Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[Trakar]

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...and-devastate-the-global-economy-9198171.html

I expect that this is an extremely conservative estimate of results.

 

[macdoc]

Aren't you just the bluebird of happiness

 

[CapelDodger]

Is there any real benefit to stronger city-states in an increasingly climate disrupted future?

They're perhaps best placed to cope with their specific set of problems, but they're too small to manage entire watersheds such as the Indus, Tigris-Euphrates or the Mississipi. That requires, if history's anything to go by, an Empire.

Old/existing state lines and boundaries seem increasingly arbitrary and clumsy both economically, socially, and politically.

I've been of that opinion since I was at school, and current events in the Crimea are just another confirmation, to my mind. The sovereign nation-state model has had its day, but these things are hard to shift. As late as 1914, for instance, three of the main antagonists were dynastic states - Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. It took the Great War to finally get over that hump in Europe, where the nation-state was born, let alone in the rest of the world.

Now the world has re-emergent theocracies and I still don't have my jetpack . So much for the promises of Progress.

 

[macdoc]

You almost sense the US is only held together by the thinnest threads as well.
Dysfunctional central gov unable to govern and weighted down by debt and spending on military.

I do think there is a middle ground with some common defence cost sharing while maintaining soveriegnity

Something like NATO seems to work...not sure Euro zone is.

 

[CapelDodger]

You almost sense the US is only held together by the thinnest threads as well.

The various colonies were as jealous of their sovereignty as nation-states are today. The resulting federation has been a wonderful experiment and has lessons for us all, but whether it's a nation-state at all is debatable. Not here, obviously.

Dysfunctional central gov unable to govern and weighted down by debt and spending on military.

It can fix itself, and I'm confident it will. Even the Republican Party will repair itself.

Something like NATO seems to work...not sure Euro zone is.

NATO is just a useful Rolodex; the Euro is legal tender. Russians and Ukrainians all love the stuff, can't get enough. Crisis? What crisis?

 

[macdoc]

Back on topic tho perhaps another thread on political barriers to climate action might be in order.

•••

Chinese scientists urged to develop new thorium nuclear reactors by 2024
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 18 March, 2014, 11:42pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 19 March, 2014, 4:50pm
Stephen Chen

Beijing wants to cut its reliance on coal-fired power. Photo: AP
The deadline to develop a new design of nuclear power plant has been brought forward by 15 years as the central government tries to reduce the nation's reliance on smog-producing coal-fired power stations.

A team of scientists in Shanghai had originally been given 25 years to try to develop the world's first nuclear plant using the radioactive element thorium as fuel rather than uranium, but they have now been told they have 10, the researchers said.

"In the past the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog," said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/arti...ged-develop-new-thorium-nuclear-reactors-2024

The joys of single party....

do it....NOW!

 

[riptor]

What's happened to all us warmists? We seem so relaxed. It's as if we know something they don't ...

I sense a window closing so I'll get this in now : the AGW denial project is about to hit the precipitous decline phase that all cults arrive at. I called it as peaked when the Heartland billboard campaign revealed that the talent had moved on. AGW was only ever a skirmish; the real battle has been joined and it's between renewables and the old order. It's not being fought with AGW denial, it's being fought over economics and strategic national interest. The tactic now is not to mention climate change at all, any more than a tobacco company wants to mention lung cancer. Just don't go there.

Nobody who wants to be taken seriously wants to associate with AGW denial these days, and a company which wants to frack under your house without telling you is in great need of being taken seriously. They're in great need of not running oilrigs aground in the Arctic as well, but that's neither here nor there. PR can proactively distance the company from Monckton and Watts, to the extent that old white entitled males in good suits are able to get the point.

AGW denial is already a fringe in the Anglophone world, which is it's heartland. We're now at the point where everybody else is starting to notice that, and it's the cascade moment.

In the UK we've had flooding in the last decade that nobody's being persuaded is normal, and trotting out "Lord" Lawson (is anything uglier than a thin man in a fat man's skin?) to say otherwise is not helping the denier case. We have an extended general election in progress, and AGW is not a Tory strength by any means. That'll keep it in the public eye.

The Californian drought is going to be a popular news-filler in the US this summer, and AGW is bound to come up. If an El Nino saves the day in autumn it'll bring it's own telegenic problems with it, so there's no relief for deniers there.

In Australia the abject ineptitude of the Abbott government will tar AGW denial with the same brush whatever the weather does. If an El Nino does occur things are likely to get really wild, especially in Queensland. Which will sort out sea-level rise for a year or two, which is a relief.

I don't see any bright horizons for AGW deniers, and I've an active imagination. We're at the point where political argument becomes about what you'll do about AGW and when, not whether anything should be done at all.

I'm afraid I'm not as optimistic as some of you are. Most (if not all) of the deniers I've dealt with, either online or in real life, don't care about the facts. They are either die hard conservatives who lap up anything they hear from talk radio, or they are conspiracy theorists who believe it is just a hoax invented by the government to raise taxes or set up a one world government. I recently read a comment on another forum I frequent that sums up this mentally, when one poster described it as a scam invented by Al Gore and believed by his legions of zealots. No amount of evidence, no matter how directly it might affect them, is going to convince them otherwise. And they are not a significant minority either, just look at how many people still deny evolution.

I hope I am wrong and your optimism is warranted, but I think that as the evidence becomes more and more in their face, so to speak, they will ramp up their campaigns of disinformation. And their followers will eat it up no matter what I'm afraid.

 

[CapelDodger]

I'm afraid I'm not as optimistic as some of you are.

Me neither, most of the time. I tend to overreact to Spring but it soon wears off.

I recently read a comment on another forum I frequent that sums up this mentally, when one poster described it as a scam invented by Al Gore and believed by his legions of zealots. No amount of evidence, no matter how directly it might affect them, is going to convince them otherwise. And they are not a significant minority either, just look at how many people still deny evolution.

The zealots are certainly a minority, and impervious to reason; my position is that their influence on the public is well on the wane. There's a fundamental (see what I did there? ) difference between AGW and evolution: evolution won't ever flood your house so you can think what you like about it. AGW, on the other hand, might be to blame if it happens, and at such times people want something to blame. Blaming it on Al Gore and/or Mike Mann (may their tribe increase) really won't do it.

I hope I am wrong and your optimism is warranted, but I think that as the evidence becomes more and more in their face, so to speak, they will ramp up their campaigns of disinformation. And their followers will eat it up no matter what I'm afraid.

AGW denial is now a classic cult (as opposed to being a cult classic like Firefly), sealing in the zealots whatever happens in the outside world. Some politicians will continue to appeal to them but they're pretty much all losers such as Inhofe. (Abbott went against the flow in Australia by being not-the-other-party for a notoriously unsophisticated electorate so not too much can be read into that.)

Watch for politicians competing with each other over their plans for dealing with AGW, with its existence taken as given, because that's what their pollsters and political advisors tell them will play best with the proles. That's when we can be sure that denial is defeated.

Getting the right policies after that is ...

Damn, now I'm starting to feel depressed again .

 

[Trakar]

Inhomogeneous forcing and transient climate sensitivity

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2136.html

((http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/supplement/sh01700t/Clim_sens_inh_fcg_v5_text_figs.pdf))

...Forcing in CMIP5 models has been estimated assuming that all forcing agents have a similar forcing/response relationship as the one for WMGHG13. Such an analysis would systematically overestimate net aerosol+ozone forcing (the dependence of this method on constant regional warming and feedback patterns has been noted). Similarly, global mean temperature responses to projected aerosol and ozone forcing would be underestimated if the forcing distribution is not accounted for. Such biases affect simple box model calculations, and lead to underestimates of aerosol impacts in calculations using simple models relative to analogous calculations using full three-*‐dimensional composition-*‐climate models...

As I said up thread, "an extremely conservative estimate of results."


The good news?

On the generation and interpretation of
probabilistic estimates of climate sensitivity
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/probrevised.pdf

the long fat tail that is characteristic of all recent estimates of climate sensitivity simply disappears, with an upper 95% probability limit...easily shown to lie close to 4°C, and certainly well below 6°C.

 

[Trakar]

Bits and Pieces over the last few weeks

US mass transit uptick

Learning from Japan’s bullet trains -

...The US in particular is looking to learn from Japan’s successful application of high-speed technology, having already established a partnership with Japan’s rail sector. California’s High-Speed Rail Authority has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to open up a dialogue to help the US learn how to design, build, operate and maintain a high-speed railway.

Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central) is also hoping to develop its most modern invention, the 500km/h Superconducting Maglev, on the US east coast between New York and Washington. The technology is so new that even Japan is still 13 years away from opening its first line between Tokyo and Nagoya...

http://www.globalrailnews.com/2014/01/24/learning-from-japans-bullet-trains/

More Americans used buses, trains and subways in 2013 than in any year since 1956 as service improved, local economies grew and travelers increasingly sought alternatives to the automobile for trips within metropolitan areas, - http://www.apta.com/mediacenter/pressreleases/2014/Pages/140310_Ridership.aspx

An evolving residential and commercial building code focused on enhancing energy efficiency and independence, as well as climate adaptability considerations, would probably be a step forward.

Looking for energy-efficiency in buildings? There's no need to wait for new technology - Passive House buildings use 80-90% less heating and cooling energy—a reduction far greater than any other available construction standard can deliver. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN5-MOeB2j4

Sound Economic Standing

Ambiguity is another reason to mitigate climate change

The answers to “How much should people sacrifice today for the benefit of those living several decades from now?” vary widely. This column suggests that people’s distaste for uncertainty – ambiguity aversion – favours immediate, rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.voxeu.org/article/ambiguity-another-reason-mitigate-climate-change

If you don't like the weather, stick around awhile, it will change...

Global increase in record-breaking monthly-mean temperatures

Abstract
The last decade has produced record-breaking heat waves in many parts of the world. At the same time, it was globally the warmest since sufficient measurements started in the 19th century. Here we show that, worldwide, the number of local record-breaking monthly temperature extremes is now on average five times larger than expected in a climate with no long-term warming. This implies that on average there is an 80% chance that a new monthly heat record is due to climatic change. Large regional differences exist in the number of observed records. Summertime records, which are associated with prolonged heat waves, increased by more than a factor of ten in some continental regions including parts of Europe, Africa, southern Asia and Amazonia. Overall, these high record numbers are quantitatively consistent with those expected for the observed climatic warming trend with added stationary white noise. In addition, we find that the observed records cluster both in space and in time. Strong El Niño years see additional records superimposed on the expected long-term rise. Under a medium global warming scenario, by the 2040s we predict the number of monthly heat records globally to be more than 12 times as high as in a climate with no long-term warming.

(full article) http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...OWv8Er64uuKQF7MKA&sig2=XZD4kM2k-y_KwG6bYjdIBA

 

[Farsight]

The zealots are certainly a minority, and impervious to reason; my position is that their influence on the public is well on the wane. There's a fundamental (see what I did there? ) difference between AGW and evolution: evolution won't ever flood your house so you can think what you like about it. AGW, on the other hand, might be to blame if it happens...

You want to try saying that in Somerset, mate. Where their houses were flooded because the Environment Agency wouldn't dredge the rivers. You'd get lynched.

AGW denial is now a classic cult...

Huh? There's no room for words like zealots, denial, and cult in a scientific debate. You won't win over anybody talking like that. What counts is evidence.

 

[macdoc]

What "debate" would that be Farsight??....there is no debate on the existence of AGW in the climate science community.
Not even Exxon denies it now...

There is a manufactured controversy by the 10's of millions poured into the disinformation campaign by fossil fuel interests.

I suggest you inform yourself on that count
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

•••

seems you are about as wrong about AGW as you are about dredging rivers reiieving floods.

Misinformed on both counts.

BBC News - Dredging could 'make flooding worse'www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26175210‎
Dredging is a "cruel offer of false hope" to those living in flood-prone communities ... 13 February 2014 Last updated at 21:47 ET ... that the practice would not have prevented flooding, though it may have reduced the duration by about a third.

UK floods: raise roads and redesign houses, engineers say ...
www.theguardian.com › Environment › Flooding‎
Feb 25, 2014 - theguardian.com, Tuesday 25 February 2014 00.59 EST ... But in the case of the Somerset Levels, the water will not flow away faster as it's not .

..

Dredging would not have stopped massive UK floods - New Scientist

www.newscientist.com/.../dn25030-dredging-would-not-have-st...‎
by andy coghlan
The only way to reduce the risk of severe floods is to manage water across entire catchment ... Updated 15:22 11 February 2014 by Andy Coghlan ... by New Scientist say that dredging alone would not have stopped the flooding. "Given the ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25030-dredging-would-not-have-stopped-massive-uk-floods.html

You are trying to claim a science oriented approach......evidence is....you are not doing very well at that.

 

[Trakar]

You want to try saying that in Somerset, mate. Where their houses were flooded because the Environment Agency wouldn't dredge the rivers. You'd get lynched.

Huh? There's no room for words like zealots, denial, and cult in a scientific debate. You won't win over anybody talking like that. What counts is evidence.

What "scientific debate," are you referring to?

 

[Trakar]

...There is a manufactured controversy by the 10's of millions poured into the disinformation campaign by fossil fuel interests.

I suggest you inform yourself on that count
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Now, now, if this person was interested in facts, they would have availed themselves of them long before popping in here to proffer their opinions.

 

[CapelDodger]

You want to try saying that in Somerset, mate. Where their houses were flooded because the Environment Agency wouldn't dredge the rivers. You'd get lynched.

Somerset farmers are not as stupid as you think. They know they just came through the wettest winter on record in their parts, and that there would have been flooding anyway. They also know, in the main, that AGW is real because they do get out a lot. That's in the nature of farming. It may not, of course, be in yours.

A few farmers complained about lack of dredging, which was of couirse amplified by the usual suspects (Daily Mail, Torygraph, BBC "balance" and the like) sufficiently to actually reach the US, which is unusual for "foreign" news. The larger farming community knows full-well that their farms were sacrificed for the sake of the towns. Dredge the rivers and the water gets more quickly to the next pinch-point, such as a bridge or built-up area. It doesn't, on the Levels, get quicker to the sea because large swathes are below sea-level.

The Somerset farmer I know has the good sense to have land in the Mendips, and to be well aware of AGW. What people in the UK are asking for, and our Tory government is pandering to (see this week's Budget, which you my not have noticed, it being foreign and all), is action in anticipation of what's coming because of AGW. And in the Levels they're coming to terms with the fact that they'll have to change their farming practices in the world which already exists.

They're not stupid, after all.

Huh? There's no room for words like zealots, denial, and cult in a scientific debate. You won't win over anybody talking like that. What counts is evidence.

I don't expect to win over anybody who still doubts AGW and the effects it's already having. Fortunately I don't need to. They're a tiny minority with no scientific arguments to make, denying a reality people can see with their own eyes. Which is no problem for a cult, of course; in fact it's pretty much a definition.

Zealots, denial, cult ... all entirely appropriate terms. Go to WattsUpMyButt and see for yourself.

 

[macdoc]

my my the task of the climate change denier gets more difficult everyday...

Fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil has agreed to release a report showing how climate change, and the resulting limits on greenhouse gases, can pose a risk to the value of its assets, the company announced Thursday. It will be the first oil and gas producer to make such information public.

The move came after shareholders insisted that the future value of fossil fuel assets is a pretty big deal for them: “Without additional disclosure, shareholders are unable to determine whether Exxon Mobil is adequately managing these risks or seizing related opportunities,” they wrote in a resolution filed last fall.

According to Exxon, “the report will provide investors with greater transparency into how ExxonMobil plans for a future where market forces and climate regulation makes at least some portion of its carbon reserves unburnable.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/20/exxon_agrees_to_look_into_this_whole_climate_change_thing/

kicking and screaming into the reality of AGW.

•••

FRIDAY, MAR 21, 2014 12:30 PM UTC
Why global warming will cross a dangerous threshold in 2036
Current rates of CO2 emissions will soon push Earth’s temperature up by 2 degrees Celsius
MICHAEL E. MANN, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Scientific American If the world continues to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, global warming will rise 2 degrees Celsius by 2036, crossing a threshold that many scientists think will hurt all aspects of human civilization: food, water, health, energy, economy and national security. In my article “False Hope” in the April 2014 Scientific American, I reveal dramatic curves that show why the world will reach this temperature limit so quickly, and also why the recent slowdown in the rate of temperature increase, if it continues, will only buy us another 10 years.

These numbers come from calculations made by me and several colleagues. We plugged values of Earth’s “equilibrium climate sensitivity”—a common measure of the heating effect of greenhouse gases—into a so-called energy balance model. Scientists use the model to investigate possible climate scenarios.

You can try this exercise yourself. The text below explains the variables and steps involved. You can download the climate data here and the model code here. And you can compare your results with mine, which are here. You can also change the variables to see what other future scenarios are possible. One note: the model runs on MatLab software, which can be obtained here.
http://www.mathworks.com.au/include...inRedirect.html?uri=http://www.mathworks.com/

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/21/why_global_warming_will_cross_a_dangerous_threshold_in_2036_partner/

 

[macdoc]

Well... a small negativer feedback...

Less gloopy oceans will slow climate change

16:27 21 March 2014 by Fred Pearce

Our changing climate will have an unexpected effect: it will make the oceans less thick and viscous. That is good news, as it should make the seas much better at burying atmospheric carbon out of harm's way on the seabed.

The effect is big enough to reduce the temperature rise by 8 per cent, says Jan Taucher of the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research at Kiel, Germany, who claims to be the first to model the change in stickiness.

Much of the carbon dioxide we pour into the atmosphere dissolves into the ocean, where it is taken up by growing organisms. When these organisms die, some of the carbon forms particles that sink to the ocean floor. To replace this buried carbon, the oceans absorb more from the air, which in turn curbs climate change.

Global warming may give this process a boost, says Taucher. Warmer water is less viscous, and a previous study suggested the particles will sink 5 per cent faster for every degree of warming, so more carbon will end up on the seabed.

Taucher added the viscosity effect to a model of ocean physics and chemistry and ran it until the year 4000, with emissions falling to zero after 2100. The world ended up 6 °C warmer, but the oceans absorbed 17 per cent more carbon dioxide than previously thought. That reduced overall warming by 8 per cent.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ns-will-slow-climate-change.html#.Uy1Z49zjP3w

 

[!Kaggen]

How do I respond to this???

"Scientific consensus does not make it right, neither does it validate poor scientific models. The scientific method was poorly applied to the research done by IPCC. They neglected the hypotheses: anthropogenic CO2 is the driver of global warming. Nowhere did their research disprove the nulhypothesis. Just like big industry grants to research against create concerns about the validity and intent of the findings, so should big governments' funding of research be viewed with skepticism. There once was consensus that the world is flat, that did not make right, nor did it change the fact that people died for speaking out against ii.

Since the current über IPCC climate models are wrong, how could I take their findings seriously? Climate is supposed to change. That is what has happened since the planet's beginning. I believe that humans are not driving the change as much as some people are saying. We can hardly predict tomorrow's weather, why are we so self centered to believe that we will influence the climate by stopping development? I feel about the IPCC report the way you feel about the "denialists" reports. There is nothing wrong with that, it is just that we must first consider all the different sides of this polyhedron before switching off fossil power."

 

[Farsight]

Somerset farmers are not as stupid as you think.

I certainly did not suggest they were stupid.

...A few farmers complained about lack of dredging, which was of couirse amplified by the usual suspects (Daily Mail, Torygraph...

Oh geddoutofit. What planet are you on?

 

[macdoc]

How do I respond to this???

"Scientific consensus does not make it right, neither does it validate poor scientific models. The scientific method was poorly applied to the research done by IPCC. They neglected the hypotheses: anthropogenic CO2 is the driver of global warming. Nowhere did their research disprove the nulhypothesis. Just like big industry grants to research against create concerns about the validity and intent of the findings, so should big governments' funding of research be viewed with skepticism. There once was consensus that the world is flat, that did not make right, nor did it change the fact that people died for speaking out against ii.

Since the current über IPCC climate models are wrong, how could I take their findings seriously? Climate is supposed to change. That is what has happened since the planet's beginning. I believe that humans are not driving the change as much as some people are saying. We can hardly predict tomorrow's weather, why are we so self centered to believe that we will influence the climate by stopping development? I feel about the IPCC report the way you feel about the "denialists" reports. There is nothing wrong with that, it is just that we must first consider all the different sides of this polyhedron before switching off fossil power.

"

You could start by learning to use the quote function so we can see what you are about.

It's just a compendium of nonsense from a dug in denier.
Are you sure you want to bother??
It's a rant with no focus. There are better things to spend your time on,

One obvious error...the IPCC does not do research

He's trying to put his denialism on a equal basis of the concensus without presenting any evidence.....sounds like a clip from Fox News.

Tell him the evidence proves him wrong and move on.
You could ask him why Exxon now acknowledges climate change as a serious risk.

Exxon CEO: Climate Change Poses Significant Risk, ...
breakingenergy.com/.../exxon-ceo-climate-change-poses-significant-risk...‎
May 29, 2013 - ExxonMobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson acknowledged the risks posed by climate change at the company's annual meeting on May 29,

and ask him to explain this ...since he is under the mistaken impression the globe as not continued to warm

and what is causing the increase in ocean heat.

make him explain the increase in terms of science.

If he dodges....move on. He's just a misguided troll.