Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[uke2se]

I like how he states it might not be a good idea to try and actually change the temperature of the planet. Unexpected consequences and all that.

But did he really say, "On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." (attributed to Stephen Schneider)

Do you think he's wrong? It's quite clear that some people won't listen even when the evidence is right in front of their eyes. Dramatic gestures work better on stupid people.

Unfortunately, many climate deniers aren't stupid. They are just locked in a dogma. As such, they can (and have) used the "dramatic gestures" (also called "worst case scenarios") of some scientists as evidence that all scientists are irrational alarmists. Of course, now we know that climate scientists seem to have underestimated the warming effect, and that things might well get much worse than predicted. Isn't it nice that science progresses?

That site looks like a political blog. Why is the temperature a matter of belief?

That is a political blog full of pseudo-science. Temperature isn't a matter of belief. It's quite clear, and the data has been very good since the early 1990s.

I recommend the BBC Earth series "Climate Wars". It shows how strong the science is, and how it has gotten stronger every time deniers have tried to undermine it:

 

[BenBurch]

Not if your summers aren't hot enough to demand much air-conditioning. I rarely use air conditioning. Maybe a few hours a day for no more than a few weeks a year cumulatively,...of course, that may increase over the coming century.

Well, there are places were a white roof makes no sense, I agree, but not in Northern Illinois where I am. The roof is white most of the winter anyway without any help.

 

[BenBurch]

An alternate means of roof cooling that might make sense in conjunction with white roofs or by itself;

http://www.sprinkool-systems.com/

While I was thinking of roofs and how they differ from green plants, water transpiration seemed to be key. By keeping the roof slightly damp in the hottest part of the day, you simulate that effect.

I went to Google and found that link.

The issues will be water use and water cost. You could obviously capture rainwater from the roof for this use and also thereby recycle the runoff (if any).

Thoughts?

 

[DC]

Do you claim that Schneider did not say what he is here represented as saying?

there never was any concencus about an upcomming glaciation.

 

[DC]

I like how he states it might not be a good idea to try and actually change the temperature of the planet. Unexpected consequences and all that.

But did he really say, "On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." (attributed to Stephen Schneider)

That site looks like a political blog. Why is the temperature a matter of belief?

Only for those in denial of reality it is a matter of belief.

 

[Trakar]

Do you claim that Schneider did not say what he is here represented as saying?

No, I claim that what Schneider, or anyone else said on this type of highly editted and sensationalist serial entertainment hokum on TV is utterly and completely irrelevent to actual climate science or the serious discussion of climate science and any public policy considerations of that science, forty years ago or today.

 

[Trakar]

Well, there are places were a white roof makes no sense, I agree, but not in Northern Illinois where I am. The roof is white most of the winter anyway without any help.

Seriously? I don't recall seasonal snow covers in Northern Illinois, but my only real experience with that region was back in the '70s. My wife is from that general area. Regardless, you do make a point, with appropriate insulation, any snow/frost present in the air quickly turns and keeps roofs white until air temperatures get warm enough to clear the moisture of the roofs. I'd like to see some more careful studies of such so that any national building codes and guidelines established to help address climate change issues is well founded. Perhaps some test houses/neighborhoods where the issues can be examined under more carefully calibrated real-world conditions.

 

[Trakar]

An alternate means of roof cooling that might make sense in conjunction with white roofs or by itself;

http://www.sprinkool-systems.com/

While I was thinking of roofs and how they differ from green plants, water transpiration seemed to be key. By keeping the roof slightly damp in the hottest part of the day, you simulate that effect.

I went to Google and found that link.

The issues will be water use and water cost. You could obviously capture rainwater from the roof for this use and also thereby recycle the runoff (if any).

Thoughts?

The only main issue I see is the area you mention, heavy water usage. I have roof sprinkler systems but they are more for use in the case of wildfire. We are surrounded by forest that occassionally burns. Development in other areas has isolated us from the main burn trails that (I'm told) used to run wildfires through this area every couple of decades or so. You aware of any independent analyses of such systems? I'd be interested in seeing what numbers we'd be talking about for some of the mega-suburbias down in California.

 

[CapelDodger]

Do you claim that Schneider did not say what he is here represented as saying?

If he did, what of it? It's hardly controversial that the media responds to scary stories and that without media coverage no message is going to travel far. Consider how scare-stories about extreme leftists bringing down the US by inventing environmental issues such as AGW get airtime. Not because they make any sense but because they attract an audience.

This is one reason why nothing substantial will be done about AGW until after quite a number of events, and action taken then will be localised and reactive and quite possibly hysterical. Scientists generally haven't produced scare-stories because they're too wedded to "likely" and "might" and "given our current state of knowledge".

In future people will ask "Why were scientists not listened to?!?" and historians will try to explain.

 

[CapelDodger]

No, I claim that what Schneider, or anyone else said on this type of highly editted and sensationalist serial entertainment hokum on TV is utterly and completely irrelevent to actual climate science or the serious discussion of climate science and any public policy considerations of that science, forty years ago or today.

It's very telling that this Schneider quote is so well-known to, and used so often by, deniers. It's as if they can't find much else to confirm their belief that AGW is dliberately being hyped to achieve despicable ends by people who hate industrial society and the humanity whose greatest achievement it is.

Why does Hansen seem to get a pass these days? We've been presented with a link to a "Gore Lied" blog, so at least Al isn't completely forgotten, but Hansen has been very deliberately provocative recently. Can denier-think only encompass one actual scientist at a time and that's currently Mann? Maybe we'll hear less about Mann as they turn their limited attention to Gleick.

It's not just a massive physical experiment we're engaging in with AGW, it's an anthropological experiment on a huge scale.

 

[BenBurch]

The only main issue I see is the area you mention, heavy water usage. I have roof sprinkler systems but they are more for use in the case of wildfire. We are surrounded by forest that occassionally burns. Development in other areas has isolated us from the main burn trails that (I'm told) used to run wildfires through this area every couple of decades or so. You aware of any independent analyses of such systems? I'd be interested in seeing what numbers we'd be talking about for some of the mega-suburbias down in California.

Actually inside of a UHI I expect these to fare about as well as swamp coolers, that is not really well. Same reason, higher humidity in the UHI reduces the cooling effect.

 

[CapelDodger]

Climate Change, Increasing Temperatures Alter Bird Migration Patterns
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120223142642.htm

Birds in eastern North America are picking up the pace along their yearly migratory paths. The reason, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers, is rising temperatures due to climate change.
Using migration information collected in eBird, a citizen science program database containing 10 years' worth of observations from amateur birdwatchers, assistant professor of biology Allen Hurlbert, Ph.D., and his team in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences analyzed when 18 different species of birds arrived at various points across their migration journeys. Since 2002, eBird has collected more than 48 million bird observations from roughly 35,000 contributors.

The study results were published in the journal PLoS ONE on Feb. 22.

Caveats apply, of course, but it seems there either has been warming along the Eastern US Seaboard or birds can change their behaviour for some unidentified reason, which is scary in a Hitchcockian sense.

Pushing migration earlier in the year could negatively affect birds over the long term, Hurlbert said.

Which is no way to tell a scare-story. "Could negatively affect [seagulls]...", puhleeeease! Like that'll get people on the streets demanding action .

 

[Piggy]

In future people will ask "Why were scientists not listened to?!?" and historians will try to explain.

It will be, perhaps, the greatest human tragedy of recorded history. If so, the most public faces of warming denial will be held up as icons of stupidity and selfishness.

Now, that might sound "alarmist" to some folks, but hey, something's gotta be the greatest tragedy of human history, and it's hard to argue that this isn't a contender.

I'll say this, if you've ever owned a salt water aquarium, you learn very quickly that a system can be quite resilient most of the time, yet sensitive to certain conditions which, if destabilized, can send the system into a very different configuration which is beneficial for some inhabitants but devastating or fatal for most.

And we should remember that the difference between a normal heartbeat and fibrillation (which will kill you if it goes on long enough) is simply a single shift in the route that the impulses take through your heart... and your heart doesn't care which route is taken.

All of these systems -- our planet, our hearts, saltwater aquariums -- play by the same sets of physical rules, and can be described by the same basic system dynamics.

We've seen our planet go through phase shifts before. That's why the various eras are definable.

Just as your heart or an aquarium ecosystem can remain in the same stable pattern for many years, our planet can remain in a global climate pattern for centuries. (Within this system-wide stable pattern, there will be innumerable sub-patterns and sub-sub-patterns, many of which will not be locally stable.)

And just as your heart can be shocked into a state of fibrillation, or an aquarium can be shocked into an algae bloom, the planet can be shocked into a different climate era (although the time scales are much slower than for an aquarium, which is slower than a heart).

It's called a period shift, and it can be brought about by sudden events such as meteor strikes or massive volcanic eruptions, or by cumulative processes reaching a tipping point, and these could involve orbital changes, sun activity, the spread or recession of plantlife, and so forth.

Both human and non-human causes can make hearts go into fibrillation, or an aquarium shift into an algae bloom.

Until now, only non-human causes have triggered period shifts in the Earth's climate. (Note I don't say "natural" causes because humans, being animals, are a type of natural cause.)

That is, until we got the power to release massive quantities of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere. And the planet will move into a warming cycle whether it's us doing it or some other cause doing it. The planet doesn't care, just like the aquarium water doesn't care, and your heart doesn't care.

We know the gasses are ours because our fingerprints are on them, we can trace the isotopes. We can look at all manner of indicators and see what's happened and what's happening.

The fact that it's been something else's fault in the past doesn't mean it's not our fault now.

I mean, you see a guy shot dead in the street, you hope the police don't say, "Well, billions of people have died of natural causes in the past, this guy must have, too" and you hope they don't reply to cries of "Murder!" with "Stop being so alarmist".

 

[Trakar]

Actually inside of a UHI I expect these to fare about as well as swamp coolers, that is not really well. Same reason, higher humidity in the UHI reduces the cooling effect.

Makes sense, in the Deep South where approaching 100% humidity is a common occurence, its more "water fall" than "evaporative cooler." Could actually raise the "misery index" (temp + humidity) in some areas.

 

[Trakar]

...It's not just a massive physical experiment we're engaging in with AGW, it's an anthropological experiment on a huge scale.

In some ways, that's the most interesting aspect of the issue anymore. Will the silly monkeys realize their dilemma and release the nut before the Tiger comes to check out the squawking?

 

[Trakar]

It will be, perhaps, the greatest human tragedy of recorded history. If so, the most public faces of warming denial will be held up as icons of stupidity and selfishness.

Now, that might sound "alarmist" to some folks, but hey, something's gotta be the greatest tragedy of human history, and it's hard to argue that this isn't a contender.

I'll say this, if you've ever owned a salt water aquarium, you learn very quickly that a system can be quite resilient most of the time, yet sensitive to certain conditions which, if destabilized, can send the system into a very different configuration which is beneficial for some inhabitants but devastating or fatal for most.

And we should remember that the difference between a normal heartbeat and fibrillation (which will kill you if it goes on long enough) is simply a single shift in the route that the impulses take through your heart... and your heart doesn't care which route is taken.

All of these systems -- our planet, our hearts, saltwater aquariums -- play by the same sets of physical rules, and can be described by the same basic system dynamics.

We've seen our planet go through phase shifts before. That's why the various eras are definable.

Just as your heart or an aquarium ecosystem can remain in the same stable pattern for many years, our planet can remain in a global climate pattern for centuries. (Within this system-wide stable pattern, there will be innumerable sub-patterns and sub-sub-patterns, many of which will not be locally stable.)

And just as your heart can be shocked into a state of fibrillation, or an aquarium can be shocked into an algae bloom, the planet can be shocked into a different climate era (although the time scales are much slower than for an aquarium, which is slower than a heart).

It's called a period shift, and it can be brought about by sudden events such as meteor strikes or massive volcanic eruptions, or by cumulative processes reaching a tipping point, and these could involve orbital changes, sun activity, the spread or recession of plantlife, and so forth.

Both human and non-human causes can make hearts go into fibrillation, or an aquarium shift into an algae bloom.

Until now, only non-human causes have triggered period shifts in the Earth's climate. (Note I don't say "natural" causes because humans, being animals, are a type of natural cause.)

That is, until we got the power to release massive quantities of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere. And the planet will move into a warming cycle whether it's us doing it or some other cause doing it. The planet doesn't care, just like the aquarium water doesn't care, and your heart doesn't care.

We know the gasses are ours because our fingerprints are on them, we can trace the isotopes. We can look at all manner of indicators and see what's happened and what's happening.

The fact that it's been something else's fault in the past doesn't mean it's not our fault now.

I mean, you see a guy shot dead in the street, you hope the police don't say, "Well, billions of people have died of natural causes in the past, this guy must have, too" and you hope they don't reply to cries of "Murder!" with "Stop being so alarmist".

Good Post!

Lead poisoning happens, shouldn't have made a target of himself, act of god, move along, nothing to see here.

 

[randman]

Don't have time to wade through 115 pages so this may have already been brought up, but the recent Fakegate exposure of warmers faking a doc is quite revealing. The faked document has a line in it about what warmers label as deniers saying they are trying to stop science from being taught in schools.

What's so illustrative is not just the typical fraud and fakery from the warmer crowd but the fact they actually believe skeptics are evil people that are against science and know better; that they know they are denying something real instead of the truth, which is skeptics of man-made global warming have an honest and empirically rigorous skepticism over climate models attributing warming to C02 and man and also a rewewed healthy skepticism over "adjusted" data and following conclusions presented by the AGW crowd.

 

[Furcifer]

It will be, perhaps, the greatest human tragedy of recorded history. If so, the most public faces of warming denial will be held up as icons of stupidity and selfishness.

Now, that might sound "alarmist" to some folks, but hey, something's gotta be the greatest tragedy of human history, and it's hard to argue that this isn't a contender.

I'll say this, if you've ever owned a salt water aquarium, you learn very quickly that a system can be quite resilient most of the time, yet sensitive to certain conditions which, if destabilized, can send the system into a very different configuration which is beneficial for some inhabitants but devastating or fatal for most.

And we should remember that the difference between a normal heartbeat and fibrillation (which will kill you if it goes on long enough) is simply a single shift in the route that the impulses take through your heart... and your heart doesn't care which route is taken.

All of these systems -- our planet, our hearts, saltwater aquariums -- play by the same sets of physical rules, and can be described by the same basic system dynamics.

We've seen our planet go through phase shifts before. That's why the various eras are definable.

Just as your heart or an aquarium ecosystem can remain in the same stable pattern for many years, our planet can remain in a global climate pattern for centuries. (Within this system-wide stable pattern, there will be innumerable sub-patterns and sub-sub-patterns, many of which will not be locally stable.)

And just as your heart can be shocked into a state of fibrillation, or an aquarium can be shocked into an algae bloom, the planet can be shocked into a different climate era (although the time scales are much slower than for an aquarium, which is slower than a heart).

It's called a period shift, and it can be brought about by sudden events such as meteor strikes or massive volcanic eruptions, or by cumulative processes reaching a tipping point, and these could involve orbital changes, sun activity, the spread or recession of plantlife, and so forth.

Both human and non-human causes can make hearts go into fibrillation, or an aquarium shift into an algae bloom.

Until now, only non-human causes have triggered period shifts in the Earth's climate. (Note I don't say "natural" causes because humans, being animals, are a type of natural cause.)

That is, until we got the power to release massive quantities of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere. And the planet will move into a warming cycle whether it's us doing it or some other cause doing it. The planet doesn't care, just like the aquarium water doesn't care, and your heart doesn't care.

We know the gasses are ours because our fingerprints are on them, we can trace the isotopes. We can look at all manner of indicators and see what's happened and what's happening.

The fact that it's been something else's fault in the past doesn't mean it's not our fault now.

I mean, you see a guy shot dead in the street, you hope the police don't say, "Well, billions of people have died of natural causes in the past, this guy must have, too" and you hope they don't reply to cries of "Murder!" with "Stop being so alarmist".

Or the more likely scenario is that we'll look back on this as yet another foolish over reaction by dooms day sayers. Do you remember the people that said there's no way Halley's Comet was going to crash into the Earth? Heck no. Do you remember the people such as myself that scoffed at "Y2K"? Heck no. History only remembers the fanatics and their apocalyptic rhetoric. Sad but true. It's human nature, you only have to read the Bible to get a sense of just how long people have been claiming the World is going to end.

Unfortunately the difference between the earth's climate system and that of the salt water aquarium is that climate change is well within the normal variations of the climate, and those inside the aquarium are considerably outside the natural variations. In the past it was extremely hard to keep salt water tanks for the very reasons you mentioned. Today however it's much easier, to the extent I've seen 1 gallon salt water tanks with 20 or 30 different species of marine aquatic life. Why you may ask? Lighting. Artificial lighting didn't come close to emulating that of the sun. The best full spectrum lighting provided only a fraction of what you would find in natural sunlight. Today however the lights are considerably better and it's infinitely easier to keep a salt water tank. But they still vary considerably outside the tolerances you would find in nature. The thing is humans can't see the difference, so they assume there isn't any. Or more often than not, with something like the algae bloom you mentioned, they've introduced and extra 4 hours of light into the environment. That's common for humans probably since man discovered fire, but it's completely unheard of in the natural world. And because the tanks are considerably smaller than the ocean, the effects of additional light and heat are magnified.

Long story short, aquariums aren't "sensitive", humans just don't realize how significant the changes really are. Whether it's the type or duration of light, or the change in temperature, the seemingly insignificant changes as perceived by a human are completely unheard of in the natural marine environment. Climate change however is nothing of the sort. While it may be tempting to make the comparison, it's totally and completely unrelated.

 

[CapelDodger]

It will be, perhaps, the greatest human tragedy of recorded history. If so, the most public faces of warming denial will be held up as icons of stupidity and selfishness.

Now, that might sound "alarmist" to some folks, but hey, something's gotta be the greatest tragedy of human history, and it's hard to argue that this isn't a contender.

As a strictly anthropogenic tragedy it does look set to break the previous record (which I would contend to be the stumbling into industrialised global warfare in the first half of the 20thCE). Another record may come along one day, but that's for some future Moderated Thread .

I think the short- to medium-term effects of AGW will be difficult to entangle from other influences, such as populaton growth, Peak Oil and whatever might still be lurking in the global finance system. In the long-term they'll be undeniable, of course.

 

[Trakar]

Don't have time to wade through 115 pages so this may have already been brought up, but the recent Fakegate exposure of warmers faking a doc is quite revealing. The faked document has a line in it about what warmers label as deniers saying they are trying to stop science from being taught in schools...

The only skeptics I know involved with AGW are the mainstream scientists working and writing papers that the IPCC uses to base their assessments on.
There is nothing skeptical, that I have seen in any of the crank and politico crowd that refute and deny the mainstream climate science community. So I'm not really sure how you are deriving these opinions, who you are talking about with your labelling, or what published science you are referring to that supports your statements, but if it isn't too inconvenient, perhaps you could explain yourself a bit more clearly and cite the published science that supports your beliefs.