This month’s open thread on climate science topics. We are well into Arctic melt season (so keep track of Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog for more info). Another link is the NY Times Daily podcast on the interesting-yet-flawed NYTimes Magazine “Losing Earth” piece (which is useful if you didn’t get around to finishing the written article yet). Remember to please stick to climate science topics on this thread.
Scary Super Typhoon Mangkhut Landfall Hong Kong | Strongest | Top 10 Footage | 香港山竹颱風實況
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki5GRBLFi8k
Super Typhoon Mangkhut OmPong Footage Compilation Philippines 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBsUmhBgOTk
Includes a segment on climate, which was aired on Philippine television. Somehow their media manages to connect the dots during the event.
Al Bundy @ 118
Hi Al Bundy,
what you have suggested (taking GISS and replacing 1998 with a placeholder that’s spot on the trend line), has been suggested by other people. I did it about 18 months ago.
I would do it again for you, but the last time that I did it, the Alarmist didn’t like my results, and suggested that I had not replaced 1998 with the right value.
I can not win, with a situation like this. I either prove that I am wrong, or get accused of doing it incorrectly.
However, I can show you some linear regression results, that prove that you are wrong.
When I make a global warming contour map, I calculate linear regressions for every possible date range. From every possible starting month, to every possible ending month. For example, one linear regression would be from April 1998 to October 2012.
To generate data for you, I decided to use all GISTEMP temperature data that was on or after January 1995. I only looked at date ranges which were 10 years long, or greater (because short date ranges can have extreme warming rates, low and high).
A before 2000 linear regression, is one that starts on or before December 1999.
An after 2000 linear regression, is one that starts after December 1999.
The idea is to find the strongest slowdown, and see if it was before 2000, or after 2000.
I am being generous to you, because I am not just looking for a strong slowdown starting in 1998, I am looking for one starting anywhere from 1995 to 1999.
When you look at the results, you will see that the strongest before 2000 slowdown, started in late 1997.
The strongest before 2000 slowdown went from September 1997 to July 2013 (190 months = 15.83 years). The warming rate was +0.8188 degrees Celsius per century.
The strongest after 2000 slowdown went from November 2001 to March 2012 (124 months = 10.33 years). The warming rate was (negative) -0.0616 degrees Celsius per century.
The before 2000 slowdown was a joke, even I would be embarassed by it. The after 2000 slowdown was even stronger than a Pause, it was actually cooling. And it had nothing to do with 1998 (or any year before 2000).
You can easily check my results. I have given you the date ranges. Just get the GISTEMP temperature data, and do 2 linear regressions.
I hope that you will accept the truth, that I have been trying to show people for 2 years. I expect others to keep ignoring the truth, but I hope that you will accept it.
BEST is reporting August 2018 Global SAT with an anomaly of +0.76ºC, up on July (the coolest month of the year-so-far) the year’s anomalies spanning +0.89ºC to +0.69ºC
It is the 5th warmest August in BEST below first-placed August 2016 (+0.94ºC), 2014 (+0.80ºC), 2017 (+0.78ºC), & 2015 (+0.76ºC),. August 2018 is the =48th warmest anomaly on the full all-month BEST record.
In the BEST year-to-date table below, 2018 sits 3rd. Recent ENSO data (eg MEI) shows no sign that ENSO is going to provide a boost to global temperature in the remainder of the year (as occurred in 2015). With the forecast potential for a moderately strong El Nino this winter now downgraded to “less likely,” a significant boost to global temperature in the new year from ENSO can also be seen as “less likely.”
…….. Jan-Aug Ave …. Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.01ºC … … … +0.96ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +0.89ºC … … … +0.85ºC … … … 2nd
2018 .. +0.79ºC
2015 .. +0.76ºC … … … +0.83ºC … … … 3rd
2010 .. +0.74ºC … … … +0.70ºC … … … 4th
2007 .. +0.68ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 7th
1998 .. +0.68ºC … … … +0.60ºC … … … 11th
2014 .. +0.67ºC … … … +0.69ºC … … … 5th
2005 .. +0.65ºC … … … +0.67ºC … … … 6th
2002 .. +0.63ºC … … … +0.60ºC … … … 12th
2009 .. +0.60ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 8th
And GISTEMP is reporting August 2018 Global SAT with an anomaly of +0.77ºC, a little down on July’s +0.78ºC. The year-to-date’s anomalies span +0.91ºC to +0.75ºC
It is the 5th warmest August in GISTEMP (BEST also 5th) below first-placed August 2016 (+1.00ºC), 2017 (+0.87ºC), 2014 (+0.80ºC), & 2015 (+0.79ºC),. August 2018 is the =52nd warmest anomaly on the full all-month GISTEMP record (BEST was =48th).
In the GISTEMP year-to-date table below, 2018 sits 3rd (as did BEST’s), looking set to drop behind 2015 by year’s-end with ENSO not providing a global temperature boost like that seen in 2015. The last decade’s monthly anomalies for the usual TLT/SAT records graphed out here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’).
…….. Jan-Aug Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.05ºC … … … +0.99ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +0.93ºC … … … +0.90ºC … … … 2nd
2018 .. +0.81ºC
2015 .. +0.80ºC … … … +0.87ºC … … … 3rd
2010 .. +0.73ºC … … … +0.70ºC … … … 5th
2014 .. +0.71ºC … … … +0.73ºC … … … 4th
1998 .. +0.70ºC … … … +0.62ºC … … … 11th
2007 .. +0.69ºC … … … +0.64ºC … … … 8th
2002 .. +0.66ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 10th
2005 .. +0.65ºC … … … +0.67ºC … … … 6th
2009 .. +0.61ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 9th
Sheldon Walker: Personally, I don’t eat either of them. I think that it is barbaric, to eat something that is more intelligent than us.
AB: “We” Kemosabe?
————–
Mal Adapted: Perhaps their personal demon/deity/fairy godmother promised them they’d always win arguments because they’re ‘special’.
AB: My take on the bumper sticker: Christians aren’t evil, just smugly incorrect.
———–
Ray Ladbury (in full): Ever notice that both Sheldon and Weaktor seem to be unable to comprehend anything longer than a single sentence?
AB: How considerate of you to finally post a comment they can understand!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/learning/whats-going-on-in-this-graph-sept-19-2018.html
spikey day on CO2:
Daily CO2
September 17, 2018: 405.81 ppm
September 17, 2017: 402.84 ppm
Current baseline level is under 2.0 ppm, maybe as low as 1.7 ppm. Doesn’t mean too much because the actual rate is hard to nail down given the fluctuations related to ENSO bumps and troughs. I think we are currently in an ENSO trough with yoy comparisons due to the ENSO-related bump in the past year numbers. I still think the current background rate (based on decadal rate with 5 yrs back and 5 yrs forward) is in the 2.4 to 2.5 ppm range.
The one thing we know for certain is that the current accumulation is in the 405 ppm range and that is not a good and safe level. We need to see the rate of increase slow to zero asap, then we need to see the yoy comparison numbers go negative at least some of the time to demonstrate that all talk and efforts to reduce emissions is actually working. Absent a change in the direction of the needle of CO2 accumulation, we are simply not responding effectively to AGW.
CO2.earth clearing house and portal to NOAA and ESRL numbers for those who want to review more closely.
WAPO has a headline for James Samenow story behind paywall: “Florence was another 1,000-year rain event. Is this the new normal as the planet warms?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Mike says: Hey Mr. Samenow, it’s ok. You can say it: This is the new normal on a warmed planet and it’s going to get worse until we stop the CO2 increase in the atmosphere and oceans. You can take that to the bank. You can stop with the questions and talk frankly and clearly about AGW.
Cheers
Mike
Marco @ 149
Marco,
I did my Econometrics/Statistics papers about 12 years ago.
– stage 2 – Introduction to Econometrics ………… A+
– stage 3 – Applied Econometrics ……………………………… A+
I have never used it, since I did it.
Apart from when I am joking, I admit that “Tamino can teach me something”.
I have a page on my website, called “There are 4 things that I try to remember:
https://agree-to-disagree.com/4-things
1) I do not know everything.
2) Sometimes I make mistakes, or I am wrong.
3) I try to learn from my mistakes.
4) I listen to other people, because they might know something that I don’t know.
These 4 things remind me that I shouldn’t take myself too seriously.
I am the ONLY person, that I have ever seen, who admits things like this.
Apparently everybody else knows everything.
Al Bundy @ 156
Sheldon Walker: Personally, I don’t eat either of them. I think that it is barbaric, to eat something that is more intelligent than us.
Al Bundy: “We” Kemosabe?
==========
Al, have you ever seen the “far side” joke, about when the Lone Ranger found out what “Kemosabe” really meant?
https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/127508233183198069/
The joke should be near the top left of the web page.
@132 EVERYONE agrees there was a fluctuation. There is not now nor has there ever been any discussion about that. The discussion is whether the fluctuation was expectable or not. Sheldon wrongly asserts that is was not and therefore there must be something specifically and causally going on. People with knowledge of stats disagree and provide specific reasons.
There is a middle ground, but not where you are staring: Some hope that there is additional information to be extracted from the currently available trend signals. Personally I don’t see it. New sources of signal need to be developed to get finer detail. IMO, at least. It just isn’t there in the daily/monthly/annual trends as presently available.
Sheldon, if you are the only person who admits they don’t know everything, you may want to get out more. I am surrounded by people (and am one myself) who have no problem admitting they don’t know everything and make mistakes. That’s why I love to work in teams, so others provide a sanity check on what was done.
You claim you listen to other people, as they may know things that you don’t. However, the way you present your thoughts don’t really suggest you are so open to criticism as you make it appear.
To end this discussion, something for you to consider:
Don’t present your grades as evidence of supposed expertise in a field. They’re not. It takes a whole lot more than good grades.
154/155 MA Rodger says not much while posting his numbers reports.
BEST and GISTEMP what are they saying? Let’s parse that shall we?
August 2018 is NOT an El Nino year.
Despite this August is the 5th Highest Temp anom. on record.
August 2018 is as hot as it was in 2015, an El Nino year.
The warmest Augusts have been 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
That looks like a pattern doesn’t it?
The last 5 consecutive years, two of which 15/16 were strong El Nino years.
The last 5 years have been the highest CO2 readings on the record, with 2018 being the highest ever so far.
MLO CO2 for August came in at 406.99 ppm; +1.92 ppm yoy.
And yet the running 12-month growth rate is at its lowest level since 2012.
And yet still in both BEST and GISTEMP YTD Temps for 2018 is 3rd behind 2016 El Nino and 2017 hangover El Nino.
This is on the margins of record breaking territory we are in. Not only that but 2018 Northern summer has been quite problematic while many areas in the southern hemisphere are in drought facing similar extreme weather scenarios here and there including Droughts affecting some areas in Australia for going on 12 years and in a state of emergency, and summer is not arrived as yet.
For those may have already forgotten how bad the nth summer has been I refer you back to this Are the heatwaves caused by climate change? Filed under : Climate Science heatwaves – by rasmus @ 9 August 2018; or your google search facility; or various comments and refs on these pages going back to JULY 2018 :-)
Numbers are always interesting but it;s important to parse them into a comprehensible understanding of what they mean. Without a proper context and framing, without any “meaning” numbers are useless even when lined up on a list.
MLO
August 2018: 406.99 ppm +1.92 ppm yoy
August 2017: 405.07 ppm
Last updated: September 5, 2018
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html
Recent Global CO2
June 2018: 407.80 ppm +2.19 ppm yoy.
June 2017: 405.61 ppm
Last updated: September 5, 2018
Week beginning on September 9, 2018: 405.39 ppm +1.81
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 403.58 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 383.05 ppm
Last updated: September 18, 2018
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
@ this week that’s an annual grow rate of 2.23 ppm the last decade.
September 17: 405.81 ppm
September 16: 405.18 ppm
September 15: 405.78 ppm
September 14: 405.40 ppm
September 13: 405.37 ppm
September 12: 405.02 ppm
September 11: 405.65 ppm
September 10: 405.52 ppm
September 09: 405.00 ppm
Appears we’ll never go below 405 daily or weekly again at MLO.
We just past the annual CO2 minimum mark.
Sheldon: “A slowdown is a slowdown.”
Except when it is a fluctuation.
Take the following example. You roll a single die, and it comes up 6. You then roll 2 die and it comes up 8. You then roll 3 die and get 14. When you roll 4 die, you get 4, 5 die give 6, 6 die give 8. Has there been a slowdown in the totals coming up on the faces of the die? Is it in any way interesting?
Quoting from #132 Kevin M:
Yes, you have to start by agreeing on definitions, as zebra has said many times. But then the wordcount and the number of comments would go way down, because most of the “debates” on various topics are just what Kevin describes– circular rhetorical games with words.
And it isn’t just the sheldons and victors and the others at fault; lots of people here have the education to know what’s going on, but indulge and lend credence to the infantile posturing of those people.
You need to be more direct in your interaction, rather than just taking the opportunity to display your own acumen. When you do that, it gives the impression that there really is a debate.
For those who may think that the fool Sheldon Walker has shirked in replying to me @128, his rather lenghty reply ended up in the bore hole. In it he dutifully sets out lengthy replies to my first two questions @128 and ignrores the third, although these three were all non-climatological frippery.
Walker’s reply to my fourth question well demonstrates his problem. Tamino showed the characterisitics of the wobbles in the GISS LOTI global record are wholly reflected in synthetic random data. Rather than examine this claim of Tamino’s, the fool Walker offers up whinges, complaining in his bore-holed tirade that “Apparently Tamino can accurately predict “random” numbers. … Tamino just “knew” that there was no slowdown. He didn’t even look.” This is then followed by some rather intemperate messaging about statistical significance.
What the fool Walker fails to grasp (and I hold out little chance that he well manage to grasp it) is that the vast majority of the wobbles in LOTI (or any other global temperature record) are not what anyone would call a “slowdown.” And thus establishing a “slowdown” requires a bit more work than drawing a straight line through a set of cherry-picked data. And even demonstrating such a line is statistically significant is not enough. (Thus if 2005-08 is cherry-picked we find temperature dropping at -4.4ºC/century(+/-3.8ºC) making it a statistically-significant down-turn in temperature, well outside the multi-decadal range of +1.8ºC/century(+/-0.2ºC). Of course, such a result from part of an ENSO-induced wobble does not constitute a “slowdown” in the multi-decadal trend which has remained remarkably constant since 1970.)
Tamino’s ‘randomness’ argument is that the temperature record has the characteristics of a random signal and while that remains true, any of those few wobbles that some may class as constituting a “slowdown” can be seen as simply a continuing of a random signal and thus not a “slowdown.” The fool Walker may disagree but he presents no counter-argument to support his position and also ignores the further problems he would have to address were Tamino’s ‘randomness’ argument overturned.
NOAA have posted their August global SAT anomaly at +0.74ºC, a little down on the July’s +0.76ºC anomaly. The small drop resulted from the Ocean & the Land anomalies going in different directions since July, Oceans with a +0.04ºC rise and Land with a -0.13ºC fall.
It is the 5th warmest August on the NOAA record (as it is in GISTEMP & BEST) sitting below August 2016 (+0.90ºC), 2015 (+0.88ºC), 2017 (+0.82ºC), & 2014 (+0.80ºC) and above 6th-placed August 2009 (+0.70ºC).
August 2018 sits as = 59th on the full all-month NOAA record (=52nd in GISTEMP, =48th in BEST).
NOAA puts the 2018 to-date global temperature anomaly in 4th place (BEST & GISTEMP sit 3rd).
…….. Jan-Aug Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.02ºC … … … +0.95ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +0.88ºC … … … +0.85ºC … … … 3rd
2015 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.91ºC … … … 2nd
2018 .. +0.76ºC
2010 .. +0.74ºC … … … +0.70ºC … … … 5th
2014 .. +0.73ºC … … … +0.74ºC … … … 4th
1998 .. +0.70ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 9th
2005 .. +0.65ºC … … … +0.66ºC … … … 7th
2007 .. +0.64ºC … … … +0.61ºC … … … 13th
2002 .. +0.64ºC … … … +0.60ºC … … … 14th
2013 .. +0.64ºC … … … +0.67ºC … … … 6th
With two-thirds of the year now reported, the one uncertainty in the final annnual rankings for 2018 appears to be whether NOAA will have retained that 4th place at the end of the year or have dropped into 5th behind 2014. It would require the anomaly for Sept-Dec 2018 to be just 0.06ºC lower than Jan-Aug 2018 for this drop to 5th. (To claim 3rd would require the Sept-Dec anomaly 0.27ºC above the Jan-Aug anomaly, an unprecedented jump.)
BEST & GISTEMP who have already reported for August both sit in 3rd place on their year-to-August rankings but look certain to end up in 4th place for the full year. For a different outcome, BEST would require to see an anomaly increase Sept-Dec of 0.12ºC (relative to Jan-Aug) to retain 3rd and a drop of 0.27ºC to drop down to 5th place. For GISTEMP the numbers are a rise of 0.18ºC for 3rd and a drop of 0.24ºC for 5th. Such numbers all appear impossible. (Note, in these tables here & @154/155, the average change shown is +/-0.04ºC and the maximum +/-0.08ºC. Such numbers are reflective of the records back to 1900.)
#159, Sheldon–
Um, no, Sheldon, you are not. I do. Nigel does, and so do others here, such as Barton Paul Levenson.
To be sure, ‘there’s them as won’t.’ But that’s true elsewhere, too.
#136 Paul Pukite (@whut) said Killian says:
“Well, we’re all saved because gold is in no way in limited supply.
b
*sigh*”
Gold is recyclable and inert, but yes indeed — like FF — a finite natural resource.
Fixed it for you. I.e., that was the only germaine part of your response. Given you wrote 3 others, including the error below, the error below is shows how incorrect you are:
Constant cynicism is depressing
It’s rude of you to make such a statement. There was exactly zero cynicism in my comment. There is extreme ignorance about resources throughout the climate activism world. You can count on well under 5 fingers the number of people on this board who “get” tech, resources and climate. That ratio is no better beyond this board.
I am in no way a cynic; I am informed. Your comment suggests you are not if you think the point not worth raising. Perhaps is disrupted your fantasy?
@142
Dear employers: I just completed a run which generated 1,600,000 separate samples of 100 random numbers between 1 and 100 and then computed the linear trend and significance of each sample against a linear sequence from 1 to 100. The run completed in 4.999395 minutes. This is 4.7x the productivity of a very senior, highly “scientific”, practicing professional programmer who only can complete a mere 343,206 such regressions in the same time and includes generating and structuring each of the 1,600,000 samples to boot, not just analyzing already obtained data.
All this in a high level language–R–and only taking 7 lines total including a helpful, but not truly needed, function definition.
I await the calls of employers everywhere.
Sheldon says:
1) I do not know everything.
2) Sometimes I make mistakes, or I am wrong.
3) I try to learn from my mistakes.
4) I listen to other people, because they might know something that I don’t know.
These 4 things remind me that I shouldn’t take myself too seriously.
I am the ONLY person, that I have ever seen, who admits things like this.
Apparently everybody else knows everything.
mike says: maybe it will be a revelation to you, Sheldon, but almost everyone here agrees with your 4 things. Not so much as admission, but a simple starting point in discussion.
Mr. Know it All may be an exception, I am not sure.
The tough parts are number 2 and 3. Folks are often loathe to realize and accept when they have made a mistake or are wrong and in the absence of realizing one is mistaken or wrong, then learning (not trying to learn) from errors is unlikely.
step into number 4 mode and learn that many of us are completely comfortable with your four points. It’s not a shocking manifesto.
Have you made a mistake thinking that you are the ONLY person who finds these points to be important concepts to hold?
Cheers,
mike
EXCLUSIVE! From the new issue of Scientific American:
*Antarctic Glacier’s Breakup Is Controlled by Seafloor Topography*
(https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic-glaciers-breakup-is-controlled-by-seafloor-topography/)
“Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier holds a dubious honor—it is currently the largest Antarctic contributor to global sea-level rise, thanks to the enormous amount of ice it has lost in recent decades. Now scientists have identified the likely cause of some of the glacier’s most spectacular calving events, which have birthed icebergs several times the size of Manhattan.
The culprit: submerged rock ridges that poke up high enough to occasionally hit the bottom of the glacier. This activity creates small cracks that grow and eventually cause massive chunks of ice to break off. But the undersea rocks are not all bad news—they can also help stabilize the glacier by grinding against its underside, buttressing it against flowing faster out to sea. . . .
As the ice pressed against the ridge, it probably also acted as a brake, preventing the glacier from flowing unimpeded into the ocean, the researchers hypothesize. They suspect it had been effectively pinned that way since the 1940s.
But the brake eventually failed; Pine Island Glacier probably lost contact with the ridge in 2006, after a warmer current of water eroded the glacier’s underside. That is when the rumple disappeared in satellite images, the team reported in June in the Cryosphere. (Scientists say a volcano under the glacier, discovered earlier this year, most likely contributes to its thinning as well.) . . .
For now, Pine Island Glacier is stable—its northern section is pinned by a small hill on land, and its southern front is corralled by a thick stream of ice. But change is on the way, Arndt and his colleagues predict. Late last year they spotted a 30-kilometer-long rift in the glacier—the likely site of its next calving event.”
Carrie @148
I was aware of the problem of measuring emissions.
Yes you are right, the climate issue is an ethical issue ultimately and the sorts of sanctions you outline are required.
I admit I find it hard to get enthusiastic about reducing my carbon footprint and buying an electric car and so on while other people, politicians and wealthy oligarchs dont do anything, or stand in the way of constructing renewable energy grids. I have done some things, but I would give myself about 5 / 10 at best. Its hard to get motivated to do something, unless you can be assured everyone will contribute and there’s not much guarantee of this.
This issue of individual action all relates to the prisoners dilemma and the social dilemma problem as below:
http://perspicuity.net/sd/sd.html
This is why I favour carbon taxes, because they push the general public to confront the issues and potentially reduce carbon footprints. Its hard to escape a tax on fossil fuels in the sense it motivates making some sort of change. However I’m not comfortable that wealthy oligarchs will not be much affected by such taxes, but doing something in terms of policy seems better than doing nothing, even if the policy isn’t perfection. .
The world has got itself into an awful mess over the whole climate issue. I think the right description is headless chickens running around in many cases.
Sheldon Walker: what you have suggested (taking GISS and replacing 1998 with a placeholder that’s spot on the trend line), has been suggested by other people. I did it about 18 months ago.
I would do it again for you, but the last time that I did it, the Alarmist didn’t like my results, and suggested that I had not replaced 1998 with the right value.
AB: You understand that everything you said after this was stupid goop? I don’t give a damn what some unnamed “alarmist” said. I asked for data, you refused. Why?
So, take the Gistemp meteorological station data from 1966 to present (I chose 1966 because it looks like a good start for the current trend; if you wanna use a different start date, tell me why). Replace 1998 with your guess for the appropriate value to match the trend. Do a trend. Is 1998 spot on the trend? If so, you’re done. If not, select another value for 1998 based on how far off you were in your first attempt. Repeat until 1998 is on the trend. Post a link to the results here.
Kind of a DUH! thing, eh?
Sheldon Walker: Apparently everybody else knows everything.
AB: I hate know-it-alls. They make it ever so hard for those of us who do.
This article has Exxon’s take, including a 1982 graph, on climate change. Turns out we didn’t need all those government “political liars” who pose as “climate scientists” to find out about climate change. Exxon, Shell, et al already had the answer by 1982!
“Although the details of global warming were foreign to most people in the 1980s, among the few who had a better idea than most were the companies contributing the most to it. Despite scientific uncertainties, the bottom line was this: oil firms recognized that their products added CO2 to the atmosphere, understood that this would lead to warming, and calculated the likely consequences. And then they chose to accept those risks on our behalf, at our expense, and without our knowledge.”
“As the world warms, the building blocks of our planet – its ice sheets, forests, and atmospheric and ocean currents – are being altered beyond repair. Who has the right to foresee such damage and then choose to fulfill the prophecy?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings
Further on related to #163 and following that complex issue in the proper broad perspective of all things that matter, really do matter.
Yale:360 Analysis
Paris Conundrum: How to Know How Much Carbon Is Being Emitted?
By Fred Pearce • September 10, 2018
As climate negotiators consider rules for verifying commitments under the Paris Agreement, they will have to confront a difficult truth: There currently is no reliably accurate way to measure total global emissions or how much CO2 is coming from individual nations.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/paris-conundrum-how-to-know-how-much-carbon-is-being-emitted
I’ll repeat that because it really matters – there is no reliably accurate way to measure national emissions nor total global emissions. Beware those bearing gifts claiming emissions are already falling because renewable energy use is rising, or man driven GHGs doing anything in particular anywhere.
C02, CH4, N20 and Ozone atmospheric measurements are however at least scientifically based and fairly comparable with earlier years.
Well, climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf skips RC and MARs minimizing, and tells a more comprehensible realist story about global warming consequences in Mashable report- The last 5 Augusts have been the hottest in recorded history with Nasa/Giss data images
Earth’s accelerated warming trend continued this August, as the sweltering month proved to be one of the hottest Augusts in recorded history.
In fact, each of the last five Augusts are now the warmest since reliable record-keeping began nearly 140 years ago, in the early 1880s. August 2018 is officially the fifth-warmest, but nearly indistinguishable from 2014, 2015, and 2017.
“The data show that global warming continues relentlessly, as predicted already in the 1970s,” climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth System Analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said over email.
The record-breaking rainfall we’ve seen over the past year, from the likes of Hurricane Harvey and now Florence, carry with them this palpable climate influence.
The five warmest months of August on our planet since record-keeping began? 2014 to 2018. #GlobalWarming Same for Berkeley Earth: https://t.co/aBTCh5oZwV pic.twitter.com/9Lnfxrb2ag
— Stefan Rahmstorf (@rahmstorf) September 18, 2018
“And this warming has consequences,” continued Rahmstorf.
“It raises sea levels and makes storm surges worse, it makes the atmosphere wetter, leading to flooding from extreme rainfall, and warming ocean temperatures provide extra energy to tropical storms.”
What’s more, while this August turned out to be one of the warmest Augusts in history, the average January through August temperatures also happened to be notably warm.
This eight-month average proved to be the third-warmest span on record. Only 2016 and 2017 were warmer. Overall, there’s little doubt that 2018 will end up as one of the warmest years on record.
“The polar ice is melting, in the ocean the Gulf Stream System is weakening, and in the atmosphere the jet stream is getting weird,” said Rahmstorf.
Physicist Robert Rohde, of the Berkeley Earth research organization, estimates it will be the fourth warmest year since 1850.
These warming trends have great implications for the globe. Planetary-wide systems are changing, including the jet stream — powerful winds miles above the surface that have been stalling over regions, trapping weather systems like hot masses of air for longer periods of time.
https://mashable.com/article/global-warming-august-2018-climate-change/
with links to more info.
An excellent succinct and accurate report.
Weaktor@173
So your theory is that those rocks suddenly grew there in the last decade or so? Because I sure don’t remember calving events like this before then.
You don’t think that maybe the glacier melting and moving faster might have anything to do with it? Naaaah!
You really are a very dull, broken tool.
Hansen appears to concur with Rahmstorf
Global Warming and East Coast Hurricanes 17 September 2018
James Hansen and Makiko Sato
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20180917_August2018TemperatureUpdate.pdf
Carrie @164,
You say (pointing at MLO CO2 data to 17/9/18) “We just past the annual CO2 minimum mark.”
Just so you appreciate why I think such a comment is naive and likely a bit of a hostage to fortune, I dusted off a graphic (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’) to show the MLO record of “the annual CO2 minimum mark.”
While there is quite a lot of noise and the minimums in weekly data spread from w/b-Sept2 to w/b-Oct12 (last weekly data was w/b-Sept9 so we are within that range), the level of reduction thro’ the minimum shown in the record (since 1974) has only been as small as that-seen-so-far in 2018 in one previous year, and more widely, the smallest of these ‘reductions’ have appeared on the record as late minimums occurring in early October.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2179461-acid-is-dribbling-out-of-the-melting-permafrost-in-the-arctic/
“Acid is dribbling out of the melting permafrost in the Arctic” ( sadly most of the article is paywalled). I normally prefer precision and neutrality, but on this occasion its appropriate to scream that we truly are opening a nasty pandoras box of tricks, and we better be learning fast and doing something before its fully opened.
181 MA Rodger re “We just past the annual CO2 minimum mark.” We’ll see.
May be another occasion when you have been caught living in the past and not been up-to-date? :-)
Shusssh, be quiet, RC is sleeping. Let her rest her weary bones.
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/usa-today-op-ed-ignores-evidence-to-claim-climate-change-had-no-role-in-hurricane-florence-roy-spencer/
Where were all you denier strike bandits when Roy was doing this number on readers? On vacation or what? :-)
> Victor@173
V has siezed on a tidbit of science and misinterpreted it to fit his “nothing new happening” happy dance.
Not my fault it jumps a bit but not surprised either.
Up-to-date weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa
Week beginning on September 16, 2018: 405.69 ppm + 2.53 ppm YoY
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 403.16 ppm
I did threaten to sum up my very lenghty blather (last installment here with links back) which began addressing the question of “known feedbacks” not “included” in the IPCC modelling, a question I extended to cover an exemplar of feedbacks/forcings that were poorly represented by IPCC modelling. So here it is.
I’ve demonstrated that comment showing the apparent-underestimation of large feedbacks can be easily found and can be selectively (thus wrongly) used to promote a view that the IPCC diminished the threat of AGW in the less dramatic IPCC scenarios. (I would suggest that the more dramatic IPCC scenarios contain more dramatic uncertainty.)
I think I’ve also demonstrated the lack of published analysis attached to these issues (thus the need for extended blather). We do rely on researchers to judge the AGW impact of the phenomenon their fellows are researching (researchers being all too eager to highlight the significance of their own work). Yet such sciency judgements are not apparent until the normal-run-of-research is well established and thus somewhat long-in-the-tooth. Of course, that is why we have the IPCC but they do come under fire for being too conservative. Yet such criticism is not good when not based on specific science and instead resembles more of a drive-by-shooting. Indeed, whatever their nature, attacks on the IPCC also provide ammunition for the denialists to kick the IPCC and AGW both.
The IPCC has an important role in AGW science. Show it some respect when you criticise its findings.
–
And on that subject, I note there is criticism being set out against the latest IPCC publication, the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C which is due to be published on October 8th. The Guardian have a piece featuring complaints from LSE’s Bob Ward.
I have often seen problems in past Guardian AGW reporting so I’d assume there is some editing problem behind two of the three bullet-point items. As written they don’t make a lot of sense. Arctic sea ice is not melting “more and more.” PIOMAS shows the amount of ice melting annually is pretty-much constant. It is the volume of ice that hasn’t melted that is shrinking decade by decade because melt>freeze. And IPCC AR5 showed Greenland will indeed lose its ice cap even at AGW temperatures below 2°C but such a loss-process won’t become irreversable for some centuries. Is there new research supporting “irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet and raise(d) sea levels by 1–2 metres over the next two centuries”? (For the record, I see nothing untoward with the rest of the article. And as we will have the full report to compare with the SPM, the “conservative” nature of the process will be wholly visible.)
169 Kevin McKinney said
#159, Sheldon–
I am the ONLY person, that I have ever seen, who admits things like this.
Um, no, Sheldon, you are not. I do. Nigel does, and so do others here, such as Barton Paul Levenson.
To be sure, ‘there’s them as won’t.’ But that’s true elsewhere, too.
Name one (that isn’t a denialist), then stop adding to the childishness. People here are as flawed as everywhere else, but one thought that has never gone through my head was, “Oh, my! How incapable posters here are of admitting being wrong!”
179 Ray Ladbury says:
Weaktor@173
So your theory is that those rocks suddenly grew there in the last decade or so? Because I sure don’t remember calving events like this before then.
You don’t think that maybe the glacier melting and moving faster might have anything to do with it? Naaaah!
You really are a very dull, broken tool.
V: Take it up with the researchers who did the study, Ray. I’m just the messenger. When you file your complaint, however, I suggest you tone down your language.
I would greatly appreciate the following clarification as regards CO2 anthropogenic emissions..
It appears to be generally accepted that 93% of (anthropogenic?) CO2 goes into the atmosphere.
What are the percentages for the anthropogenic CO2 that goes into the soil, plants, and the atmosphere?
Thanks!
#189, Killian–
Two things. One, why exclude denialists who post here? They were certainly in my mind when I made my comment.
Two, when did you ever admit you were wrong? Don’t remember seeing it, but then I can’t catch everything–especially since I now tend to scroll past most of your comments due to the voluminous personal attacks and “childish” accusation.
GL, #191–
Here’s a summary diagram:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle#/media/File:Carbon_cycle.jpg
As you can see, there are many more sinks and sources than you mention–notably, the ocean.
Grant Linney @191,
Adding to the information in the graphic linked by Kevin McKinney @193, and assume your 93% is somehow misplaced, perhaps even a typo of 43% which would be a pretty accurate value. (Sometimes a higher value is given, closer to 50%, but such values ignore the emissions resulting from Land-Use Change.)
If you dig deep into the Global Carbon Project website they put the atmospheric portion of our emissions as averaging at 45% with 25% going into the oceans and 30% into the biosphere.
These proportions are not set in stone but are a function of the rate of our emissions. After we stop emitting CO2, over the very long term (in about 1,000 years), the quantity of our CO2 remaining in the atmosphere will have dropped by about half, leaving 20% to 25% in the atmosphere. With the reduction of atmospheric CO2, the biosphere will also start giving up some of its accumulated carbon, the proportion of our emissions in the biosphere dropping to perhaps 15%. The reason for these reductions is the CO2 absorption by the oceans which will be the destination for the bulk of our CO2, perhaps 60% to 65%. The slow absorption by the oceans is because a lot of ocean water takes centuries to come to the surface which is where it needs to be to reach equilibrium with the atmosphere.
And as the graphic linked by Kevin MaKinney shows, the massive natural carbon cycle continues on as ever, although it will be pumping marginally more CO2 because of our emissions. This is demonstrated by the annual wobble in the Keeling Curve which has grown some 10% since measurements began at the MLO in 1959.
Victor, you do know that the article you linked to does not in any way suggest that global warming is not causing glaciers to melt and seas to rise, right? If not, you are reading FAR too much into it.
Weaktor,
I’ll try to be nicer if you try to be smarter. Deal?
MAR @188, good comments, but while the detailed parts of the report are not overly conservative, it leaves the summary for policy makers clearly much more substantially watered down. This is so frustrating, and shows the problems of inclusive group consensus decision making.
Don’t know what else to say. Just venting my annoyance.
Re #192 Kevin McKinney said #189, Killian–
Name one (that isn’t a denialist), then stop adding to the childishness.
Two things. One, why exclude denialists who post here?
The irony of one driving negative discourse attacking the one calling them out for it. But, of course, it’s all my fault, not yours for your low-minded insinuation.
Why exclude denialists? By definition, liars or zealots. Is that so hard to understand you need it explained? Argumentative on your part.
They were certainly in my mind when I made my comment.
Of course. But, then, look at the solutions you support, that aren’t. Both allow one to question your analytical skills. You do not work from the standpoint of principles, so don’t fully understand. What is the nature of denial? Is it worth responding to? There was a time. That time is past. Now that the majority of opinion is solidly on the side of change, continuing to engage them is counter-productive, particularly if they are not to be named for what they are and the costs they have created in terms of past, present and future loss of human lives and other biota. But that is rude and mean, while their costing of lives and life is OK because it’s “opinion” – which is bull. And you insult them regularly, so…? Hypocrisy.
First order thinking is they should not be in your mind nor on your agenda, yet are. Why? Absolutely typical thinking, thus poor judgment.
Two, when did you ever admit you were wrong? Don’t remember seeing it, but then I can’t catch everything–especially since I now tend to scroll past most of your comments due to the voluminous personal attacks and “childish” accusation.
First, what have I gotten right that none here will acknowledge? Almost everything: General rapidity of climate changes being far faster than the science has indicated, Arctic permafrost and clathrate melt, the 2016 El Nino effects, e.g.
What, whiny one, have I actually gotten wrong, rather than not 100% right? Pretty much nothing. So name it. That said, I have, in fact, stated I was wrong about the rapidity of ASI melt and the overall rate of change. It’s been fast, but I expected somewhat faster. What is significant about your question is the insult in it. To have admitted being wrong, i would have to have been wrong, and your implication is that I have been but don’t have the character to admit it. This is a false narrative on this site full of sound and fury but virtually no original thinking on climate from any regular posters. I have taken the risk of posting original ideas, of going against luminaries such as Schmidt and holding my own. You attack my character, yet what can you offer as evidence? What original analysis have you offered? None. Evidence of me being wrong? You have none. When have I been wrong other than what I have stated myself?
So, don’t talk about insults while slinging them, hypocrite.
1. You go after the denialists regularly, hypocrite.
2. Voluminous, my butt. Flat-out lie.
3. Childish is a characterization – it’s an adjective – of your post, not you, so in no way an attack. I, in fact, almost never make personal attacks. I characterize comments, not people. Your implication above that 1. I am wrong and 2. will not admit it, is a heavy attack, a personal attack, on my character. That is something I avoid when I can. You have made it impossible here.
The problem is that most of you – and this is a personal use – are childish in your use of language. Just as you here confuse childish as a characterization of YOU vs. the POST you wrote, the same thing happens all the time, and you support it by jumping to the defense of the supposedly aggrieved who have, in fact, not been attacked at all (nigelj).
This is personal: You are typical of this era. You believe yourself high brow, but have low language awareness and consistently mischaracterize communication as attacking when it is not because in this era any negative comment towards a post or opinion is seen as violent. It’s ridiculous. It’s the “everyone’s a winner and all get trophies” generation. Too many decades of infantilization. Get. Over. It.
Hopefully, this post will help you tell the difference between addressing the comment vs. attacking the person.
If you have the guts to read it and see your truth laid bare.
For the hypocritical style police, themselves adept at attack and rudeness, and interesting take on public discourse,as what we need is more, not less, discourse and more, not less, calling people out on their errors, biases, and Politically Correct pathologies. Else, we fail.
https://aeon.co/ideas/against-civility-or-why-habermas-recommends-a-wild-public-sphere
198 Killian says: “First order thinking is they [deniers and fools] should not be in your mind nor on your agenda, yet are. Why?”
People have their particular limitations. So they’ll hang out at a place that encourages and supports those limitations. Makes ’em feel good. :-)
Killian, #198–
I rest my case.