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Global warming discussion IV

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Might be an interesting topic on it's own ...minumum biome even with technological.

a little light reading for those interested, some fiction, and some I wish were fiction:

"The Last Hours of Humanity Warming the World to Extinction" by Thom Hartmann

"Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter World" by Mark Lynas

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/printall.php

http://dels.nas.edu/resources/stati...d-on-reports/booklets/warming_world_final.pdf

Here's a review of the second book above (by Eric Steig - UW standup professional in isotope geochemist up in Seattle - another paleoclimate specialist who I eagerly try to to learn as much as I can from!) - We, and our descendants, are in for some scary times, if we are lucky, from here on out. If we aren't lucky, there well maybe no historians to record, or learn from, our folly.

I'm still focused on doing all that I can to prepare and assist my family and community to survive and even thrive as long as possible under the most realistic predictions available. But I don't see any significant moves toward adaptation to the present, yet alone significant preparation for the future, at the state or national level (much less international level).

I don't link to the kindle version as I have no profit to make others, but they are reasonably priced :)
 
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Online course on climate science denial

Online course on climate science denial "Making Sense of Climate Science Denial," starts next Tuesday, Aug. 9.

https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x-1

Course is free for those who want the information, if you want a certificate there is a small fee (~$50).

A couple of video samples:



Student Feedback


Couple hours a week that can help you brush up on the science of climate change and address the issues of those who have an interest in denying and distorting these science understandings.
 
That looks like an interesting course Trakar but I'm currently doing two FutureLearn courses (on earth observation satellites and Homo floresiensis) so I can't really fit it in.

I've signed up for another FutureLearn course on the causes of climate change which starts next month, and which others here might find of interest:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/causes-of-climate-change

This free online course provides the basis for understanding the underlying physical processes governing climate variations in the past, present and future.

In the course, we focus on explaining the main external forcing mechanisms such as the sun, volcanoes, and changes in greenhouse gasses and aerosols, which can contribute to changing the global energy budget and initiate climate variations.

We also describe the important role of internal feedback mechanisms and the energy transport in the atmosphere and ocean, in order to understand regional variations in climate.

Through this course, you will gain an in-depth understanding of the complexities of the climate system, and be able to put the recently observed, man-made changes in climate in the context of past natural changes.
 
That looks like an interesting course Trakar but I'm currently doing two FutureLearn courses (on earth observation satellites and Homo floresiensis) so I can't really fit it in.

I've signed up for another FutureLearn course on the causes of climate change which starts next month, and which others here might find of interest:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/causes-of-climate-change

Thank-you for sharing!
Those courses, as well as several others being offered in the near future, look very interesting indeed!
 
I have one AGW proponent on another forum
Ohai! I was searching around for something different, and noticed that you were talking about me, and wondered if you were misrepresenting me as much here as you are at the other place.
who keeps belittling the "crisis aspect" by claiming this was all foretold by the 1990 IPCC projections.
Yep, turns out you are. I'm not claiming that current temperatures were projected by IPCC's FAR in 1990 in order to belittle the "crisis aspect" of climate change, I'm claiming that current temperatures were projected by IPCC's 1990 FAR because you've made claims that we're decades ahead of the IPCC's worst-case scenario, and your claims are demonstrably false, and quite obviously so to anyone with a working familiarity with the work of the IPCC, and with global temperature data. I agree with you that there's a climate crisis, but disagree with the strategy of telling hyperbolic lies that diminish the credibility of scientists doing work to accurately model what we're doing to the climate, such as this:

I could not find any IPCC projections that got us over 1C before 2016.
Not only did I cite for you the exact page references of where you could find such projections, and reproduce the relevant projections in our discussion, but you yourself even posted IPCC charts showing accurate projections of current temperatures (although admittedly you misrepresented them - through either dishonesty or incompetence - as not doing so).

Anyway - he implies that because it was projected ....it's all "under control" ...the powers that be have a handle on this......which I think is far from reality.
Nope, that another misrepresentation. I've defended consensus climate science's ability to project temperatures. I haven't said we have the impacts of that warming "under control" - that's certainly not a direct quote, nor a conclusion that anyone could reasonably draw from my posting on the subject, as I've consistently argued that "the powers that be" by which I assume you mean various world governments, are doing far less than is required to avert serious impacts.

I AM glad to see more attribution from climate scientists and more agressive ...we were right ...attitude.
And yet your recent attack on me at the other place started when I said that I thought that the reaction of climate scientists to 2016's record warmth should have been "We told you so!" rather than "We're shocked!". Are you now coming around to my view?
 
Trakar ...a poster in another forum is claiming the collective we ...climate scientists...have a firm handle on what will unfold over the next decades.
Again, in temperature terms, cliamte science has an excellent track record of accurate projection. That's not the same as predicting of local impacts, which I've explicitly agreed with you are more uncertain, and potentially severe based on the magnitude of current warming.

He claims we will not get into 1.5-2C before 2050 or so and is sorting of pattinghis readers on the head and saying "not to worry, we know what's coming"...
Again, that's not a direct quotation, nor is it anything remotely resembling my position. It's a figment of your imagination: a worthless strawman.

My position is we DON'T have a handle on this they way he portrays.....we don't even know climate sensitivity as yet.....
[link removed as new posters like myself can't even quote links]


[link and image removed as new posters like myself can't even quote links or external images]

And from what I have seen in casual reading ...evidence seems to support the higher values of TCR over the last while.

Thoughts???
Again, that chart shows an almost unanimous view that the 3.0 TCR that Mann's projection of 2C by 2036 is based on is very unlikely to be accurate. In particular, such a TCR is not consistent with observed warming over the last few decades. Your casual reading does not accord with consensus climate science, for whatever reason that may be; perhaps you favour sources that tend towards the hyperbolic?
 
In my consideration, you have a better handle on this material and the underlying science, than he appears to. That said, his statements are largely in accord with the 20+ year old reports and mainstream science understandings he is using as references. What he doesn't seem to understand is that the evidence and the science understandings have grown and evolved over the last 20+ years and his understandings are as dated as the sources he is referencing.
Hi Trakar, pleased to make your acquaintance in person, rather than just being a person you've talked about without introduction.

I'm afraid that I can't really agree with your assessment that my understandings are stuck in the past. Macdoc was making very specific claims that current temperatures are far beyond what the IPCC's 1990 FAR projected. This is in fact demonstrably untrue, and to demonstrate it requires citation of both current data, and the decades-old projections whose accuracy is being contested. the IPCC FAR of 1990 is not my go-to source, but referencing it is required to substantiate a claim about its contents.

In the disagreement between myself and Macdoc that you seem to have read over, pretty much every source introduced has been introduced by Macdoc - many of them, as you observed, very dated such as Hansen 1981. What I've brought to the discussion is the current data, without which it's impossible to meaningfully form a view as to the accuracy of those past projections. Macdoc made many claims about those projections which the data simply don't support. To criticise me for using old sources when all I've done is to juxtapose the old sources that Macdoc himself brought to the discussion with current data seems, to be charitable, a very lazy reading of the discussion.
 
Yeah ....I really did not want to bring him up to speed so was dismissive just as he was dismissive of the reports that the level of warming was not expected even taking El Nino into consideration.
I wasn't dismissive of reports that current warming was unexpected, I provided numerous citations showing that current levels of warming were projected.

I'll agree that you were dismissive of the citations that showed that the current warming is within projected parameters, but I'd question the claim that after I'd shown your claims to be false, using your own sources, that your subsequent silence was due to you really not wanting to bring me up to speed.

I don't care except some others accepted his "it's okay IPCC has it covered".
Again, this is neither a direct quote, nor an honest or reasonable representation of my posts. I feel we'd be able to have a far more productive discussion (which contained far more agreement than disagreement) if you'd stop misrepresenting my position in order to have something to (patronisingly) disagree with.
 
Anyway, nice to meet you all - there's some interesting discussion here, but I'm too busy to contribute to multiple fora at present. I may, however keep an eye on this thread to see if what I've written elsewhere recurs as a subject.

Apologies to those who have no idea what this is about, but Macdoc has imported a disagreement between the two of us elsewhere to this forum, and while I'm able to address his misrepresentations here, I don't yet have enough posts to link to the original context for this discussion, so for now, I've got little more to say than some straightening of the record for his benefit, and that of anyone who may have read his rather idiosyncratic take on our exchange that he posted here.
 
Anyway, nice to meet you all - there's some interesting discussion here, but I'm too busy to contribute to multiple fora at present. I may, however keep an eye on this thread to see if what I've written elsewhere recurs as a subject.

Apologies to those who have no idea what this is about, but Macdoc has imported a disagreement between the two of us elsewhere to this forum, and while I'm able to address his misrepresentations here, I don't yet have enough posts to link to the original context for this discussion, so for now, I've got little more to say than some straightening of the record for his benefit, and that of anyone who may have read his rather idiosyncratic take on our exchange that he posted here.

Run! Run away as fast as you can! Can you recommend a forum where AGW is dealt seriously?
 
Run! Run away as fast as you can! Can you recommend a forum where AGW is dealt seriously?
Unfortunately not. I get my own information all over the place, and try to read actual papers when I have the time (and if they look interesting). But everywhere I know of that allows discussion has its share of denial and hyperenthusiasm.
 
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Unfortunately not. I get my own information all over the place, and try to read actual papers when I have the time (and if they look interesting). But everywhere I know of that allows discussion has its share of denial and hyperenthusiasm.

Blimey. I hoped there would be some forum where the subject would be discussed lively but seriously. I'm not bothered by a little denial and hyperenthusiasm. But denialism and GW hype, those are intolerable. Skepticalscience's comment section was it during some time, but they started to force denialists to answer previous question before they jumped to another topic as it is customary among them, so denialists went away and the place became a bit boring, yet useful.

I knew that every science has its pseudoscience attached (astronomy has astrology, etc.) but on this subject, science has the mock-science of denialists and the mock-science has the pseudo-science of all-over-the-place hypers and other kinds of warmists.

For instance, denialists will cite Dumb, Dumber, et al's paper, reviewed by their grandmas "published" at whatsupyourhat and sanctified by means of the pdf extension, regarding no model can explain climate. Then, our pseudo-scientific warmists will google something related, find a paper published in a seemingly reputed magazine, surely something like a group using a model as it was presented in IPCC third assessment, the worst emissions path in the second assessment (IS92's of 2190 GT), adding some tweak in one variable or process they are trying to analyse, and getting a world warmed 10°C by 2100 instead of 8°C, what our lovely warmists will take as a fact and use it here to counterweight the denialists' arguments.

Don't try to convince them there won't be 2190 GT of emissions, or the fact that third assessment models are way behind our time, as their replies will range from soft "sceptic" remarks to a mix of near-insults and equally crappy googlings, all depending on their personalities and never on their actual knowledge, which they have been misrepresenting here for ages.

Following the same pattern, deep pockets of methane are about to burst and we'll have the hell around the corner, and so on. Warmists, as any BSer, would reply in bad faith -what you commented above suggests you are victim of such trolling in another forum- in order to get the attention because "nobody is doing enough about this urgent matter" -which is true- and they have reserved to themselves the task of stirring public opinion in order to correct such deficit. And if they are not heard -nobody in their right mind would hear them- they will make you suffer because their angst has no relief.
 
Hi Trakar, pleased to make your acquaintance in person, rather than just being a person you've talked about without introduction...

Nice to meet you. My discussion with MacDoc has been based entirely upon the arguments and discussions as presented by MacDoc. If you would care to state your position with regard to your understandings of anthropogenic climate change, and have clarifications, qualifications and/or references you would like to present to support your position. We can assess and discuss these issues a little more directly.

From looking at your post, there do seem to be a few issues which should be clarified ahead of such a discussion:

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is an international public policy organization created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program (and largely at the behest of and under pressure from the Reagan administration).

The IPCC does not perform scientific research, it merely reviews submitted published science findings in various climate related fields, attempts to compare, relate and interpret these findings with respect to the individual fields and interactions between fields and then present this information in a manner that will help guide and define public policy decisions both within and between nations, with regard to Climate Change.

While projections are a part of all IPCC reports, much of the information upon which these reports (and their projections) are based is both of limited selection and dated validity. This isn't to say that the underlying science or the reports themselves are invalid, merely that such analyses are based on a subset of data that is most often at least several years (and frequently a decade or more) old, in areas of science understanding that are rapidly changing and expanding.

Mainstream science, particularly published science, is inherently conservative in its assessments, analyses and projections. Thus, it should be expected(rather than surprising), that analyses, interpretations, and projections based on such tend to err on the conservative end of understandings.

To add to this, many of the assessments must also pass through the gauntlet of the groups representing the governmental interests of the nations cooperating in the IPCC and these agencies frequently require modifications in accord with their wishes before they are finalized into the official IPCC reports.

With regard to your reported claims, beyond any clarification you wish to make, please provide support and reference for:

"...current temperatures are far beyond what the IPCC's 1990 FAR projected. This is in fact demonstrably untrue,..."

Please demonstrate that this statement is untrue.
 
I'm afraid that I can't really agree with your assessment that my understandings are stuck in the past. Macdoc was making very specific claims that current temperatures are far beyond what the IPCC's 1990 FAR projected. This is in fact demonstrably untrue, and to demonstrate it requires citation of both current data, and the decades-old projections whose accuracy is being contested. the IPCC FAR of 1990 is not my go-to source, but referencing it is required to substantiate a claim about its contents.

Please demonstrate that this statement is untrue.

How about this?

Can we agree a value for "far beyond"?
 
How about this?

Can we agree a value for "far beyond"?

"far beyond" what? What the 1990 lead IPCC scientists actually believed were the most likely values and outcomes, or the worst case A1 scenarios which virtually none actually believed was the course we would actually follow?

BTW- while SKS is a decent place to keep up with modern generalities in climate understanding, it is, however, still a blog and these charts and discussions are lacking in assessable detail and current data. The posts you point to were designed to counter the argument that climate modelling couldn't actually align with real world observations and provide a ballpark projection sufficient to guide public policy decisions. Got something which includes and reflects the last 5-6 years of data and understanding? It would be especially helpful if it were material actually looking at the issues under discussion as well.
 
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Got something which includes and reflects the last 5-6 years of data and understanding?

How does that relate with what the IPCC's 1990 FAR projected?

It would be especially helpful if it were material actually looking at the issues under discussion as well.

Which
one of many issues covered hummingbird style? Seasonal "boundaries"? Emission paths? Current policies? Any other of many?

 
Nice to meet you. My discussion with MacDoc has been based entirely upon the arguments and discussions as presented by MacDoc. If you would care to state your position with regard to your understandings of anthropogenic climate change, and have clarifications, qualifications and/or references you would like to present to support your position. We can assess and discuss these issues a little more directly.
My position, on the matters on which you passed judgement to Macdoc here - (so I presumed you wouldn't need it explained) is that Macdoc's claim (that current temperatures are decades in advance of the 1990 FAR's worst case projections) is not substantiable. I could be petty and say that the burden of proof is entirely on Macdoc to substantiate his claim, and given that he's made no effort to do so, I remain skeptical on that basis alone. But in fact, I'm reasonably conversant with the IPCC's work and the various temperature datasets, and know that this is not, in fact, true. aleCcowaN has provided a link to page including IPCC FAR charts that show the 1990 projections above pre-industrial temperatures. If you're not familiar enough with the data to instantly recognise that we're not decades ahead (I don't know about you, but the amount of warming observed over pre-industrial temperature seems to me like something that those interested in climate change should know without needing to look up), then you can look it up in the usual places (GISTEMP, HadCRUT, whatever floats your boat). Once I've got enough posts to post links, I can link you to where I walked Macdoc through how to do so.

From looking at your post, there do seem to be a few issues which should be clarified ahead of such a discussion:

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is an international public policy organization created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program (and largely at the behest of and under pressure from the Reagan administration).

The IPCC does not perform scientific research, it merely reviews submitted published science findings in various climate related fields, attempts to compare, relate and interpret these findings with respect to the individual fields and interactions between fields and then present this information in a manner that will help guide and define public policy decisions both within and between nations, with regard to Climate Change.
No kidding.

While projections are a part of all IPCC reports, much of the information upon which these reports (and their projections) are based is both of limited selection and dated validity. This isn't to say that the underlying science or the reports themselves are invalid, merely that such analyses are based on a subset of data that is most often at least several years (and frequently a decade or more) old, in areas of science understanding that are rapidly changing and expanding.

Mainstream science, particularly published science, is inherently conservative in its assessments, analyses and projections. Thus, it should be expected(rather than surprising), that analyses, interpretations, and projections based on such tend to err on the conservative end of understandings.

To add to this, many of the assessments must also pass through the gauntlet of the groups representing the governmental interests of the nations cooperating in the IPCC and these agencies frequently require modifications in accord with their wishes before they are finalized into the official IPCC reports.
Again, no kidding. Frankly, all that sounds like a laundry list of excuses for why the IPCC could lowball warming projections, in line with Macdoc's claims that they've done so.

Only problem is, they haven't.

With regard to your reported claims, beyond any clarification you wish to make, please provide support and reference for:



Please demonstrate that this statement is untrue.
OK, now this is going to look a bit weird, because this forum doesn't allow nested quotes (something that's annoying me, as well as the need to constantly avoid more colourful expressions for my reaction to that due to the puritanical language rule), but you're asking me to demonstrate that the current temperatures are not far beyond the IPCC FAR's worst case projections.

Now given that this forum doesn't allow newbs to post links, this is again, a somewhat unnecessarily annoying task, but Macdoc's claim was that it was nonsense that the IPCC FAR projected 1.4C of warming over pre-industrial by 2016. If you use your Google-fu to rustle up a pdf copy of the complete FAR in the IPCC website, and go to page 31, you'll see a chart that shows this not to be true, which is also reproduced at aleCcowaN's link to skepticalscience.

Outside this rather arcane dispute over easily-looked-up-specifics, my views on climate change are similar to Macdoc's - that current and likely future emissions have caused, and will continue to cause, warming with serious impacts which insufficient action is being taken to ameliorate. He's just got a bee in his bonnet about me calling him out when he posts hyperbolic nonsense. Our disagreement seems to centre on whether the current temperature spike is evidence of warming that shows past modelling to have grossly underestimated warming. It would be easier to nail it down more concretely than that if he contributed more than condescension and name-calling to the discussion. You've passed comment on our discussions here, so I presume Macdoc sent you links to them. Go read them, they're still there.
 
"far beyond" what? What the 1990 lead IPCC scientists actually believed were the most likely values and outcomes, or the worst case A1 scenarios which virtually none actually believed was the course we would actually follow?
My original statement that Macdoc took exception to was:
"Scientists haven't been caught out, they've simply been vindicated. These rises are in line with IPCC predictions, and are to be expected when a strong El Nino cycle is added to a rising base trend. It's a pet hate of mine that people misrepresent temperature rises that are in line with IPCC predictions as unexpected, when this year's temperature is very close to the first IPCC report's projections from 1990. To go further and say that the projections, which have been very accurate, may need to be scrapped or adjusted in response to a large short-term jump is as stupid as those who wanted to scrap the projections because of a short-term "pause". More so, even, given the shorter time frames for the observed rise."
Macdoc countered by saying that the 1.1C anomaly for April 2016 published by NOAA "was NOT in the IPCC 1990 projections" and that "we are a DECADE ahead of the IPCC worst case" which he illustrated with an unattributed chart on which he'd inaccurately drawn the current temperature anomaly. It all got a bit stupid from there, and hasn't recovered. I feel no real need to go over it here, it's been surreal and pointless enough over there. If you're interested, sign up at Ratskep where I can post links, we can nest quotes, you don't get logged out every ten minutes, and where it may be vaguely on topic.
 
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