetitive capitalist mantra for my amusement:
” Communism is evil, so capitalism cannot fail!”
Mr. KIA asks:
“56 – Sheldon
Yesterday I was looking at your site (think it was yours) and there was a circular graph depicting the earth and with your 8 areas of latitude shown. Today I can’t find that graph. Where is it?”
Sadly, it died of embarrassment.
Weaktor says, “And by the way, real scientists don’t resort to the sort of personal attacks emanating from you on a regular basis. Grow up!”
Bwaaahaaaahaaaahaaaa! Oh, Jeez! Dude, stop! Yerkillinme! Seriously, have you ever even read a book about science? There is probably no field of human endeavor that is more filled with insults, abuse and vituperation than science–and those are the things we say about friends and colleagues we respect!
But seriously, the 1930s on the Great Plains of the US were an outlier–as made clear by the many, many articles referenced by other folks, and which you could read if you were not more interested in disinformation than the truth. Yes, the 1930s on the US great Plains were interesting, just not germane.
As to your other question regarding what one is to do if one is willing to accept reality and is a decent person, those options are closing off quickly. Had we actually decided to do something when the science was merely incontrovertible (back in the 80s), we would have more options now. As it stands, there are still actions we can take to preserve hope:
1) Try to burn as little fossil fuel as is practical while still keeping the global economy working sufficiently to provide for the needs of the >7 billion people on the planet. Plenty of low-hanging fruit here, and plenty more that can be reached with effort. This won’t save us from severe consequences. It will buy time to find solutions and at the very least will put of the worst consequences.
2) Accept the science and do what you can to advance it. This includes using the results to prepare for and mitigate adverse effects that we cannot now avoid.
3) Accelerate investment in technologies that will ameliorate the situation.
4) Vote only for candidates who accept the reality of the climate crisis and are willing to act in the interests of reaching solutions.
5) Work to empower women–not only can we not do without their contributions, but this will also help to limit population below severely damaging levels.
6) Work to raise the living standards of impoverished people and nations for the same reasons as 5) above.
7) Work to convince others to do 1-7.
In other words, pretty much what one should be doing if one is a decent human being to begin with.
Sheldon, its lovely that you’re so proud of your contour plots, but I was just looking at your 40-year trends. Honestly, I don’t really care what the 5-year trend for 2006-2011 is or any other short-term trends. You’ve already been quite helpful demonstrating tha the warming has been global. Thanks!
Mr. Know It All @ 104
I have not made any circular graphs, so it was not on my website.
Have a look in your browser history, to find out which site it was.
My legend uses dark-indigo for warming rates less than or equal to -5.0 degrees Celsius per century. This usually appears on global warming contour maps for La Nina’s, and the cooling phase of El Nino’s. The range of warming rates from +3.98 to +0.26 are the average warming rates for each region, for the date range from 1970 to 2018. Yes, they are all positive numbers, but look at the RANGE of warming rates (and how near zero the most southern region is (this region is 1/8 of the earth)).
V: As for “the 40-year-and-growing trend” to which you refer, sorry I’m not finding it.
BPL: Can you elaborate on how one finds a trend? Can you outline the mathematical procedure?
V 107: Is it really possible to turn back the clock on climate change, to literally control the climate of the entire planet?
BPL: That’s what we’re doing NOW, only we’re turning the knob in the wrong direction.
113 Fred Magyar said Killian @ 87 says:
…Are you talking about the paper, or the responses? Because the paper, as the author states, doesn’t offer solutions. He thinks there are none, just adaptation.
…This is OT here, though. This should be in the Forced thread, not this one.
The more I think about this “paper”, the more frustrated I become. It is about adaptation to failure, and that is absolutely a topic for the other thread. I understand your inclusion in the post overall, but that doesn’t change what the site owners wish. No skin off my nose, though.
The problem with the “paper” is it begins with a false premise: It is too late to mitigate. Now, that might be true because of the nature of tipping points and the fact the planet has never been in this scenario before, so we’re doing an awful lot of educated guessing as to what *will* happen, but the overall science seems to indicate we still have some time. Those who state we have definitively tipped are not making scientifically valid statements, they are giving in to their darker selves, their fears, etc.
However, his adaptation strategy is to regenerate natural systems, design to changing conditions, and simplify.
Uh… where, and from whom, have we heard this before? Uh… me. Permaculture.
He even talks about permaculture then acts as if he has some great revelation to share. It’s absurd.
Anywho… My point was rather fine-tipped: The paper’s author is confused, and engaging in speaking aloud his suicidal ideations, imo, and that part of your post belongs over on the other thread. Not a criticism, just an observation.
Not sure if after watching that, anyone can still seriously be talking about any solutions! Perhaps,it’s just me and I’m having a bad day, I’m in Florida near Miami,where sea level rise isn’t happening ;-)
Cheers!
Well, he doesn’t know what I know, so his analysis is ill-informed.
#112 Alf said The Slush ™, formerly known as Arctic Sea Ice, detached and retreats from northern Greenland.
Is there something unusual happening in the Arctic?
The Arctic is incredibly difficult to predict year-to-year or even over days weeks or months. We have had relatively good sea ice retention conditions since 2012, yet… Some years we get a lot of big storms that do damage, other years there doesn’t seem to be much reason for melt we see. (I am speaking very generally here, so don’t anyone go getting stupid over these comments and taking them out of context.)
The magnitude of blue ocean north of NW and N Greenland is unprecedented after a cursory stroll through EOSDIS Worldview images, but there has been blue water in that area of the coast before, though perhaps not so far west. the cause, however, seems straightforward: Wind. There’s a huge movement of wind that comes up and all the ice starts moving NW, compacting ice toward the Central Arctic Basin. This is likely over all a “good.” Far worse would be all that ice moving east and then out the Fram Straight. When that happens a lot, as in 2007, record low sea ice is far more possible. An important percentage of ice loss is export via the Fram. If you go to Worldview, you will find there is virtually none right now, and that it has been quite reduced from average this season.
Best thing to do is go to Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog and ask your question.
Cheers
https://mashable.com/2018/08/10/record-ocean-heat-southern-california/
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92583/a-mid-winter-drought-in-australia
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/08/record-breaking-heatwave-pushing-hospitals-into-emergency-measures
The record breaking #MendocinoComplex is the first wildfire incident in California state history to surpass 300,000 acres. https://twitter.com/ericholthaus/status/1027194633724542976
By the end of the year, six out of eight models suggest El Niño thresholds will be reached. El Niño WATCH means that there is approximately a 50% chance of El Niño developing in 2018, which is about twice the normal likelihood. About 50% of the time a WATCH was reached, an ENSO event subsequently occurred http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/outlook/#tabs=Outlook
“During El Niño, winter-spring (ie June-Nov 2019) rainfall in eastern Australian is typically below average while daytime temperatures are typically warmer than average in the south.
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) remains neutral. Three of six international climate models indicate a positive IOD event may develop, with a fourth model close to meeting thresholds. A positive IOD event typically reduces winter–spring rainfall in central and southern Australia, and can exacerbate any El Niño driven rainfall deficiencies.”
So? Maybe something similar to what’s happened in the Nth Hem this past ‘winter, spring, summer’ eg https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/08/are-the-heatwaves-caused-by-climate-change/ will be heading to the sth hem later this year and next. Who knows will have to wait and see but the dice sure feel loaded.
PS the-right-answer-to-the-wrong-question
Here is what you should worry about: Is this summer’s widespread extreme weather a climate surprise? Is this what happens when we warm the planet by .8ºC?? If so, what happens when we reach 1.5º C in 30-40 years or two degrees after that??
Here is the bad news: That 1.5 C is happening no matter what. It’s already baked into the system. It’s unlikely we can even hold below 2ºC.
We could have if we’d acted 30 years ago, but too many people listened to politicians telling them what they wanted to hear.
https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2018/08/07/the-right-answer-to-the-wrong-question/
Al Bundy @108,
Employing my British 20:20 hindsight to interpret “Monday morning quarterbacking,” I can wholeheartedly agree with at least part of your comment. Where I disagree is in your interpretation of the role of human nature in science. You tell us “We’re human so we screw up.” We are human so, yes, we all make mistakes. But the idea of science is that the process hoovers up those mistakes and chucks them in the bin. Science is not mistake-free but it tries to be as mistake-free as it can and the process has shown that it can serve mankind exceptionally well.
You might not consider that your description of the IPCC process @86 as being “pure negligence” is “not so much an insult as it is (the result of) human nature.” I cannot accept that.
The IPCC is a review of the sclence and so it isn’t incorrect to state (as you did @85) that the process sees “scientists water down their conclusions.” But this does not make the IPCC or its contributors untruthful or in any way ‘negligent’.
I am conscious of nigelj @105 also dealing with my comment @96, and asking for specifics. But let me here give a broad-brush explanation of this matter.
We hear it was said of AGW back in 1968 (and not for the last time) that “man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the Earth.” Fifty years on and the statement remains true. One of the reasons for wanting to limit AGW to well-below 2ºC is because science still does not know what terrors await us beyond 2ºC of AGW. All it can say is that BAU will deliver us something like 4ºC of AGW and on top of that unleash god-knows what else besides.
What I find distasteful in this science blog is that many commenters are proclaiming that the ‘god-knows what else besides’ is even now unleashed and will soon be upon us, or that we have already stoked up an inevitable ‘4ºC of AGW’. Such comment has no place in any scientific discussion of AGW – unless backed up with science. Yet in these many comments I see no such ‘scientific back-up’. So I call it out and I will continue to call it out, doing so robustly if necessary. Why would you expect any different?
107 Victor 8 Aug 2018:
“things are actually far worse than anyone had ever imagined”
“the genie is already out of the bottle”
“all we can do is delay the inevitable by maybe a year or so”
“things are spinning hopelessly out of control”
Victor, who believes those things? Are you talking about Guy McPherson and his coterie?
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2776/arctic-carbon-cycle-is-speeding-up/
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/7/eaao1167
Last add on the *ahem* comments on the ASI melt:
I never said nigel was wrong. I pointed out only that his comments are flawed. Without that CO2 rise of up to 50 ppm, any impact from the other two elements would either not happen or the ice would have rebounded from any temporary low. Why you can’t figure this shit out, I do not know.
At no point have I been incorrect. I said clearly the ice started melting as CO2 crossed 300 ppm if one account for the lag effect of CO2. This is a fact. Period. You want to play games with what percentage of what effect was the driver, go ahead. What matters is that the effect never reversed, so if it had been primarily the other two issues, the effect would have disappeared as we moved into the 60s and 70’s. It did not. REGARDLESS, get the damned point: How sensitive does the planetary system have to be for melt to begin way below 350 and never stop? If the other effects are so important and CO2 so unimportant, **why didn’t it stop?**
Finally, the science has been incomplete (incorrect) on any number of points. I had scientists telling me flat out we could see no effect from clathrates for 100 years. Could not. Or that Antarctica wouldn’t have mass loss until late this century. Would not. Or that SLR could not be 3M or more this century. Could not.
Or that El Nino couldn’t affect ASI melt. Could not. Yet… I predicted… not scenario, prediction, the low ice concurrent with and after the El Nino event. We had huge numbers of days, weeks and months with record ice melt and 2016 and 2017 bcome in at #2 and #3 for September melt, specifically. Remember my thesis is that warmth from the Pacific makes its way to the Arctic, enhancing melt. Then this came out this past week:
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-pacific-ocean-effect-arctic.html#jCp
Hmmm… moisture from the Pacific. Affecting Arctic Sea Ice… Who’d’a thunk it, eh? Oh, right… me. (Yes, I said heat, but increased heat = increased humidity. They are not separable. It’s a distinction without a difference.)
I have little doubt the voices will ring out saying El Nino is not a Northern Pacific event. No, but it has a global effect and there is no way the heat and moisture does not affect the Arctic. Zero chance.
Let the scientists work out the full extent, but anyone claiming El Nino doesn’t impact the Arctic Sea Ice melt hasn’t looked at the correlations closely enough, imo. I posted them in 2015. El Nino showed a potential effect within the summer or two of and after the EN. I believe every EN showed some potential effect, iirc. La Nina had no correlation.
Stop telling me I don’t know what I am talking about. So far as I know, nobody else here has predicted anything while I have a more than ten year record of accuracy.
Nigel, alan and bundy do not have the analytical skills to tell. Learn to listen.
122 Killian says: The problem with the “paper” is it begins with a false premise: It is too late to mitigate.
Killian, are you sure about that? Every Paper focuses on it’s own specific issue / emphasis under discussion. That’s normal. For background he says and refs all kinds of things and other papers/articles.
for example, page 4
Certainly, there has been some progress on environmental issues in past decades, from reducing pollution, to habitat preservation, to waste management. Much valiant effort has been made to reduce carbon emissions over the last twenty years, one part of climate action officially termed “mitigation” (Aaron – Morrison et. al. 2017). There have been many steps forward on climate and carbon management – from awareness, to policies, to innovations (Flannery, 2015). Larger and quicker steps must be taken. That is helped by the agreement reached in December 2015 at the COP21 intergovernmental climate summit and now that there is significant Chinese engagement on the issue. To support the maintenance and scaling of these efforts is essential. In addition, increasing action is occurring on adaptation to climate change, such as flood defences, planning laws and irrigation systems (Singh et al, 2016). Whereas we can praise these efforts, their existence does not matter to an analysis of our overall predicament with climate change.
link http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf
The above doesn’t fit your framing above. He repeatedly addresses the issue of “psychological impacts” of bad news and balancing the information.
for example page 3:
“I am aware that some people consider statements from academics that we now face inevitable near-term social collapse to be irresponsible due to the potential impact that may have on the motivation or mental health of people reading such statements. My research and engagement in dialogue on this topic, some of which I will outline in this paper, leads me to conclude the exact opposite. It is a responsible act to communicate this analysis now and invite people to support each other, myself included, in exploring the implications, including the psychological and spiritual implications.”
and for example “This process of seeking to “balance out” is a habit of the informed and reasoning mind. Yet that does not make it a logical means of deliberation if positive information being shared does not relate to the situation being described by the negative information.“
He also says he’s been in the field of Sustainability for 25 years at an academic level so I doubt he is totally ignorant on the subject.
Food for thought? I have long opined that sudden unexpectedly rapid & abrupt climate change consequences (in the climate system and it’s effects on society norms) is what is coming – given all kinds of Mitigation is grossly insignificant and thus inadequate in the past now and projected into the near term future of 20 years.
That what breaks a system is it’s weakest link – and it only take one screw or cog to stop a factory in an instant. Society is far more complex than a factory and so it will not take much to break down before all social norms begin collapsing and breaking down too. Which just like extreme weather events will first occur suddenly in only small regions here and there, now and then. They’ll be quickly rectified. As time goes on a time will come where several things breakdown in the cogs of society and across more regions at the same time – just like the numbers of heatwaves is summers have jumped and are spread across multiple countries at the same time.
To me saying that isn’t fearmongering it’s realistic and based on historical know how. It does really matter what causes a social catastrophe be it civil war, violent street protests or weather the coming consequences of climate change will have similar effects. How soon how bad is a mystery.
cheers
RE: Yet in these many comments I see no such ‘scientific back-up’.
Life’s too short to get bogged down in re-presenting known scientific studies and evidence that’s been out there for ages already as a Prerequisite to make simply basic logical comments (or express personal conclusions and opinions) about what that science and energy LU data means today and going forward.
How many times does a ref url need to be REPEATEDLY posted here before it’s read and understood and before it’s meaning sinks in? Thousands of Papers are now being published on Climate Science each month – a comment on a blog is NOT a peer-reviewed science paper nor PhD Thesis and does not need to be.
Besides rank hypocrisy – doing the very thing one accuses others of – is always a very bad look.
Has there been a massive unprecedented heatwave, low soil moisture content, high winds, droughts and wild fires occurring across every nth hemisphere continent this recent spring summer or not?
Pointing out the bleeding obvious isn’t rocket science. Handing out free tips of what to look out for in the coming days, weeks months doesn’t require a scientific reference either!
Unfortunately foolhardy Denialism and disingenuous Pedantry & incompetence comes in many forms too. Victor and KIA et al are not the only people with their heads stuck in the sand ansd who do not understand The Science or what it means.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/08/are-the-heatwaves-caused-by-climate-change/
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Re #124 MA Rodger said Where I disagree is in your interpretation of the role of human nature in science. You tell us “We’re human so we screw up.”…
You might not consider that your description of the IPCC process @86 as being “pure negligence” is “not so much an insult as it is (the result of) human nature.” I cannot accept that.
Agreed. Those engaging in this may just be closet deniers. Or they are GM acolytes? In fact, the science proceeds with great care, imo. Any slowness or reticence is systemic, not intentional. Certainly some scientists speak or think more intuitively and others less. Some see only error bars while others see error bars melded with a less scientific analytic view, too.
There is no negligence in this. Comments to the contrary belong in the Bore Hole, imo, as they are slander with no basis in fact.
The IPCC is a review of the sclence and so it isn’t incorrect to state (as you did @85) that the process sees “scientists water down their conclusions.” But this does not make the IPCC or its contributors untruthful or in any way ‘negligent’.
Correct. The politicians are negligent, but not the scientists. But it is a political document. I suspect a document of and from the scientists done on their own dime and own time might be significantly different. But scientists don’t have free reign with work they are paid to do any more than a Raytheon employee can walk out the door and do whatever they want with the work they do.
What I find distasteful in this science blog is that many commenters are proclaiming that the ‘god-knows what else besides’ is even now unleashed and will soon be upon us…
Such comment has no place in any scientific discussion of AGW – unless backed up with science… So I call it out and I will continue to call it out, doing so robustly if necessary. Why would you expect any different?
The owners of this blog have been wise enough to allow a wider-ranging discussion over time. You are wrong. Science with no feedback from the public or policy side is pointless. It is partly due to the pressure of citizens asking for more direct commentary to the public, and less of it so purely scientific and more about risk, that some scientists are speaking out, and more of them all the time, and more forcefully. It matters.
Those of you seeking a pure science experience need to get yourselves a Ph.D. and go to a lab or get out in the field. It’s OK to have some standards, but not OK to keep believing at this late date pure science in public is still the best option. At least, not for all scientists and citizen scientists/analysts.
This, too, is an ecosystem, and no ecosystem survives with only one mode of operation, one input, one output.
116 Ray Ladbury:
“As to your other question regarding what one is to do if one is willing to accept reality and is a decent person, those options are closing off quickly. Had we actually decided to do something when the science was merely incontrovertible (back in the 80s), we would have more options now.”
My point is that the options being urged on us back in the 1980’s were just as unworkable then as the options being urged today. It’s not enough to say “if only we had dealt seriously with this problem 30 or 40 years ago . . . “, because the problem as stated both then and now was and is totally intractable, as should have been obvious even during the eighties. Scientists as intelligent as Michael Mann and James Hansen should have realized from the start that, if “the science” they endorse is as incontrovertible as they’ve claimed, the ONLY really effective option would have been to shut down the world economy in a manner that would have been (and currently remains) totally unacceptable, for reasons political, economic, social and also practical.
Which leads one to wonder: what is REALLY going on here? As I surf through youtube I’m finding more and more presentations containing variations on the same theme: climate change is real, the evidence is overwhelming, its effects are here already and will get much much worse, unless we do something NOW to deal with the problem. Hardly ever do I hear much of anything containing specifics regarding exactly WHAT is to be done. And the few examples provided, such as putting a “price on carbon,” strike me as totally inadequate and painfully naive. The only effective solution (assuming there really IS a problem) would be to take the world back to the pre-industrial era, a solution only a confirmed Luddite would find acceptable.
I tend to agree with most of your numbered points, Ray. I think it a very good thing that people are being urged to pay more attention to the environmental effects of their actions and live a simpler, more efficient and healthy lifestyle. But as I’m sure you realize that sort of thing won’t be nearly enough.
Which is why I wonder about the agenda behind all this huge explosion of angst-ridden concern, fueled as it is by daily media hype. As someone with a background in anthropology, I can’t help but see this in the light of the well known phenomenon of the Doomsday Cult. I’m not saying climate scientists are deliberately deceiving the public in order to feed some insatiable need for power and control. We must remind ourselves, however, that a great many cult leaders have been perfectly sincere.
I’m not talking now about the validity of “the science” (I’m a skeptic on that score, but I could be wrong), but the sheer insanity of the implication, now so widely touted by so many, that we REALLY NEED TO DO something meaningful NOW to avert the presumed disaster when obviously we can’t — and never could.
As an addenda to my previous post, I want to make clear what I mean by the “agenda” behind all the alarm behind the “climate change” meme. Since there can really be no way to meaningfully avert the “coming storm” of disasters being projected, “saving the planet” cannot possibly be the real agenda, though that’s what we are expected to believe. Once again I must draw on my training in anthropology to note that the underlying theme among so many “doomsday” cults is not really the expected day of doom. As is well known, a great many of these cults survive the projected date on which the ax is to fall, with the fateful event being continually postponed (think “the Rapture”).
The pervasive underlying theme, as it seems to me, is sacrifice. Cult members are expected above all to sacrifice — their belongings, their wealth, even their wives and children. And this is what we hear over and over again as an invariable motive of the CC theme — the call to sacrifice, accompanied by all sorts of diatribes against the “self-indulgence” of modern humans.
Seems to me, then, that the real underlying agenda of the CC “movement” is not “fighting climate change” so much as the demand that all of us perform a series of sacrificial acts, to atone for our environmental sins. In other words, we are dealing with a cult.
Nemesis @114.
While discussing the politics of AGW (indeed any politics) with an anarchist would surely be a complete of a waste of time, I would point out your insistence of “the fact that I didn’t say anything about capitalism or communism in my recent comments at all.” You appear to overlook your writing @84 which turns your fact into a non-fact.
You stepped into this exchange with me @45 with a badly mistaken interpretation of Shell’s 2013 emissions scenarios. You now wave Raftery et al (2007) and at least manage to present their findings correctly. Yet what is the relevance of Raftery et al? They are projecting the mitigation policies of the early 2000s into the future, as they say not a BAU scenario but something sitting sitting close to RCP6.0. Their projections show CO2 emissions continuing unabated all the way to 2100 so their finding of a likely 3.2ºC of AGW warming (with the tiny tiny probability of keeping the rise below 1.5 °C) is not difficult to understand.
What is difficult to understand is why you Nemesis would see such a projected future as relevant. Do you believe it possible that humanity will continue with its CO2 emissions at roughly 10Gt(C)/year for the rest of this century?
Victor @131, the climate problem is not insolvable. Anyone with a grasp of basic economics could see the world could convert to renewable electricity generation if it wanted, without some monumental economic problem. Politics stands in the way.
Granted a lot of ducks need to line up in a row to fix climate change, and its hard work, but it’s far from impossible. Granted that on some days I think it is, but pessimism isn’t of much use.
Yes the media distort things, but you are perfectly capable of seeing through that. And yes there’s an element of doomsday cultism pervading the issue, and perhaps with good reason!
I read an anthropology text a couple of years ago out of curiosity: The Human Past by C Scarre. Fascinating and enlightening.
132 Victor saying crap like that is dumb ignorant & bigoted nonsense. Please get back into anthropology, New Guinea looks like a nice place where you belong and could feel happier and maybe do some good.
“And this is what we hear over and over again as an invariable motive of the CC theme — the call to sacrifice, accompanied by all sorts of diatribes against the “self-indulgence” of modern humans.”
You might want to get your ears and eyes checked. And I mean that seriously. Sure, there are some who come with such calls. But the vast, vast, vast majority don’t.
The most interesting thing is this comment of yours: “the ONLY really effective option would have been to shut down the world economy in a manner that would have been (and currently remains) totally unacceptable, for reasons political, economic, social and also practical.”
This comment shows exactly why you are so forcefully doing everything you can to cast doubt on the science: you believe the only option to do anything is to shut down the world economy, and since this is unimaginable in your view, you have two choices:
a) go into a depression (“we’re doomed!” – in an ironic twist, you are thereby much closer aligned to the doomsday cults than most of us…)
b) go into denial (“can’t be true!”)
Clearly you have chosen option b.
Let’s just say that the IPCC WG3 offers various routes out of this current mess that *don’t* require us to shut down the world economy. It won’t be enough to stop anthropogenic climate change right here and right now, but this isn’t an either/or situation.
If you want to get political, EVERY _political_ movement demands sacrifice to something. So that differentiates precisely no one with any political inclination at all.
If you want to get scientific…well it’s obvious you do not as you consistently fail to show the slightest inclination to learn the simplest things such as high school science and stats let alone anything more advanced. You just keep spouting nonscience by the bushel. As here.
By your “reasoning” changing the oil in our cars as members of the mechanically aware “cult” is apparently “a sacrificial act to atone for our driving sins”! Mechanics are simply priests trying to control our behavior in order to take over the world. But then, I suppose you don’t bother to change your oil as you are above being in such “doomsday cults”.
Amazing. Simply and utterly amazing.
Dan H., #110–
Dan, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The US summer daytime high warming trend isn’t muted because highs aren’t rising now; it’s muted because of huge anomalies in that metric during the Dust Bowl years. I’ve posted a link to a graph of NOAA US high & low temperatures, which I think illustrates that, but I haven’t noticed it coming through moderation yet.
So, for convenience:
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h402/brassdoc/NOAA%20US%20summer%20max%20%20min%20from%201930.png
Also, a reminder that “the US is not the world”, particularly as relates to the Dust Bowl:
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h402/brassdoc/Dirty%20Thirties–global.png
Re #108
That word does not mean what you think it means. 1b and 2 are what you apparently meant. Both are insults to conscientious, sincere people.
I teach anything from beginner to advanced English. Feel free to stop by for review of vocabulary.
Re #128 Carrie
Carrie, PLEASE do not start communicating like the vast majority here! I.e., poorly. Perhaps you need to read his paper again, and the comments.
His thesis is it is too late. Not that it is very late, or extremely difficult, or even unlikely, but that we have zero chance of successful mitigation, long- or short-term. You seem to have missed this because then you go on stating the obvious about conditions, tipping points, punctuated change, etc.
And?
The system is sensitive and jumpy? Is that news? No. And it also is not his point. His point is simple: It will all fall down and go boom, so start adapting to that. Forget mitigation. (Of course, pushing mitigation when you’ve just stated a clear case for extinction makes little sense. Pass 2C, with no mitigation in place to reverse it? Good luck with stopping there.)
Am I certain he is wrong that we can definitely say it is too late? Yes. I am. There is nobody on the planet at this moment, so far as I know, that can point to a scientifically valid data point or data set that could be said to be 100% certain of collapse no matter what humans do.
The ironic thing is, I don’t much disagree as far as current trends go. I think it unlikely we will succeed. We are in deep, deep poo here. But I also know we *can* reverse it all the way back to under 300ppm. The caveat is, of course, feedbacks accelerating past that potential. Has that already happened? Entirely possible. But it cannot be determined scientifically. So, we assume we have time until we are certain we do not.
Besides, the solutions for adaptation and mitigation are the same. These goombahs calling for adaptation and forgetting mitigation are a bit clueless in that regard.
Your post is uncharacteristically off-target.
Weaktor, Oh, the strawmanity. Where to begin ith the army of straw men with which you’ve chosen to present us. I’ll begin by addressing your last pseudopoint:
1) Weaktor: “As someone with a background in anthropology, I can’t help but see this in the light of the well known phenomenon of the Doomsday Cult.”
Yes, well, I suppose we can chalk that up to lack of vision and imagination on your part. Scientists can hardly be viewed as doomsday cultists, because they are actively trying to accurately assess the risks and come up with actual solutions. As an “anthropologist,” perhaps you should consider another maxim of the field: What you believe is true is true in its consequences.
2)Weaktor: ” the options being urged on us back in the 1980’s were just as unworkable then as the options being urged today… because the problem as stated both then and now was and is totally intractable… the ONLY really effective option would have been to shut down the world economy…”
Complete, utter bullshit of the purest ray serene! No one serious has ever advocated shutting down the global economy. No one is advocating a return to the Stone Age. Yes, the problem is difficult, and the difficulties are myriad. That does not mean it is intractable if we direct our concerted efforts toward solving it. Four years of concerted effort–mainly in a single country–brought us the nuclear age. Another 4 years ushered in the computer. Ten years effort got us to the moon. Lots of very smart people dismissed these endeavors as impossible. When Gordon Moore came up with the law that bears his name, even he did not envision the miraculous development that would follow, and no one thought we would still be talking about that trend when feature sizes were a mere 5 nm in size!
For you with your profound ignorance and misunderstanding of science to dismiss the efforts and creativity of all the smart people on the planet would be risible were it not so pathetic and dangerous. The smart people, through concerted effort can solve this problem. The resource most lacking to them is time. And that is what we must try to buy them through the other efforts I outlined.
I would much rather place my fate in the hands of smart, creative people than in the hands of people like you, who lack the courage to accept reality and the vision to even conceive of what to do about it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/dinosaur-extinction-debate/565769/
@BPL, #120
” V 107: Is it really possible to turn back the clock on climate change, to literally control the climate of the entire planet?
BPL: That’s what we’re doing NOW…”
Wonderful, enlightening conversation, love it, please go on, gentlemen… 8)
… oh and good luck 8) … I’m sure you will find wonderful solutions once again… what about SRM? Any empirical knowledge so far?^^
MartinJB @ 117
You say that you are only interested in long-term trends (30 years or longer?).
You don’t care what the short-term trends are (5 or 10 years?).
If the warming rate for the next 5 years was +10 degrees Celsius per century, would you care?
I imagine that you would care, because it is warming fast.
But if the warming rate for the next 5 years was -10 degrees Celsius per century, then I imagine that you wouldn’t care, because it is cooling fast.
People like you, use global warming to further your own personnel agenda. You are NOT interested in the science. (Hint – a Global Warming Contour Map shows you the science)
Victor, #132–
“Since there can really be no way to meaningfully avert the “coming storm” of disasters being projected”
Assuming what you wish to prove, AKA “making shit up.”
Victor@131 wrote:
You are — according to people who are far more knowledgeable.
Please read volumes 2 and 3 of the IPCC report.
Carrie @128
“Has there been a massive unprecedented heatwave, low soil moisture content, high winds, droughts and wild fires occurring across every nth hemisphere continent this recent spring summer or not?”
It’s certainly setting records in several countries, but I’m not sure its absolutely unprecedented. 2010 was a heatwave year setting records in multiple countries:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/12/heatwave-record-temperatures-world
The important thing for me is the latest event is breaking records and we know heatwaves in general terms are becoming more frequent due to climate change (or I should say agw induced warming). Given the cause of this multiple event is probably due to arctic warming and a meandering jet stream according to the scientists, one doesn’t need to have a Phd to see such things could become a deadly sort of constant problem and considerably more frequent, and more longer lasting and intense than even this latest event. However that is my view, and its up to the experts to put numbers on it.
I lay the blame squarely with people like Trump and Pruitt and the silly fools who elect these people. Not that the alternatives were all that great. However we still have time to improve the situation if we want.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Millions-to-be-spent-protecting-SF-Bay-shoreline-13148072.php
Killian @127 says he predicted that el nino would cause arctic warming, and claims vindication. He quotes some article at phys.org saying that the arctic is warming due to pacific ocean warmth.
Well the article makes no reference to el nino, and is referring to the hot blob in the north pacific and atlantic. Theres simply no connection to el nino.
In addition, clearly killian is partly right that el nino warmth probably finds its way to the arctic, but so what? Its uncontroversial, and part of the earths normal heat transfer from the equator to the poles. There’s no evidence that el nino is becoming more intense (although I have a suspicion it will eventually).
So much for Killians “analytical skills”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/15/ipcc-un-climate-reports-diluted-protect-fossil-fuel-interests
Key statements: “IPCC reports ‘diluted’ under ‘political pressure’ to protect fossil fuel interests. Saudi-led coalition sought to make policy summaries as vague as possible to minimise climate action.”
“Increasing evidence is emerging that the policy summaries on climate impacts and mitigation by the UN Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were significantly ‘diluted’ under political pressure from some of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, including Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil and the United States.”
“Several experts familiar with the IPCC government approval process for the ‘Summary for Policymakers’ (SPM) reports – documents summarising the thousands of pages of technical and scientific reports for government officials – have spoken out about their distortion due to political interests.”
I’m not remotely surprised. I have always suspected this, because just look at the process and the vested interests, hence my previous comments that the IPCC reports seem just a little too conservative to me.
But do scientists negligently understate their findings? There’s no reason they would or evidence that they do.