Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[DaveThomasNMSR]

Boslough TEDxABQ

My colleague Mark Boslough of Sandia Labs has asked me to spread this around:

Mankind can bet on global warming -- and win:



Cheers, Dave

 

[Mr Clingford]

This BBC article is interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20543483

"The lead author of the research, Prof Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University, said the study brought to an end 20 years of disagreement between different teams.

"We can now say for sure that Antarctica is losing ice and we can see how the rate of loss from Greenland is going up over the same period as well," he added."

 

[macdoc]

sort of obvious at this point

Adapting to a warmer world: No going back

With nations doing little to slow climate change, many people are ramping up plans to adapt to the inevitable.

• Olive Heffernan1

28 November 2012http://www.nature.com/news/adapting-to-a-warmer-world-no-going-back-1.11906

 

[macdoc]

This was new to me.....just one more thing.

Megastorms Could Drown Massive Portions of California

Huge flows of vapor in the atmosphere, dubbed "atmospheric rivers," have unleashed massive floods every 200 years, and climate change could bring more of them

By Michael D. Dettinger and B. Lynn Ingram

http://www.scientificamerican.com/m...uld-down-massive-portions-of-california_1.jpg

DROWNED: A 43-day atmospheric-river storm in 1861 turned California’s Central Valley region into an inland sea, simulated here on a current-day map. Image: Don Foley
In Brief

* Geologic evidence shows that truly massive floods, caused by rainfall alone, have occurred in California about every 200 years. The most recent was in 1861, and it bankrupted the state.
* Such floods were most likely caused by atmospheric rivers: narrow bands of water vapor about a mile above the ocean that extend for thousands of miles. Much smaller forms of these rivers regularly hit California, as well as the western coasts of other countries.
* Scientists who created a simulated megastorm, called ARkStorm, that was patterned after the 1861 flood but was less severe, found that such a torrent could force more than a million people to evacuate and cause $400 billion in losses if it happened in California today.
* Forecasters are getting better at predicting the arrival of atmospheric rivers, which will improve warnings about flooding from the common storms and about the potential for catastrophe from a megastorm.

More In This Article

The intense rainstorms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually unabated for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada mountains along the state’s eastern border into raging torrents that swept away entire communities and mining settlements. The rivers and rains poured into the state’s vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of people died, and one quarter of the state’s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown water filled with debris from countless mudslides on the region’s steep slopes. California’s legislature, unable to function, moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out—six months later. By then, the state was bankrupt.

Editor's note (11/30/12): The article will appear in the January 2013 issue of Scientific American. We are making it freely available now because of the flooding underway in California.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rms-could-down-massive-portions-of-california

 

[CapelDodger]

This was new to me.....just one more thing.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rms-could-down-massive-portions-of-california

I don't put much store by the SciAm name these days, I'm afraid. This sounds like the sort of story they'd run without much consideration for how valid it might be.

 

[lionking]

The Global Carbon Project has released a very disturbing report:

http://www.theage.com.au/environmen...f-the-world-as-we-know-it-20121202-2ap4l.html

THE world is on track to see "an unrecognisable planet" that is between 4 and 6 degrees hotter by the end of this century, according to new data on greenhouse gas emissions.
As United Nations climate negotiations enter their second week in Doha, Qatar, an Australian-based international research effort that tracks greenhouse gas output will release its annual findings on Monday, showing emissions climbing too quickly to stave off the effects of dangerous climate change.
The new forecast does not include recent revelations about the effects of thawing permafrost, which is starting to release large amounts of methane from the Arctic. This process makes cutting human emissions of fossil fuels even more urgent, scientists say.

I'm happy to admit that I once thought reports of global warming to be exaggerated, but have changed my opinion, in part due to some of the threads here. Not only is global warming irrefutable, it's getting almost too late to do anything meaningful.

Unfortunately, when you look at polls, at least in Australia, you find either dumb "scepticism", resignation or "not our problem" responses. Depressing.

It looks like Doha won't come up with anything meaningful.

 

[carlosy]

This article and your post are wrong at one thing: It's the word "almost".
It is too late. Seriously, there might be a theoretical chance. But in a practical sense we are past the point of no return.

Instead of lingering around with impossible scenarios about 2 degrees or what not, we should start thinking about how we will deal with the inevitable.

If any, this is only about how deep will be the **** that we will sit in, not if we can avoid the ****. And from seeing how we acted in the past 20 years, we should assume the we will end up in the deepest possible way.

So it's time to view this whole issue in a realistic manner and stop dreaming about impossible visions and wasting time, money and ressources in meaningless protocols and wishful thinking.

 

[lionking]

This article and your post are wrong at one thing: It's the word "almost".
It is too late. Seriously, there might be a theoretical chance. But in a practical sense we are past the point of no return.

Instead of lingering around with impossible scenarios about 2 degrees or what not, we should start thinking about how we will deal with the inevitable.

If any, this is only about how deep will be the **** that we will sit in, not if we can avoid the ****. And from seeing how we acted in the past 20 years, we should assume the we will end up in the deepest possible way.

So it's time to view this whole issue in a realistic manner and stop dreaming about impossible visions and wasting time, money and ressources in meaningless protocols and wishful thinking.

I agree. In 2010 the call from the scientific community was "we must stop the increase in carbon emissions by 2015 or else". Nothing will happen by 2015.

I have a grandchild due next June. I despair for his or hers future.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I thought this site and fora were all about scepticism and critical thinking

I find now that neo-denialism is the new trend, that is, what they have to say to avoid any action or interference in their businesses: first, it was "it's not happening"; now, by sleigh of hand, it becomes "it's too late". Different sources, you say? Why don't you take a closer look. Press, and a few scientists, and a lot scientific attachés are the components of this new "background noise". And what about the usual suspects, those who so vividly climagated Copenhagen? what are they doing now in Doha's time? instead of agitating like a hive without queen they are strangely calm in the context of a business as usual stance.

So, who do you work for now?

Common sense will return after Doha when it won't pose any risk to politics, I don't doubt it a second, but, why do we have to acquiesce in the meantime?

 

[lionking]

I thought this site and fora were all about scepticism and critical thinking

I find now that neo-denialism is the new trend, that is, what they have to say to avoid any action or interference in their businesses: first, it was "it's not happening"; now, by sleigh of hand, it becomes "it's too late". Different sources, you say? Why don't you take a closer look. Press, and a few scientists, and a lot scientific attachés are the components of this new "background noise". And what about the usual suspects, those who so vividly climagated Copenhagen? what are they doing now in Doha's time? instead of agitating like a hive without queen they are strangely calm in the context of a business as usual stance.

So, who do you work for now?

Common sense will return after Doha when it won't pose any risk to politics, I don't doubt it a second, but, why do we have to acquiesce in the meantime?

So what is your position on global warming?

 

[carlosy]

Yes, but I'm afraid that there won't be no action too about getting prepared. Simply because no one really cares about 2050 or even 2100. Most living people who are old enough to realize the problems, are going to be dead by then anyway. So they don't care. I think most people don't think any further than maybe 5 years. And who wants to blame them? Things are changing more rapidly than ever. Who can predict where the world (knowledge, society, progress in everyday life etc.) will be in 5 or 10 years. 50 or even 100 years is too far away for all of us.

I think the only thing that will happen, is that we will try to adapt as we go along.

 

[lionking]

Yes. And try to ameliorate the damage. Now.

 

[aleCcowaN]

So what is your position on global warming?

Be more specific.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Yes. And try to ameliorate the damage. Now.

... alleviate the damage ...

What we have to ameliorate is the topic's discussion, back to science, including economics.

 

[macdoc]

He's correct with ameliorate

AMELIORATE. transitive verb. : to make
better or more tolerable

.

Slowing the onset ameliorates the impact of AGW.

very similar - so at least you're not wrong in the use

Definition of ALLEVIATE. : relieve, lessen: as. a : to
make (as suffering) more bearable

•••

Originally Posted by lionking


So what is your position on global warming?

new here eh ? Alec is a product of ascerbic wit meets ESL.

•••••

Economics of what??
The move to lower carbon ....before it's imposed by scarcity?
Dealing with the damage ?

••••

http://tamino.wordpress.com/

 

[macdoc]

some good articles at Tamino recently
http://tamino.wordpress.com/

 

[bobwtfomg]

This article and your post are wrong at one thing: It's the word "almost".
It is too late. Seriously, there might be a theoretical chance. But in a practical sense we are past the point of no return.

Instead of lingering around with impossible scenarios about 2 degrees or what not, we should start thinking about how we will deal with the inevitable.

If any, this is only about how deep will be the **** that we will sit in, not if we can avoid the ****. And from seeing how we acted in the past 20 years, we should assume the we will end up in the deepest possible way.

So it's time to view this whole issue in a realistic manner and stop dreaming about impossible visions and wasting time, money and ressources in meaningless protocols and wishful thinking.

This seems like a counsel of despair, whilst I agree that limiting global warming to 2 degrees this century may now be unrealistic, as CO2 emissions have increased faster than the most pessimistic projections were assuming even 5 years ago, I don't think we should give up on the idea of mitigation by limiting CO2 emissions, as continuing to burn FFs at the current rate will commit future generations to having to adapt to 6,7 or 8 degrees.
If humanity had got it's act together 25 years ago when the first serious warnings were issued we could have been well on our way to a carbon neutral economy by now and we could have avoided a 2 degree rise (bad climate change). If humanity gets it's act together now we can avoid a 6 degree rise (disastrous climate change). Or to borrow your analogy yes future generations are going to have to sit in our ****, but not neccessarily drown in it if we start toilet training now.

So what is this realistic manner in which you view this problem?
What is your alternative to "meaningless" protocols and wishful thinking?

 

[aleCcowaN]

This seems like a counsel of despair, whilst I agree that limiting global warming to 2 degrees this century may now be unrealistic, ...

This sounds to me so like chalk screeching a blackboard.

Look, y'all. When I hear this kind of things -I hardly see them in written form- I remember my grandfather who was born in a 550,000 people Buenos Aires in 1886 -a few years after Menlo Park- and didn't enjoy electric lights in his home until he was 6 or 8 -he wouldn't remember-. The only modern product my French great-grandmother enjoyed at home when she married was the daily home delivering of ice bars (and also the Basque milkmen adding ice to "preserve" the milk during Summer). Grandpa certainly had a home refrigerator much later, in the late twenties.

Why am I bringing these subjects? Because in 1956 the first commercial scale nuclear power station was opened. Some time before my grandpa died in 1973, I was a kiddo and I was sipping mate and chatting with him about what I believed to be "the news" -probably Apollo 16 or 17- and I asked him: "Did you imagine when you were my age that you would see and hear the man walking in the moon in a box" (TV set) "at your home? How do you feel about it?" (think that when he was my age then he probably hadn't watched his first film, the most recent technical breakthrough by the Lumière brothers) and he answered "This is no longer my world! I almost don't recognize anything I knew. I don't belong here" what was very shocking to hear in such my tender age. He would die a few months after -I hardly recall as I was just a kid-.

Let's translate it to the present: The same way my grandpa enjoyed ice bars and pretty brand new home electric lights -instead of dangerous, unbearably hot during Summer gas lights- in 1895 and a nuclear power plant existed 61 years later, and a man walked in the moon 74 years in the future. How could I -or anyone else- dare to declare what the technology related to energy would be in 2070 or 2100 and what effects all the technological transitions would have on the GHG pool whatever the policies may become?

All this 4°, 6°, 8°C exercise is just hogwash once you jump outside their proper boundaries: confirming that we CAN DO real harm; how what it looks like an innocent temperature increase can translate in shocking regional changes, and other similar to these.

The use out of context is just neo-denialism. It's just trying to prevent actions that may avoid a 0.1 or 0.2°C increase during the next two decades (the horizon of almost constant technology) just because it'd be just a costly drop in an ocean of warming.

 

[aleCcowaN]

This certainly ameliorates [real meaning] confirmation bias

He's correct with ameliorate

.

Slowing the onset ameliorates the impact of AGW.

very similar - so at least you're not wrong in the use

Dictionary.reference.com

usage Ameliorate is often wrongly used where alleviate is meant. Ameliorate is properly used to mean `improve', not `make easier to bear', so one should talk about alleviating pain or hardship, not ameliorating it

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language

Usage: Ameliorate is sometimes confused with alleviate but the words are not synonymous. Ameliorate comes ultimately from the Latin for `better', and means `to improve'. The nouns it typically goes with are condition, and situation. Alleviate means `to lessen', and frequently occurs with poverty, suffering, pain, symptoms, and effects. Occasionally ameliorate is used with effects and poverty where the other verb may be more appropriate.

 

[aleCcowaN]

new here eh ? Alec is a product of ascerbic wit meets ESL.

•••••

Have I gained such a vitriolic fame?

I meant vitriolic as "acerbic on vitamins" (like ascorbic acid )

Economics of what??
The move to lower carbon ....before it's imposed by scarcity?
Dealing with the damage ?

••••

Economics of everything related to the subject, including growth, prevention of GHG emission via taxation, role of international institutions like World Bank or IMF -or creation of new ones-, and the longest etcetera.