New IPCC report: 8 ways climate change will throw world into peril Debate about climate change is about to, er, heat up, after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) delivered its fifth assessment report, snappily known as WGII AR5. The summary for policymakers [PDF] and full report are online for your reading pleasure. The IPCC says both were compiled using “a substantially …
Not really... I've always found the Late Harvest Rieslings from Western Australia's Southern Coastal areas, (Denmark + Mount Barker particularly), to be the most delicious and refreshing of all the great tipples... if there's more of it, all the better :-)
While the point you make has some validity, if (and I repeat, if) Western Australia's late harvest is good, imagine how a later harvest could change it, perhaps it will cease being good, perhaps it will destroy the harvest, perhaps they will cease to be able to produce "delicious and refreshing tipples".
The changing seasonal demographics may make areas previously suitable for wine of a particular taste change, typical customers will change, companies without the flexibility to change could go under, perhaps at the expense of other companies that do well.
Change is generally a good thing, gently shifting climates are fine, people are adaptable, however, a change from predictability to chaos isn't so good.
"This is not, therefore, a report trying to prove or disprove anthropogenic climate change theories. Instead, it's all about how the world responds to the shifting climate we find ourselves in."
For "shifting climate" read "global warming" under a new name, as is clear from the report, which posits a rise of 3C by 2050. But they aren't "trying to prove or disprove" the AGW theory, oh no. They just "acknowledge" that it will happen! Good on them, glad to see they've finally come out of denial.
If we accept that they (in this case) are neutral on AGW and just want to find out what the future impacts will be from climate change, why then is it automatically assumed that there will be a big rise in the temp? Why not look at rises AND falls? And why assume a big change anyway? If they are as neutral as all that, isn't making such a big assumption about the far future a bit error-prone, like say, predicting the weather?
1 Risk of death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and small island developing states and other small islands, due to storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea-level rise
=>Flooding in low-lying areas is a risk! Do you think we should tell the Bangladeshi's?
2 Risk of severe ill-health and disrupted livelihoods for large urban populations due to inland flooding in some regions.
=> Flooding in England is a risk! Also, in Australia. Possibly also elsewhere.
3 Systemic risks due to extreme weather events leading to breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services such as electricity, water supply, and health and emergency services
=> More about UK flooding
4 Risk of mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat, particularly for vulnerable urban populations and those working outdoors in urban or rural areas.
=> Vulnerable people are vulnerable.
5 Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes, particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings.
=> Crops (and thus food) vary based on extra heat, or rain, or flooding or a mild version of heat.
6 Risk of loss of rural livelihoods and income due to insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water and reduced agricultural productivity, particularly for farmers and pastoralists with minimal capital in semi-arid regions.
=> Lots of poor people don't have good drinking water.
7 Risk of loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for coastal livelihoods, especially for fishing communities in the tropics and the Arctic.
=> My guess would be that over-fishing has a far greater impact than having more sea and is conveniently co-existent with global warming.
8 Risk of loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for livelihoods.
=> ... and its nothing to do with extra farming or industry. Honest!
TL;DR; Bad weather is bad, plus some other stuff which logically has an impact but is probably dwarfed by other stuff we didn't look at.
The terms of reference of the IPCC do not extend to questioning the existence or otherwise of AGW: No, indeed not. They are couched on the assumption of AGW and their brief is to examine its effects.
In short the whole of the IPCCS activities and output are basically wrapped in a conditional...
if (exists(AGW))
{
IPCC_Output(stuff);
}
The art of alarmism is to omit the IF and the curly braces..
No, dear denier. What it means is that the report is not concerned with finding a cause for the climate change, AGW or otherwise.
But since climate change is happening at an unprecedented rate, the report is listing the consequences and what could be done to mitigate it.
So, the code is as follows:
def climateChangeIsHappening = true
// def agwMainCauseOfRecentClimateChange = not important for this report
if (climateChangeIsHappening)
{
IPCC_Output(stuff);
}
The art of AGW deniers is to ignore that even if the climate change is not caused by humans, as they claim, we still have to deal with it.
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The problem with the report (or at least the summary) is that it doesn't say anything definite. Yes, it claims there is a Very high risk of vulnerability to various things, and risk of loss of some others. But we hear that sort of stuff every day, so all these new risks, dangers and all the rest just merges into the clamour for our attention.
An attention which is almost fully taken up with trying to get past the next set of traffic lights. Trying to fart silently in the meeting and hoping no-one will notice. Wondering where the next credit-card payment will come from or why that if statement with 4 conditions always comes out as TRUE.
If these guys (or any of the other climate change bods) wants our attention - or even more: for someone, somewhere to actually DO something, they need much more than wishy-washy risks and dangers. They need numbers, dates, times and places. Who will die - specifically - their names please, when and what will the photos look like on the news reports. Who will have to pay. Which wars will break out and how much civil unrest will there be - and in which towns - and did they for for our party.
Without specifics, there is little for our leaders to lead us away from. People don't respond well to intangible, distant and unquantifed threats that may (or may not) happen at some indeterminate time in the future. More than that: they really don't feel the need to change their lives or shell out more cash to fix problems that they can't actually see - and for which the solutions cannot be agreed (do we need more of this, less of that -- or what?) amongst the scare-mongerers.
To get people to address the problems of climate change, there needs to be much more certainty, Reports must show clarity and be specific in their claims. Who, where, when, how-much. Without actual, actionable targets they will be producing a sixth, seventh, eighth report. All of which will say the same sorts of things, with ever more shrill language. All of which will get a little media attention and people saying "we really should start thinking about what we can do" - and then doing nothing since their attentions will be focused on the immediate problems of that day, as they always have been and always will be.
"If these guys (or any of the other climate change bods) wants our attention - or even more: for someone, somewhere to actually DO something, they need much more than wishy-washy risks and dangers. They need numbers, dates, times and places. Who will die - specifically - their names please, when and what will the photos look like on the news reports. Who will have to pay. Which wars will break out and how much civil unrest will there be - and in which towns - and did they for for our party."
Therein lies the success of the propagandists denying AGW. They keep upping their demands for proof as the proof gets every more undeniable. I doubt they'd concede, even if they were having to paddle through floods to their charitable foundations and think tanks.
> Therein lies the success of the propagandists denying AGW
Tagging anyone who asks questions about climate change is generally unhelpful. If there are any climate change skeptics about, any more - though I've never met one so I'd put them in the same category as "flat earther's" and evolution deniers, then I think the failure to convince them of otherwise must be laid at the feet of the people who write these reports. Generally once people are faced with unequivocal evidence and a consensus among the "clever bastards" they are easily convinced of a situation - take gravity as an example.
The basic issue is not one of if the climate is changing. The basic issue (now) is how to communicate to the average person what its consequences will be if no preventative measures are taken - and secondly: what they (we?) must be prepared to do.
So talking about intangibles and risks in general and non-specific ways won't sway many people. Especially if they are being asked to reduce their consumption of almost everything, pay more for the energy they use and have more taxes taken off them to pay for "green" initiatives. If you want the general population to do more than talk, demonstrate and separate their rubbish then there must be a consensus among the "scientists" regarding what tangible effects will come to pass - and how the general population (of the countries being told to change) will be. Writing a report that says one thing and then having pundits or competing scientists going to the media and saying something else (or even, as this report illustrates: not evening having a single unified definition of what climate change is) won't further the cause, or convince ordinary people to put their hand in their pockets and make material sacrifices.
Getting agreement within the climate change community of the specific effects, the timescale and required solutions is the first, and very necessary, step to winning people's hearts and minds. That has yet to happen.
Those interested in the dynamics of social discourse may find the following article amusing:
Mental ability and common sense in an artificial society
Krzysztof Malarz, Krzysztof Kułakowski
http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.5970
We read newspapers and watch TV every day. There are many issues and many controversies. Since media are free, we can hear arguments from every possible side. How do we decide what is wrong or right? The first condition to accept a message is to understand it; messages that are too sophisticated are ignored. So it seems reasonable to assume that our understanding depends on our ability and our current knowledge. Here we show that the consequences of this statement are surprising and funny.
>>Therein lies the success of the propagandists denying AGW.
I don't think it's even that complex, we see it now, the politicians are clearly saying "what is the cost of avoiding this, compared to letting it happen", what is emotionally "right" (or even morally "right") is no longer relevant, it's whether it's financially "right", and that's why they want numbers.
If climate change is affected by man (and the consensus is that it is), then at some point it will either be too late, or it will be very costly to change.
"the average global temperature has not risen in seventeen years"
You can't have been paying attention when you were briefed with which memes to concentrate on in the build-up to the release of this IPCC report. Even ignoring the fact that the heat is not just going into the atmosphere, globally, the hottest 12-month period ever recorded was from June 2009 to May 2010.
"ever recorded". Sounds impressive, until you figure out that there's barely a century worth of data there, and heat records these days are mostly triggered in the cities and somehow escapes the rural temperature stations.
"heat is not just going into the atmosphere" -- so it is where? Beamed back into space? Hiding in the murky depths of the Pacific ocean where we have even less data? (The argo project stretches back barely a decade?)
Fine. The data is overwhelming.
Only if you're using GISTEMP LOTI (Land-Ocean Temperature Index). The easy-to-use data can be found here at WoodForTrees.org (and much other global and also solar weather data as well).
Switch to HADCRUT4 Global from the Met Office -slash- Hadley Center (UK), September 1997 to August 1998 was hottest. The temperature anomalies add to 6.90°C, 6/2009-5/2010 was only 6.75, 8/2009-7/2010 was 6.86.
Those are the global land+ocean numbers.
"globally, the hottest 12-month period ever recorded was from June 2009 to May 2010."
That just means it appears to have got hotter in the past. The current trend is flat. The apparent warming might well arise from using historical temperature data well beyond its intended scope. Perhaps it's no co-incidence that the trend disappeared as soon as we started using instruments capable of measuring it accurately.
OTOH, the trend line could go up again. That would probably convince me... but it hasn't happened yet.
"The current trend is flat"
Not by any other then very specific cherry picked date ranges it doesnt even approach flat - and even then it's still rising - but at a slower rate. . Average global temperatures have continued to rise as the most basic of reseach from credible sources would tell you.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/climatechange-temperature-idINDEEA2O00620140325
"Average global temperatures have continued to rise as the most basic of reseach from credible sources would tell you."
Basic research: Plotting 10 year trends with a free and verifiable online tool, starting every three years from 1980 to 2014, with the full record for the period with a 13-month running mean for smoothing. FYI, the satellite datasets started circa 1979.
Note: this tool starts at "from:" and goes up to "to:", so 2004 to 2014 means start of 2004 to end of 2013 (ten full years).
First comes the two major surface-based global (land+ocean) datasets. GISTEMP LOTI shows 2004-2014 to be still rising, but has the least rate of rise (click "Raw data" to see the calculated slopes).
HADCRUT4 Global says 2004 to 2014 was cooling.
On to the satellite datasets, which actually measure the lower troposphere atmospheric temperatures. UAH shows 2004-2014 is a slowing down but still warming, and 1980-1990 was actually cooling.
RSS is almost scary. 2004 to 2014 was cooling, 2001 to 2011 was essentially flat, while 1998 to 2008 was cooling faster than 2004 to 2014.
Taken together, RSS is showing global cooling from 1998 to 2014, at -0.05°C/decade, -0.5°C/century. But it's likely temporary, as we have been assured the global warming is relentless and never pauses, the global temperatures will only keep always going up, and up, and up.
Basic research from credible sources shows that, of the four major recognized global land+sea datasets, half say we've been cooling for the past ten years, half say we're warming but slowly. Thus a continuing positive global warming trend for the past ten years cannot be confirmed.
"HADCRUT4 Global says 2004 to 2014 was cooling."
No it doesn't. What it actualy says is: Trend: -0.021 ±0.216 °C/decade (2σ)
I.e. It has changed by something between +0.195 and -0.237degrees C/decade.
Because the period is so short we can't know what the actual change has been.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
"No it doesn't. What it actualy says is: Trend: -0.021 ±0.216 °C/decade (2σ)
"I.e. It has changed by something between +0.195 and -0.237degrees C/decade.
"Because the period is so short we can't know what the actual change has been.
"http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php"
*****
Ah, good, you're bringing in statistical significance.
Then you should know "too short" is an issue here because the signal is so small.
And as the value is less than the uncertainty what it really says is statistically you can't say anything happened. You cannot say there was warming 2004-2014 by HADCRUT4.
Now that you've mentioned that trend tool, what does it say?
From 1994.67 (Sept 1994) to 2014 (end of 2013), the trend was 0.097 +/-0.098°C/decade.
By the tool you recommended, there has been no statistically significant global warming from 9/1994 to the end of 2013 according to HADCRUT4. That's almost two decades.
GISTEMP goes back to 1995.75 (Oct 1995) with 0.109 +/-0.109°C/decade.
So both surface datasets say over 17 years without any statistically significant warming.
UAH goes back to 1993.5 (July 1993) with 0.152 +/-0.152°C/decade.
RSS goes back to 1989.42 (June 1989) with 0.119 +/-0.120°C/decade.
So both satellite datasets say over 20 years (two decades) without any statistically significant warming.
By the tool you recommended, it cannot be statistically claimed there has been ANY global warming for over 17 years.
Nice recommendation. If you'd hang around climate skeptic sites, you'd know they also use that same tool, which so wonderfully shows how long it's been since there's been provable warming.
"The 21-page survey said the global land and sea surface temperature in 2013 was 14.5 degrees Celsius (58.1 Fahrenheit), or 0.50C (0.90F) above the 1961-90 average. It was also 0.03C (0.05F) up on the average for 2001-2010."
Excuse me. 14.5 degrees above the 30 year average
That is a) Makes a complete mockery of "limiting temperature rises to < 2 deg C above pre industrial averages or b) Total BS.
And BTW I normally downvote AC's on this subject because they are AC's.
If global warming is happening and the AGW scientists want to convince the doubters, then they should release the records of rural weather stations. If a clear warming trend can be found (WITHOUT any manipulation of the data) in weather stations far from cities or artificial structures then more people may believe the AGW scientists.
The data released to date shows so much data manipulation (deliberate or accidental) that it cannot be trusted as a basis for a multi trillion investment. (Deliberate manipulation - see the code and data released in "Climategate". Accidental manipulation - weather stations that were in rural areas that have been swallowed up in cities and weather stations that are now near artificial structures that release heat (e.g. air conditioner outlets).)
The extreme reluctance to release records by the AGW scientists (several of whom went to court to fight the release of records) makes a lot of people (me included) disinclined to believe what they say without better evidence (not manipulated by AGW "data corrections").
It's important, however, to distinguish between types of "manipulation"
(a) that done with intent to deceive
(b) that done by mistake or carelessness
(c) that done as part of a calibration or compensation process to ensure the numbers output by the sensor correspond (to the greatest extent achievable) to what the sensor data is understood to mean (or is intended for use as).
This raw data you are so keen on may or may not be what you think it is, or may or may not be misleading (wrt your purpose) in subtle ways. For example, a few years ago, I happened to have a conversation with a physicist whose specialism was (IIRC) the calibration of satellite data related and needed for an estimation of the Earth's energy budget. Such things are not trivial.
As it happens, here's a recent discussion of solar irradiance validation
http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7194
(but published formally in Astrophysics and Space Science 350(2), 421-442, 2014)
Would you like the raw satellite data as well? I'm sure there are all sorts of ways the existing analyses could be challenged (apart from those covered in the paper already, of course).
For some sensors (e.g. satellite ones) calibration can be difficult - however the thermometer reading at a rural weather station has no such difficulty. The reading would normally only be accurate to about 1 degree for any individual measurement but over a multi-year recording of daily temperatures trends should show up.
... but how does that reading map onto the average temperature of the area in which it inhabits? Is it intended to represent a ground temperature or an air temperature? What if I want to use it as a measure of air temperature in a surrounding box of area A and height h? Do the thermometers have a changing response as they age? Can I trust what the manufacturer said? What about when they are replaced for new ones with different properties? How do we correct for the changing nature of the landscape around it? Thinks like this need to be checked and ironed out.
The common instrument in a rural weather station was a mercury in glass thermometer (the dry bulb of a wet and dry thermometer) - no aging problems that I am aware of. If a thermometer was broken and had to be replaced then the replacement could be assumed to be within 1/2 degree. (A replacement with a thermometer that was significently out compared to its predecessor would show as a step in the raw data and would be rather obvious.) Where the manually read mercury in glass thermometer has been replaced by an automatically read instrument, one would hope that the new instrument had been adjusted to match the the reading of the old one and that its readings were checked from time to time.
You'd be the first person to think of that then?
Thermometers got started about the time the Royal Society did, and people have been thinking about them, and about measuring devices in general and about measuring in general ever since then, at least.
Perhaps you should read about it.
My impression is that substnatially all this data is available. It isn't easy to use, I suspect becuase it is difficult stuff.
Here is a reference to the CRUTEM4 data with an interface to pick out sites by rural/urban status and geographically display them.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/02/exploring-crutem4-with-google-earth/
This article, with the tables of risks and confidence reminds me of a risk assessment that I saw recently at work. Lots of verbiage, but missed the blindingly obvious.
In this case, they seem to have missed the total lack of warming over the last 17+ years, even though CO2 levels continued to rise.
I've heard that Climate Scientists (tm) think that maybe the missing heat is "hiding in the deep ocean". I wonder if they've checked to see if it's just slipped down the back of the sofa?
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC (and a Hon.Member of the Foundation) has had many years in the environment field and knows what he is stating (with others). Therefore we should all take note of what these intelligent and intuitive minds say that go into the 1000s who have given their input into this updated global study.
Indeed the Royal Society (world's foremost scientific institution), MIT (the world's foremost technology institution) and others have stated also that the world is in progressive meltdown. Climate change just a part of this dire situation for humans and where the problem is far, far greater than what people really think - http://www.eureporter.co/frontpage/2014/03/29/comment-humanity-is-heading-towards-armageddon/
Indeed, the Royal society and MIT say that a collapse of the society and the world order could take less than 30-years. But we should all note that these 'warnings' are from the world's leading scientific and technological institutions (also supported by NASA research) and not the usual 'end of the world' crackpots. So people had better start to realise that things are just not as they seem and where those wearing rose tinted glasses looking at the world order, should have a reality check for their own long-term good.
Dr David Hill
CEO
World Innovation Foundation
Sorry, Dr Hill, but at this point in my life I have come to the conclusion that I simply cannot trust people simply because they have certain letters after their name or are affiliated with one group or another.
I'm not a climate scientist. Indeed, I'm not even a scientist by any formal definition.
What I am is a reasonably intelligent human being with a few years behind him. I've seen scientists in those groups you mention claim, not that long ago, that we were entering an ice age. I've seen scientists claiming that, contrary to the obvious, the Sun (or rather solar spots and the lack thereof) has no impact on our climate. In other words, I've seen supposedly smart people make all sorts of statements, some of them quite possibly true while some of them quite obviously not.
I don't pretend to know the finer points or details from one perspective or another. However I do know that the only way I can make an informed decision is if I'm allowed to view the available data. More to the point I want to know how, when and where that data was collected. If it was modified in any way then I want to know how and why. If it's unavailable for a given area then I want to know that. I also want to know what factors they have taken into account and whether they have decided others shouldn't be considered... and why.
If this is true, then any reasonably intelligent person that is willing to look should be able to arrive at similar conclusions.
However, this doesn't appear to be the case. More to the point the various movements appear to go out of their way to make any type of informed decision nearly impossible. A simple case in point was the transition away from "global warming" and instead calling it "climate change". The only reason for doing this was to confuse people. Any average person would of course agree that there is such a thing as "climate change" if the only thing they go off of is the traditional definition of those words. But that's not the whole story.
Instead we have the UN defining climate change one way and this IPC report using a wholly different definition. That one thing alone means that I simply can not trust anything else they happen to write in it.
I appreciate your post here but given the current state of things you can place me in the category of "denier". However, taking a play from your book, I'm going to change that definition. For the purposes of this post "denier" will mean "someone who refuses to believe the constant bullshit put out by those who think letters after a name or affiliations are more important than giving people the ability to review the data themselves."
Lets see, there was Y2K, that was a bust.
There was 2012 - that turned out to be a bust.
And we have Climate Change with no specific date, just massive dire predictions of doom and gloom.
We 'may' see an increase of x degrees over the next y years, therefore we must act now to stop it.
And the solution? Buy my green energy solutions, cap and trade to charge people for using carbon burning solutions that don't otherwise give me and mine money.
Clearly the summary focuses on the negative aspects. Canada and Russia see net benefits. As in all things some lose, some win, it is best not to be poor or live in the desert. All of the "but for Man" scenarios fail to project the preindustrial trend to its icy conclusion.
It is interesting that the "observed" temperatures currently lie below the error bars of the most optimistic forecast. One would think that should moderate the tone somewhat, but it is not even mentioned.
"It is interesting that the "observed" temperatures currently lie below the error bars of the most optimistic forecast"
No they don't - they are within the historical variance. Usual dated FUD. There hasn't been any serious doubts that AGW is happening for at least a decade now.
I notice that there are several things this report shows.
Number one, it assumes that the level of warming predicted by their climate models is absolutely going to happen, but history has kinda shown their climate models to be not quite right.
Number two, it assumes that 50% of the warming has historically been caused by man's activities, and it assumes that 50% of the future warming will continue to be caused by man's activities. Specifically burning fossil fuels. The problem with all of this is that CO2 has a diminishing rate of influence on temperature increase, on a logarithmic scale.
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ for info on that.
Number three, why are all of the impacts predicted by the IPCC so negative? We know for a fact that a warmer earth will have positive results in some regions of the planet, and yet all we hear about are the dire, doomsday predictions.
I tend to be an optimist, and realist, and I know for a fact that there will be good things that happen as our world warms. So all this doom and gloom simply reinforces my opinion that the IPCC report is seriously biased, and not objective at all. So, based on that, I must question the reason for the bias, and what is behind it? Since the IPCC is so against big oil, it seems that the agenda is to destroy the oil industry. Rather than to actually come up with viable solutions to a real problem they have an agenda. Kinda undermines their credibility in my mind. Seems to be an inconvenient truth.
Check out the NIPCC report at http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
I don't care. I have no children. We live on a hill.
Donkey's year's ago our village got cut off. People were panicking for milk, paying almost three times the price. My grocer friend asked me if I could get into town. I did & made two more trips before the other two grocers made their threats known.
When people you've grown up with all your life behave like that, well 'nuff said.
It's really very simple. You have to panic. You have to reach into your pocket and pull out all your spare change to fix things for the poorest people in the world who can't support themselves now and will find it more difficult in the boiling future. By the way, these are still the portions who reproduce at unsustainable levels and will find themselved migrating to their new EU homes (much like large portions of Mexico and central America have migrated to the US). Your resources will be stretched even thinner as extreme numbers of poor flood into your country (never mind actual water floods; those you can deal with...what do you do with the millions who will arrive at your door?)...
"Believers" are the guilty ones for exaggerating 32 years of 95% certainty. In your children's eyes its as if you wanted to "believe" in this misery.Deny that
If science can’t be 100% certain after 32 years that THE END IS NEAR, you remaining “believers” and politicians can’t be. Only believe what science "believes"; its still a 32 year old "could be" crisis that they are still only 95% certain otherwise they would have said; "proven" by now for the worst crisis imaginable? Find us one IPCC warning that says; "will be", or "inevitable" or anything beyond "could be" a threat to the planet.
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