Report: Climate change has already hit USA - and time is RUNNING OUT The US government–mandated Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has released a mammoth 841-page report on the impact of climate change on the US, region by region, focusing on its effects on water, human health, agriculture, urban life, and more. The bottom line: climate disruption – their term – caused by human activities …
So to sum everything up.
Global Politics are fucked up - no one can agree on anything.
Global Economics beneft about 0.0000000000000000001% of the entire population so it's basically fucked up as well.
Global Population is out of control.
And to top it off we have managed to fuck up the Global Climate or at least now we admit to it.
or is this just the preparatory work for the 1st Global War ?
Is there any chance of having some good news before I die...
[I was going to include religion but that's always been fcuked up anyway]
Not negated at all.. Both Darwin and Malthus are still in full swing, we've just moved the markers around a bit by means of technology, upping the level of "sustainable" in case of Malthus, and changing the factors in "fitness" in the case of Darwin.
The current change in climate has been going on since the last glacial, through the extinction of the Neanderthals, the "Rise of Man", with a nice little break commonly called "the Little Ice Age" which has been judged to have ended just around the turn of the 19th century.
There may or may not be a primary human influence in the current development towards warmer global temperatures. Scientifically speaking the models are simply not accurate and encompassing enough to tell. This is, however, the Unpopular Opinion, and does not get you grants or tenure, so scientific bias does tend towards Political Correctness here.
Either way, our planet has seen worse, and the only thing this whole climate thing really threatens is the comfy Way of the Couch Potatoe. My heart bleeds for them.
>Scientifically speaking the models are simply not accurate and encompassing enough to tell.
Says you. Not that many others.
> This is, however, the Unpopular Opinion, and does not get you grants or tenure
Of two minds here. One is that there is a real risk of groupthink, I agree. On the other hand, if there were credible counter-arguments to the AGW theories, do you really believe there would be a lack of sponsors for that research? Starting with the coal companies* and Saudis?
Bottom line, even assuming uncertainty does it really minimize our risks to do nada while every doubter opines? If the scientists are correct we are moving into an increasingly risky zone with a very long CO2 resorption period. It may make sense to start operating on the assumption that there could be something to all those models, no?
* Speaking of which politically correct Germany is increasing use of coal to satisfy greens' romantic notions of renewables & no-nukes. With the end result being more CO2. Couldn't make this up.
"It's "Global Population is out of control."."
Oh really? I think you'll find it's Third World, not Global Population which is on the increase. So if you think there's an 'out of control' problem, then surely that makes you a hideous racist? All those pesky brown people having more children every 5 minutes? Any answer to that, my eugenically challenged chum?
"Oh really? I think you'll find it's Third World, not Global Population which is on the increase."
This is obviously true in terms of numbers, one thing to remember though is that a first world child consumes many times more energy/resources than a third world child in their lifetime - so there's a strong argument that we in first world countries are equally obligated to reduce the number of children we are having as one less person here has a far greater impact.
Given that we can all agree that someone living in the first world is likely to consume more and have more carbon emissions, would you support making it a criminal offence to migrate from a low carbon economy to a high carbon economy? A couple of years in prison followed by deportation back to the low carbon economy should help prevent these climate crimes.
That's a fair point a/c and you make it well. Nobody is talking about litigation though, however perhaps there is increasingly a place for more voluntarily responsible behaviour (in first OR third world economies) amongst couples who want large families. People have a right to produce children and the idea of capping it is always an emotive subject, however most scientists and sociologists agree that significant population increase at this point is unlikely to benefit anyone unless we very quickly find ways to consume much less.
"Through the well meaning advances of medicine the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been negated."
So you're going to get poor Africans to run a death race? Or are you volunteering to strangle a few yourself?
That suggestion, coming from a smug wealthy white guy, is pretty interesting. Eugenics Guy bought a computer.
"or is this just the preparatory work for the 1st Global War ?"
Missed the first 2, did you?
Joking aside, yes, you can pretty much count on another world war and that's WITHOUT global warming.
Here's the events in progress:
- huge income inequality
- dwindling fresh water from growing populations and economies.
- trade inequality
- sheer population growth
- sheer scale of ignorance and hate
- the coming pandemics (what, you thought that was all solved?)
- religious differences (what, you thought that was solved as well?)
- military technology needing to be tested
- and of course the age old grab for more land, i.e. resources.
- behind the scenes power struggles skullduggery
NOW add global warming.
Even if you deny global warming it won't matter. The wheels are already in motion for war.
Bank on it. You know the international bankers are.
"no one can agree on anything."
All scientists agree that anthropomorphic climate change is happening. The scientific doubt is effectively zero. And has been for well over a decade.
The only uncertainty is about how bad it's going to get and in what timescale...
quote: "All scientists agree that anthropomorphic climate change is happening. The scientific doubt is effectively zero. And has been for well over a decade."
Citation needed. As I have posted several times, I completely agree that the climate is warming up, but to see people constantly claim that all scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening is either well-meaning over-generalisation, or deliberate mis-statement. We have been on a warming trend for over 10,000 years, but are still colder than at any point over the last 80 million years.
Which way would you expect the temperature to change naturally, bereft of any human interaction, based upon that observation?
"Scientists" that have been paid by those benefiting from denying anthropogenic climate change don't count.
Remember the lead pollution from leaded gasoline? There were plenty of paid shills, some of them "scientists", that twisted the results of others' research attempting to show there wasn't an issue -- and it worked for many years.
Are you saying we should still allow tetraethyl lead in our gas because a few paid shills, and millions poured in propaganda, tried to convince the public that it wasn't an issue?
> "Scientists" that have been paid by those benefiting from denying anthropogenic climate change don't count.
Most climate scientists are paid as well and primarily by political paymasters that would not like to hear that we were wrong all this time.
Based on past experience and resoundingly unscientific revelations surrounding the "research" in this area, I don't trust a single one of them.
It doesn't help the debate to paint everyone as either for or against whether climate change is happening, a naive and incorrect assumption. That the climate is constantly changing is for most reasonable people a given. To what extent we are contributing to it is still a very open question.
"To what extent we are contributing to it is still a very open question."
To the average Joe? Sure, but then Joe may also believe the earth is only 6000 years old.
The more data that is gathered, the more apparent the current warming trend is related to c02, and our release of it. While you can argue "correlation does not equal causation", and "climate is too complex to model accurately", those claims do not hold up to the preponderance of evidence.
Trying to maintain your claim is like saying "I saw Bob enter the pub with a gun. I heard one shot fired, and when he left, police captured him and found powder residue on his hand. We know that no one else left the pub, and a thorough search turned up no other gun. Bob also has a history of shooting guns in pubs, but I just don't believe Bob fired the gun. Correlation doesn't equal causation, don't-cha-know."
We know the release of c02 has an effect on climate -- there is no denying this. We know the level of c02 in the atmosphere is increasing -- there is no denying this. We know our climate is changing -- there is no denying this. All other proposals for why the climate is changing have been found wanting -- there is no denying this. We have models that show c02 being a probable candidate. Yet Bob still didn't pull the trigger?
> Bob also has a history of shooting guns in pubs, but I just don't believe Bob fired the gun. Correlation doesn't equal causation, don't-cha-know."
You would find it difficult to find a court that would convict Bob of the crime I suspect.
"I can't think of another reason therefore he did it" doesn't cut it in the real world I'm afraid.
That's called circumstantial evidence and there must be a very large preponderance of it to convict someone of a crime, specifically because it is notoriously unreliable.
The real crux of this problem is that people keep saying stuff like "100% of climate scientists say that it is true" and "The debate is over". When I hear scientists saying the debate is over, that's exactly when I start wondering what their angle is. The real actual evidence of CO2 causation is very thin on the ground and is nearly all model-based, models which have never made *any* predictions which bear any resemblance to reality. This is why in the scientific method it is just *not enough* to say this hypothesis fits the facts. Hypotheses must make verifiable predictions and those models just fail over and over and over again to do so.
Hypotheses which cannot make predictions are not worth the paper they're written on and make a poor substitute for proper science.
"'I can't think of another reason therefore he did it' doesn't cut it in the real world I'm afraid."
Lets see: Witness saw him enter the pub with a gun. gun was fired. Suspect has power residue on his hands after leaving the pub. Suspect has history of action. No other individual in the establishment has a gun, nor was another gun found.
That's not "can't think of another reason". That's, "given the evidence, no other reason fits".
Same thing applies to C02 and climate change -- except we have even more evidence with c02 and climate change.
"Scientists" that have been paid by those benefiting from denying anthropogenic climate change don't count..."
Since the vast majority of "scientific" opinions - or perhaps that ought to be scientific "opinions" - are paid by one special interest group or another, and many, mostly AGW advocates by both, your reasoning leads to the conclusion that we can ignore the entire issue and let the underfunded minority who simply want to known how things really work to get on with it.
One fact evident in the article is implicit in that stupid graph comparing two curves in complete different and unrelatable units. On the left, we have a temperature scale with a span of just over 2 degree C. On the right is a scale that is in 0.000001s / unit. The scale ranges have then been adjusted to emphasize similarity by rescaling until the apparent curves match, and so that the upturn looks serious. The most notable lack on the graph is any curve that shows how either of those "ought" to look, and that is because no one on this planet actually knows just what that might be. This debate is about as well informed as a brawl between blind drunks wearing ear muffs (so they can't hear each other) in a dark alley (in case one or more are only visually challenged).
"Since the vast majority of "scientific" opinions - or perhaps that ought to be scientific "opinions" - are paid by one special interest group or another, and many, mostly AGW advocates by both, your reasoning leads to the conclusion that we can ignore the entire issue"
One group has a vested interest in disproving and creating controversy, much like ID and evolution. The other has, for the most part, scientific method. The reason I put "scientist" in quotes, is because most of the deniers do not apply scientific method to the data at hand. They find what they think is an issue in the data (like a warm or cold period), and, just like god-in-the-gaps with evolution, they believe they've blown the whole thing out of the water, without taking all the evidence as a whole. Like standing too close to a Monet, and saying "All I see is dots!".
"Hypotheses which cannot make predictions..."
They have made predictions... and, so far, they've been right. You just don't like the predictions they've made.
"What predictions of climate scientists' models *ever* been proved to be even remotely accurate?"
Look around you.
Does evolution through natural selection predict exactly what lifeforms you're going to end up with? Of course not. What do you expect the climate models to predict? Exactly where, when and what a temperature increase will be? Exactly where and when we will see increased climate volatility? We simply don't have the computational power to do that. But they did accurately predict increased average temperature and climate volatility as c02 level rise. Have these not come to pass? What's next? Are you going to say that evolution isn't real because there are "gaps in the fossil record?"
>Which way would you expect the temperature to change naturally, bereft of any human interaction, based upon that observation?
on geological timescales, (your 80M years) you'd probably be in the right. Revert to mean n all that.
On our 200 year timescale any rapid increase is suspicious, innit? Certainly atmo CO2 increase has been pretty dramatic over that time and totally out of line with "millions of years".
Not everyone needs to agree and I happen to think _qualified_ doubting scientists should be funded.
quote: "on geological timescales, (your 80M years) you'd probably be in the right. Revert to mean n all that.
On our 200 year timescale any rapid increase is suspicious, innit? Certainly atmo CO2 increase has been pretty dramatic over that time and totally out of line with "millions of years"."
Regarding CO2, here are graphs for CO2 levels for the last ~400 million years alongside temperatures for the same period
You'll note that there are points where high CO2 correlates with high temp, and also points where low CO2 correlates with high temps. There are also points where increasing CO2 correlates with rising temps, and points where increasing CO2 correlates with falling temps. I'd especially draw your attention to the points between 250-100Mya; if you follow the 30Myr filter line, we sat around 1500-2000ppmv CO2 (4-5 times more than today), and overall it was indeed warmer than now. However over that period, the first 50My have increasing CO2 (1500ppmv to 2000ppmv) and falling temperatures, the second 50My have decreasing CO2 (2000ppmv to 1500ppmv) and falling temperatures, and the last 50My have increasing CO2 (1500ppmv to 2000ppmv) and rising temperatures.
Over the scale of those graphs, 200 years are insignificant, we can only talk about long term trends. Also, all of those data points are calculated, none were observed. So while I am in agreement that the data from the last 200 years is explicitly more accurate than any calculated paleoclimate data, paleoclimate data does not support the hypothesis that increased CO2 inevitably and immediately causes increases in global temperatures. An increase of 500ppmv (33% extra at the time) somehow failed to increase global temperatures over a 50 million year timescale (250-200Mya), it barely even slowed an existing decline. Claiming it can (and will) dramatically increase global temperatures in less than a century does not fit those existing data sets, and to be scientifically sound, any new theory has to both fit existing data as well as accurately predict new data. Something is not right, and I would be far more suspicious of people deciding to rewrite paleoclimate data to fit the current models, than of people rewriting the current models to fit paleoclimate data.
Anyway, moving on from my rant regarding some less than scientific practise amongst people calling themselves scientists, I think we mostly agree that people should be doing proper science (which by definition includes unbiased research), and also properly planning for the impact of increased global temperatures. Regardless of who's (or what's) fault it is, we're going to have to live in a warmer world, so we'd better make sure we can do so, right?
> "You'll note that there are points where high CO2 correlates with high temp, and also points where low CO2 correlates with high temps. There are also points where increasing CO2 correlates with rising temps, and points where increasing CO2 correlates with falling temps"
All this tells us is that c02 isn't the only driver of climate, and not a single climate scientist will claim it is. But we do know it is one of the drivers of climate. It's ridiculous to think that we can dump endless amounts of it into our atmosphere with zero effect, especially when we can model and observe quite the opposite.
I couldn't agree more. The first time I flew the north Pacific Ocean I thought I was off course one night as the water ahead of me was covered with lights. 50 miles in every direction. A Japanese fishing fleet probably or possibly Spanish. Jared Diamond thinks humanity has a 50% chance of saving the situation we're in now but I'm not that optimistic. I seriously doubt we'll get population under control without a major cataclysm.
I hate to be a bit cynical but I wouldn't expect a committee that has worked so long and hard, with such a strong political leaning toward Warming among the staffers who controlled it, to come up with anything short of a Jeremiad.
As is common in these cases, the baseline is chosen to give a decent increase, but the fact theat Earth has failed to follow the model for the last 21 years seems to have eluded the committee members.
Until there is a real explanation available for the last 22 years of stagnation on the warming front, and not just vague comments about ocean stirring, I won't jump on the AGW bandwagon. I find the model-based science rather dubious, especially as the cheerleaders for AGW regularly tout a symptom such as melting ice as absolute proof AGW is here, only to reverse themselves when the ice rushes back a couple of years late.
We do need to stop using oil, because there's a limited amount of it, and I don't want my grandchildren fighting a war to get the last drops. But dubious science is not the way to do this. We need some serious backbone in the debate, some common-sense and an acceptance that we can build safe nuclear reactors - we have thorium fuel for 5 millennia for those and pollution is much much better than uranium power!
Of course the boffins will follow the gravy. They are no different than anyone else and want job security, ego, whatever.
To put the scientists on a pedestal and suggest they are above such filthy matters as ego and money is naive to the extreme. You just have to look at some of the bitch-fighting that goes on in any university research department to see what it is really like.
That is why we'll always get over-hype of both potential disasters (SARS, swine flu,...) and over-selling of tech (superconductors, nuclear energy, wind energy, solar,...). While there are certainly medical Mega-corps and venture capital shysters benefiting from this, there are also a bunch of scientists scamming for fame and funding etc too.
Bullshit. Pure bullshit.
IF there was any real finagling of the numbers, then some smart dissenters in the committee would come up with the "real facts" and get several million dollars from the petrochemical companies for exposing the lies of the other scientists.
CONSISTENTLY - that simply does not happen. Scientists HIRED by the petrochemical companies do their OWN studies and find quibbles. But scientists pulled from academia that work on these panels simply do not step forward and say "Hey guys, it's all a lie, and let me tell you about it." And collect a huge payday.
And that TO ME is the single most telling piece of the climate change debate...
'But scientists pulled from academia that work on these panels simply do not step forward and say "Hey guys, it's all a lie, and let me tell you about it." And collect a huge payday.'
No, That is entirely correct, because if they did step forward, they would not get a huge payday.
They would get fired.
It's very very interesting that the only voices of dissent that are strident in the academic community are those who are either so damned eminent their jobs are safe, or are already retired.
Remember academic income comes ultimately from government.
I've talked to em 'we always try to roll a climate change angle in to get funding, its part of the job'
Whether or not the AGW theory is correct, or even remotely correct, is one thing. The pressure to support it is very very real.
Seems like your illusion of scientists has been threatened.
Just like us regular folk, scientists need to eat, pay the rent and would like to afford children, cars and other luxuries. For this they need the filthy lucre and a job/funding/whatever - just as we do.
Even those that start with lofty ambitions of putting truth ahead of anything else are soon faced with practical concerns. It is unfair on scientists to expect them to behave any differently from anyone else.
Then too, they have egos and ambition the same as anyone else. There is HUGE politics in any research institution. Peer review sometimes becomes :"you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". Your research supervisor won't accept a theory that discredits what he's been doing for the last 20 years.
As an example, consider the bunfight over tectonic plate theory in the 1960s.
The earth sciences departments were controlled by people who had grown up believing and supportint the in-situ theories that mountains just rise up in place and are eroded down. They'd written papers and PhDs on the subject. Their whole professional life - including much of their self-worth was based on the in-situ theories
Then a new generation of people want to do PhDs exploring the new-fangled tectonic plate theory that completely rubbishes the in-situists life work. How does he feel? Threatened. Does he care about "truth"? No. He does everything he can to chop the upstart off at the knees.
The same goes for those people down at the EAU Climate Research Unit. All their funding, papers, public relations depends on climate science alarmism. Of course they will be tempted to over-egg the pudding.
What the "corrupt scientists" hypothesis fails to explain is why they're all, consistently, corrupted into the same camp.
Considering how much money there is in the opposing camp, that's just inexplicable. And, I personally think, fatal to the hypothesis as a whole.
how much money there is in the opposing camp?
How much MONEY there is the the AGW camp I think you mean.
The great green money machines is everybody's favourite bandwagon except those who have to pay for it.
And that isn't big oil and gas. no matter how many windmills you plant at whatever obscene profit you are government mandated to get, you wont replace oil as the driver for all off grid primary energy and gas as the best backup (in the absence of hydro) for intermittent renewables.
Academia loves it! Trillions of dollars of taxpayer funding channelled into the effects of AGW, or ways to reduce emissions, and very little into disputing it or confirming it because the 'science is settled'
Politicians love it, especially those with global ambitions because it justifies centralised control of society and energy.
Business loves it because it is a reason to scrap old product and introduce new and with luck, they will get de facto competitive advantage by being the first in the green marketplace and get their competition banned under some green regulatory instrument. One thinks of low energy lightbulbs..
Oh there is a consortium of quasi conspiratorial nature involved all right and its got big business money behind it, but it ain't the sceptics. Its the greens, who are fully paid up servants in the great cause of Profit.
Your comment about the UEA CRU strikes a chord. Aren't the the one that were alarmed that nobody could find evidence that the troposphere was warming like the said it had to? Did they revise their theory to reflect the new facts emerging? Like hell, they did. They sent out missives demanding people put together evidence to prove their theories.
Scientific misbehaviour? Fraud perhaps?
"That is why we'll always get over-hype of both potential disasters (SARS, swine flu,...) and over-selling of tech (superconductors, nuclear energy, wind energy, solar,...). "
The media are seriously to blame for much of this. You never read a news paper or watch a broadcast that emphasizes "things are great" or "40 Years After: How the Club of Rome Blew It," or similar non stories. Murder rates are emphasized as opposed to non-murder rates. In London the per capita homicide rate is lower than the rate CO2 is increasing. Sad, determined, minority activists are more story-worthy than millions continuing to live their lives. Media is not only entertainment, it provides politicians with "problems" with regard to which, they can be seen to be "doing something". AGW is brought to you for your amusement, not your edification.
> I hate to be a bit cynical but I wouldn't expect a committee that has worked so long and hard, with such a strong political leaning toward Warming among the staffers who controlled it, to come up with anything short of a Jeremiad.
Yet the only complaint that the very well resourced Cato Institute can come up with is "actually, fewer people might die in the resultant heat-waves". If the science were really that faulty, they would be all over it. So why aren't they?
> Until there is a real explanation available for the last 22 years of stagnation on the warming front,
You mean the last 22 years of a gradually increasing global temperature, as part of a ~100-year upward trend? Or am I reading the graph in the article wrong?
Any discussion on Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming (you forgot the C part - otherwise the warming is quite pleasant) degenerates into a religious discussion to make the operating system wars look rational and clear headed.
Your comment on computer models is a very good one. I am not aware of any models, at any time, producing real results that have successfully been validated against the real environment. Yet the latest computer model is always trumpetted as evidence of even worse global warming than the last.
I don't think we need to stop using oil, but we do need to slow down it's use by replacing it where we can. Artificial oil was produced in WW2, so why don't we start doing it now?
The other thing that will slow down use of oil is, as you point out, nuclear power. Electric cars are no point, since they use just as much energy at the power plant as they do in oil. But if we used nuclear power, suddenly it makes sense.
Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
The synthetic oil developed in WW2 was made from coal and is energy intensive in making, meaning either you use more oil not less just to make fake oil or you go back to coal in power stations to provided the needed energy, which is worse than oil for pollution.
Of course more nuke stations are an option but one that will never float since the politicians would have to take a u-turn after all that Fukashima scaremongering.
The only real viable alternative is growing your fake oil (rapeseed etc) but since on any real scale that would necessitate removing vast amounts of land from farming actual foodstuffs, it's not a great idea either especially long term when you figure in drought etc which will mean even less foodstuffs again and less fake oil leading to both food and oil shortages.
"Until there is a real explanation available for the last 22 years of stagnation on the warming front"
You mean the apparent slow down in the rate of warming when looking at the figures from a very specific average surface temperature measurement method? That has already been largely explained.
Firstly that the data for that method wasnt complete:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/11/global-warming-since-1997-underestimated-by-half/
And secondly that the remaining small slow down in the rate of surface temperature increase has an explanation - the oceans have been warming instead:
See http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/feb/12/global-warming-fake-pause-hiatus-climate-change
and
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/global-warming-pause-trade-winds-pacific-ocean-study
and
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525
I am not convinced that the available data clearly show there is currently ongoing global warming (anthropogenic or otherwise). Have a look at the USHCN data adjustments over time:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/06/ive-been-waiting-for-this-statement-and-the-national-climate-assessment-has-helpfully-provided-it/
All this man-made CO2, returned to the atmosphere after many years underground, is bound to cause a blip in something somewhere. The biggest blip appears to be political, with every government now wanting to control all CO2 production, which basically translates to control of every industrial process and every use of all energy, and maybe even breathing. Whew! All that control in the hands of our government betters, I am sure they have good intentions.
Anyhow... as I was saying... the trees. More CO2 = bigger, better, healthier and more apples for me! etc. etc. etc.
I don't blame climate scientists for chasing the grants that governments seem only to keen to hand out (for the right reports, of course), but it is important to note that in Canada, the courts have ruled that all government scientific reports are "comment" and not factual. Which means I keep a large grain of salt nearby anytime a government "scientific" report is published, and so should everyone.
When they chop down the trees they replace them with crops. Those crops perform photosynthesis too.
Ultimately photosynthesis is limited by nutrients (CO2 and other), water and light and the efficiency of the plant. Trees don't get any more of these than other crops.
Go watch a hay field being mowed. Tonnes per acre coming off. As much, if not more, than growing trees.
having traveled across this great land many times by ground and air, I can assure everyone that Canada is awash with trees. Lots and lots and lots of trees. More trees than you can imagine. And every last one of them, together with all the other plants and animals, is (with maybe one exception) a carbon-based life form. All carbon-based life forms require carbon to grow, and to reproduce.
So please... feed the trees. Feed all our furry friends. Feed yourself and your children. Carbon! Yumm!
And no, I certainly do not work for "big oil" or big anyone. Mind you, I wouldn't say "no" to the right offer!
"More CO2 = bigger, better, healthier and more apples for me! etc. etc. etc."
This is the highest level of CO2 in the last 20 million years. Do you think your apples will grow so well under 20+ metres of sea water?"
===
As someone who plants trees for firewood for my log burner I am harvesting the Ash tress I planted a year early due to the phenomenal increase in growth rates.
I then burn that wood at high temperature to release the carbon back, rinse and repeat.
Whilst we have had a lot of rain in the past 12 months I dont see a 20 metre sea rise but thats probably because I am not a raging fuckwitt!
And therein lies the problem for the tree hugging, sandal wearing guardianista's, the hysteria simply highlights the fact that they have no real, rational argument.
"I dont see a 20 metre sea rise"
That's the likely long term (several centuries) impact of the current level of CO2 as most of the ice will eventually melt. Expect a 1 Metre rise by 2100 though. Which alone is enough to flood significant populated areas globally.
Re: Won't someone please think of the trees?
"I dont see a 20 metre sea rise"
That's the likely long term (several centuries) impact of the current level of CO2 as most of the ice will eventually melt. Expect a 1 Metre rise by 2100 though. Which alone is enough to flood significant populated areas globally.
===
Bollocks!
None of the evidence says that, and to date every single doom and gloom prediction has been halved and halved again.
Have to wonder why you are posting anonymously, is it embarressment?
"None of the evidence says that"
Yes it does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
"projections assessed by the US National Research Council (2010) suggest possible sea level rise over the 21st century of between 56 and 200 cm (22 and 79 in)."
"Melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the Antarctic ice sheet would produce 7.2 m and 61.1 m of sea-level rise, respectively. The collapse of the grounded interior reservoir of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level by 5–6 m"
"sea level rose approximately 20 m over a 500-year period about 14,200 years ago."
Re: Won't someone please think of the trees?
"None of the evidence says that"
Yes it does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
"projections assessed by the US National Research Council (2010) suggest possible sea level rise over the 21st century of between 56 and 200 cm (22 and 79 in)."
"Melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the Antarctic ice sheet would produce 7.2 m and 61.1 m of sea-level rise, respectively. The collapse of the grounded interior reservoir of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level by 5–6 m"
"sea level rose approximately 20 m over a 500-year period about 14,200 years ago."
========
Selective quoting is only going to make you look like a twat Mr Anonymous.
In pulling the scary soundbites you missed this from the same section:
The melting of small glaciers and polar ice caps on the margins of Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula melt, would increase sea level around 0.5 m. Melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the Antarctic ice sheet would produce 7.2 m and 61.1 m of sea-level rise, respectively.[24] The collapse of the grounded interior reservoir of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level by 5–6 m.[25]
The interior of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, as of 2009, was sufficiently high (and therefore cold) that direct melt would require several millennia.[citation needed] They could do so through acceleration in flow and enhanced iceberg calving. Also, melt of the fringes of the ice caps could be significant, as could be sub-ice-shelf melting in Antarctica.[citation needed]
Climate changes during the 20th century were estimated from modelling studies to have led to contributions of between −0.2 and 0.0 mm/yr from Antarctica (the results of increasing precipitation) and 0.0 to 0.1 mm/yr from Greenland (from changes in both precipitation and runoff).[citation needed]
Estimates suggest that Greenland and Antarctica have contributed 0.0 to 0.5 mm/yr over the 20th century as a result of long-term adjustment to the end of the last ice age[citation needed].
The current rise in sea level observed from tide gauges, of about 1.8 mm/yr, is within the estimate range from the combination of factors above[26] but active research continues in this field.
In 1992, satellites began recording the change in sea level;[27][28] they display an acceleration in the rate of sea level change, but they have not been operating for long enough to work out whether this signals a permanent rate change, or an artifact of short-term variation.[citation needed]
So in highlighting your soundbites you conveniently ignored the important bits about "millenia" and the minor issue that Antarctica actually produced a sea level lowering in the 20th century.
No wonder you post anonymously!
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IMHO= Countless acres of trees now across the entire Northern Arctic tundra where b/4 warming there was only permafrost is not a bad thing...Humans, wild animals and plants will thrive just fine...
Joke Alert= Americans want Tesla power, fear Zombies and Little Green Men...this will not even be a distraction, Flawed Science or Not...RSsr.
Warming is happening. Anthropogenic or otherwise doesn't matter. By and large it's not desirable, because most of us happen to live where conditions are favourable NOW. We can't relocate the inhabitants of Bangladesh to Siberia, or London to the Highlands. We know how to counter this development, in theory. This requires sacrifices. Since our willingness to make those sacrifices differs, those of good will will make them first, which only tells the more selfish ones that it's not so bad after all, and they can continue their wasteful ways. This means that said sacrifice has no effect whatsoever, except that the balance of economic success, and therefore power, moves towards the more ruthless.
Solutions on a postcard please.
(1) Explanation for those not familiar with British social history or economic literature: Villages and towns used to have "Common" grazing lands accessible to every member of the community. These tended to be over-exploited and neglected. Garrett Hardin made the term popular in a "Science" article in 1968.
A note to the AC who provided the link to the quite-impressive-when-used-appropriately Accuracy International sniper rifle:
Fuck you. Fuck you with a red-hot, quite rusty, and somewhat prickly oversized butt plug. People like you are ruining rational discourse in the western world, and are leading us down into the morass of the Mideast's somewhat rather entrenched "Fuck you! No, fuck YOU!" brand of discourse.
And, yes, I realize that this post stoops to that level.
Whatever...
I AM that AC, and let me respond: my picture reflects my study of history, of which I do quite a lot on socio-economic-political themes. Just finished re-reading the entire "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for fun, but also a host of more modern texts from people such as Diamond, Kennedy, et al.
And the one thing that I see, repeatedly, is that when income and power are hugely unequally held,and politics are corrupted by that to a degree that rational debate and discourse no longer affect them - it has nearly ALWAYS been revolution or rebellion - or outright failure of the civilisation by external threats - that have been required to perform corrective action.
You and I and the assembled masses on this forum can jibber jabber with trillions of electrons, and it will make not a whit's difference. We can perform sit-ins, protests, write to our Congresscritters and MPs...and nothing will get done. Because those in the petrochemical lobby have TRILLIONS of dollars at their disposal to overcome our discourse. TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS, NOT ELECTRONS.
Our discourse will change things, slowly, in ways that seem to have good PR...but will not cause the change needed nearly enough, nor fast enough. While we sit here debating this, there are states in the US that are making it illegal to even TEACH about global warming in class, or mention sea level change in official government reports. Trillions of dollars of lobbyist money will always ensure it is one step forward, two steps back.
My personal view is that a violent revolution or rebellion will not happen, because governments these day simply have too much technology at hand to stop internal threats - heck, even the Romans did so while it was in it's decline. And so, my personal prediction is that it will be resolved by the lovely AX pictureed and similar rifles - at war. War for arable land, war for water, etc. And tens and hundreds of millions are likely to die - if not a few billion.
But a few well placed rounds now could have prevented that...as is the case with nearly every other global catastrophe in retrospect. Again, not really advocating for it, just a historical perspective. The solution always seems so easy in hindsight, doesn't it?
Only stupid people are making sacrifices. Europe is burning coal at an ever increasing rate. Ditto America, China and all the other established countries. The "emerging" countries are trying to catch up as fast as they can. What this means is that, even in the debatable case if cutting CO2 emissions would work, it won't be tried. Except by countries with stupid leaders like Australia.
The evidence to hand shows that no appreciable warming has happened, nor increase in ocean levels. Despite theories all over the place, just following the latest fad, there is no real consensus on warming. Just compare the theories with the measurements. The theories are wrong in every case.
The only possible, let alone practical, thing to do is to mitigate any effects that may happen. For instance, if the oceans were to go up as much as 10 cm next century, build your houses a few metres further from the shore. Easy to do when you have a century to do it in.
"Anthropogenic or otherwise doesn't matter"
It does - it means we could choose to try and do something about it.
"The evidence to hand shows that no appreciable warming has happened, nor increase in ocean levels"
Only if all you have to hand is Faux News. The overwhelming scientific evidence shows quite the opposite. We know both temperature and sea levels have risen - and continue to rise.
"statistically no significant warming has happened this century."
Statistically, 100% of scientists would disagree with you.
"CO2 wasn't enough on the physics to account for 20th century warming"
See above. And see for instance the long term records of CO2 levels versus average surface temperatures.
"Assuming there is any economically available fossil fuel by then."
Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels and emitting CO2 tomorrow - the planet will likely take 10,000+ years to return by itself to a lower level of CO2. This is not something that we can easily go and fix later. We need to reduce CO2 output now.
Warming appears to have stopped happening for the last 20 odd years.
Yes, it's still warmer than it was in mid 20th century, but statistically no significant warming has happened this century.
Scientist who understand statistics and data, already know what this means, even if they are not going to 'come out' and admit it publicly.
Something else is involved, and if it is powerful enough to halt global warming in its tracks, it is also powerful enough to account for the warming in the first place.
Its an academic emperors new green clothes moment.
Without adding arbitrary multipliers CO2 wasn't enough on the physics to account for 20th century warming., Not it looks like the physics was vindicated, and the CO2 has a relatively minor impact and something else was going on, and is still going on.
One the multiplier vanishes and is replaced by a new term in the equations, all the scary predictions simply vanish. by the end of this century CO2 induced warming might at 0.2-0.3C to the temps. Assuming there is any economically available fossil fuel by then.
But whatever else IS driving climate might - as it has done before - have plunged us into another little ice age, or even a big one.
If there were no pressures from outside academia., that is where the science would be standing right now. CO2? Nope Second order effect. . But something is happening, and it is a bit important so we should be looking into it.
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"Libertarians are ideologically opposed to all forms of environmental protection."
Well I am the one that disproves that.
Libertarians are not ideologists: they simply are looking for efficient ways to do things.
Slash and burn is in the end less efficient than careful husbandry.
Society itself is an instrument that develops efficiency by negotiating trade-offs to optimal mutual advantage.
The tragedy of the commons ends when people get together and say 'this is benefiting no one'
> Well I am the one that disproves that
As the core organizing idea of libertarianism is that ownership is absolute, with all other views emanating from that, and environmental protection equals prohibiting owners of land from freely exploiting their land, thereby violating their absolute property rights... Well, at the risk of committing a True Scotsman fallacy, I have to wonder if maybe you're a liberal, not a libertarian.
> Libertarians are not ideologists
Surely you jest.
"Libertarians are ideologically opposed to all forms of environmental protection"
Such a silly statement can only come from a complete ignoramus or committed communist (same thing, I know).
Libertarians are completely in favour of Liberty, hence the name [Libert]arian. It is not the fault of Libertarians that modern environmentalism has become some sort of "green on the outside, red on the inside" collective of Watermelons intent upon using environmental issues as a façade to hide their "rule the world" agenda of global insanity. Fortunately, a lot more people are wising up to the Watemelon agenda, and learning to just say "no" to tyranny.
Name one environmental law that doesn't unnecessarily stomp all over people's liberty. Name one environmental law shoved down our throats by closet-communist arrogant selfish collectivist doofuses who don't give a fig about freedom as long as they "save" one snail. name one environmental law that isn't a eugenicist's wet-dream.
Find any "environmental law" that does not trash people's liberty in those ways, and I will show you millions of libertarians that support it. Except you can't, because (as previously noted) , environmentalism is completely dominated by Watermelons- which suits all power-mongers and wannabe-tyrants just fine.
Give these guys a chance to predict the next year given the data so far. I have doubts that they will be even close (what is the statistical error?).
The current weatherperson can't predict any more than 5 days out with ANY accuracy, and the main reason our weather prediction is better than 50 years ago is due to weather satellites anyway.
Human involvement? I don't think so.
Ah, yet another person deliberately confusing weather with climate.
Try this.
Take a pan of cold water.
Put it on the cooker.
Turn the heat up.
What will happen? Bubbles will start to form as it heats up, yes?
AH! PREDICT WHERE THE NEXT BUBBLE WILL BE!
WHAT? YOU CAN'T? THAT PROVES IT'S NOT GOING TO TURN INTO A PAN OF BUBBLING WATER THEN, the heating is a hoax!!!!!!!11!!!!eleventy!!!!
Try this.
Take a pan of cold water.
Put it on the cooker.
Turn the heat up.
What will happen? Bubbles will start to form as it heats up, yes?
then it boils.
Turn it up some more. whats this? It isn't getting any hotter?
But my model clearly says the more I turn the gas up the hotter it gets, ..no the heat is hiding in the water somewhere. It has to be..My theory isn't wrong. It cant be.
"Turn it up some more. whats this? It isn't getting any hotter?"
Yes it will - the water will evaporate and the temperature of the pan will continue to rise until equilibrium is reached and the heat energy emitted by radiation and conduction matches that received.
Quoting laughably irrelevant and inappropriate 'examples' to try and win an argument that was already lost well over a decade ago doesn't really help your position much.
From the little I have learned of the physics and dynamics of this, I seem to recall that weathering of the carbon from the atmosphere takes several hundreds of thousands of years. So, unless we invent an efficient way to scrub it off the air, things won't improve a bit EVEN if we do quit being stupid right now and stop using that tiny atmosphere of ours as a rubbish dump.
http://www.wunderground.com/news/melting-glacier-exposes-frozen-forest-20130924
Quotes:
1. The Mendenhall Glacier, which flows from the 1,500-square-mile Juneau Ice Field, has been retreating since the mid-1700s
2. they have determined that the trees’ ages range from about 1,200 to 2,350 years old
So:
A glacier in Alaska is retreating due to our recent global warming, but there were trees growing underneath the ice from about 300 BC to 800 AD. How do trees grow underneath a glacier that should have been much longer and deeper back before all the CO2 was released?
It's a bit worrisome to find out that the latest IPCC reports' "...the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century," is actually just based on the report writers' personal opinions, and not on any mathematical or statistical calculation.
Besides it being an opinion rather than a calculation, it's also worrisome that the opinion has gone up from 90 percent in the previous IPCC report, even though the current IPCC document reports *more*, not less, uncertainty about our understanding of the climate system. I would have thought that more uncertainty in our understanding would lead to less confidence that human activity was the main cause, but then I'm not a *climate* scientist. :)
As we are currently blessed with not just one, but two rather good incarnations of a certain famous consulting detective, methinks the IPCC could do worse than to employ one or both of them to raise its game.
"...the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century," is actually just based on the report writers' personal opinions, and not on any mathematical or statistical calculation"
No - as it it says 'science shows' so via measurements and probability statistics. You are confusing this with 'I think'.
"it's also worrisome that the opinion has gone up from 90 percent in the previous IPCC report, even though the current IPCC document reports *more*, not less, uncertainty about our understanding of the climate system"
No that's not worrisome. We might have greater uncertainly about the climate system as a whole under extreme conditions caused by AGW, but we are now statistically sure that AGW itself is at least partly caused by human burning of fossil fuels and near certain that it is the primary cause. There is no conflict in those conclusions.
"...the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century," is actually just based on the report writers' personal opinions, and not on any mathematical or statistical calculation"No - as it it says 'science shows' so via measurements and probability statistics. You are confusing this with 'I think'.
Sorry, you've been deceived as well. Here's the link to the IPCC report. Feel free to post a reference to any "measurements and probability statistics" in it that are used to get "95 percent certainty."
http://www.issuelab.org/resource/climate_change_2013_the_physical_science_basis
As I wrote originally, the 95 percent number is arbitrary and just there to dress up the *opinions* of the report's authors.
> A little knowledge of basic statistics would help you. May I recommend that you read the Wikipedia articles "Confidence interval" and "68–95–99.7 rule"? And then consider again whether the 95 percent number is arbitrary?
He's not saying that 95% as a suitable interval is not valid. He's saying that are no hard stats in the report to back it up.
> He's saying that are no hard stats in the report to back it up.
And it took me less than a minute and a single search of the real report to find out that he's wrong.
And I quote:
'Note that the same methodology can be used to analyze the postwar cooling and the recent “pause” in the warming; this is the subject of current work in progress.'
I would ask them why current climate models do not predict the postwar cooling or the "pause" and why is this work in progress. That their analysis still does not account for these rather major issues would lead any reasonable person to wonder where the word confidence could be used in all seriousness in this context.
Thanks for the Lovejoy reference, Vogon! Even if it weren't flawed, it's too new for the IPCC or US reports to have included, so I'm still waiting for the stats/math supporting the 95% there.
What I DO like about Lovejoy (great name!) 2014 is that he admits that the current IPCC approach to e.g. "fingerprinting" is all based on models which have known flaws and can't even account for the current "pause" in global surface temps. Thus, he argues that an empirical data-based approach is required, and in this he is exactly right.
In Lovejoy 2014 his source of "empirical" data is multiproxy reconstructions of past temperatures as a source of info on natural variability in the climate. Unfortunately, not only are multiproxy reconstructions known to be flawed in that they report artificially low variability, the three particular reconstructions he uses are known to be flawed in technique and/or by using flawed proxies. Sadly, GIGO.
I will keep him in mind, as I really enjoyed his writing style and approach of attacking the problems that should have been studied starting ten or 15 years ago. If he decides to go in search of multiproxy data worthy of his techniques, I hope he'll consult his fellow Canadian Stephen McIntyre.
"...the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century," is actually just based on the report writers' personal opinions, and not on any mathematical or statistical calculation"No - as it it says 'science shows' so via measurements and probability statistics. You are confusing this with 'I think'.
Sorry, you've been deceived as well. Here's the link to the IPCC report. Feel free to post a reference to any "measurements and probability statistics" in it that are used to get "95 percent certainty."
Wow, 5 thumbs down so far, yet nobody has been able to post an example of or reference to a numeric derivation of the "95 percent certainty"??? I'm happy to be corrected, but the hiding behind downthumbies is just gonna make me arrogant :)
> Here's the link to the IPCC report
No, that's a link to a denier site.
The actual IPCC report is here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
You can for instance have a look in the "Summary for Policy Makers" and have a look at picture SPM6 on page 18, in which the 95% confidence interval for predicted global average temperature change due to human+natural forcings contains the actually measured temperature for the period, while the predicted temperature change for only natural forcings is wholly outside the 95% range (i.e. is rejected).
If you want more detail, refer to the corresponding section of the full text and supplement.
It seems that many of the adverse-impact worries center on cloud effects: too much rain, not enough rain, snow at the wrong part of the season, and so forth. With predictions of increased droughts and damage due to torrential rains, I would expect that such phenomena are well-understood and well-modeled.
However, prominent climate scientists such as modeler Gavin Schmidt at GISS have admitted that we don't yet understand either the magnitude of the effect that clouds have on climate, or even the sign(!) -- whether they lead to increased or decreased temperatures. Given that, it's not surprising that models are not considered reliable in predicting regional rain and snow or the lack thereof.
Yet, the US climate assessment report persists in predicting them. I thought it was only the Republicans that were supposed to be denying published science. :)
Clouds reduce ground radiation and night and reduce sun radiation to the ground by day.
The greatest diurnal range in temperatures is in deserts.
That is they are both insulators and shields.
So the actual effect of water vapour that has cndensed is complex.
Water is one of the few things that is present in normal earth temperatures in three phases with considerable energy being required to make the transitions in any case so the amount of energy tied up in water is immense. It is a great thermostat. Oceans seldom dip below zero and seldom rise above about 35C at the surface.
Clouds are also great dissipators of energy if they are big enough and go high enough. Rain is also the chief mechanism by which CO2 is scrubbed out of the atmosphere, back towards the biosphere.Clouds and rain are intensely localised phenomena: geography makes a huge difference.
None of this is incorporated in the grossly over simplified climate models used by the AGW hypothesis.
Many years ago I was tasked with designing a video amplifier - high speed analohgue amplifier to drive a CRT grid.
"Why dont you use our new modelling package on the time share computer'
So I did. I keyed in all the transistor data and told it to optimise.
Then I built it. Hopeless. The model had no concept of the Miller effect - modulation of collector base capacitance by collector voltage...a side effect you can ignore for small voltage variations, but not when you are trying to swing a hundred volts.
I learnt to be wary of computer models...
"I learnt to be wary of computer models..."
I can sympathise at least with that view.
"None of this is incorporated in the grossly over simplified climate models used by the AGW hypothesis."
Right - but temperature and sea levels have been demonstrably rising for a long time - and the conclusions of what will happen based not on a computer model, but on say historical measurements of CO2 versus average temperature over the last few hundred thousands years are also pretty clear...
but temperature and sea levels have been demonstrably rising for a long time
We know that sea levels have been rising slowly but steadily during the past century or so, and there's been no increase in that rate, so no worries on the sea level front for hundreds of years from now at least.
Temperatures have been fluctuating substantially during the past 120 years of thermometer records, and there is plausible evidence that temperatures were higher than they are today about 1000 years ago as well as during other periods in the last 10,000 years.
The predictions of significant warming before 2100 *are* in fact based on computer models, not on any formulas linked to empirical measurements.
"there's been no increase in that rate"
Perhaps you missed the sharply upwards curving graph in the article?
"there is plausible evidence that temperatures were higher than they are today about 1000 years ago as well as during other periods in the last 10,000 years."
No there isn't - see the Wikipedia article on the temperature record.
"The predictions of significant warming before 2100 *are* in fact based on computer models"
~ 800,000 years of available figures for average temperature versus CO2 in the atmosphere also predicts a similar outcome.
@vogon
"there's been no increase in that rate"Perhaps you missed the sharply upwards curving graph in the article?
I certainly missed any *sea level* data in that graph; perhaps you can point me to a source for your special X-Ray goggles? :)
No there isn't - see the Wikipedia article on the temperature record.
Really? Wikipedia? That may explain things... :)
~ 800,000 years of available figures for average temperature versus CO2 in the atmosphere also predicts a similar outcome.
OK, so what temp does the 800,000 years predict for 280ppm? for 340ppm? for 400ppm? Is it even technically a function?
"adaptation would be mammoth undertakings"
This would be true if we didn't have 200 years to do it in. It turns out to be a very small activity if you do it year-by-year once it starts. Remember, it hasn't actually started yet. Neither the global temperature increase, nor the promised increase in ocean height.
At the moment, all the evidence to hand shows is that we have a $100B fraud on our hands.
"This would be true if we didn't have 200 years to do it in."
How about in a few decades?
It turns out to be a very small activity if you do it year-by-year once it starts."
Really? - let's see your calculations of global changes required to support say a 1m sea rise and a 2 degrees increase in surface temperature by 2100 (being quite conservative values) ?
You might want to start here: http://architecture2030.org/hot_topics/nation_under_siege
Already a photoshopped data, hodge podge science fable, climate alchemy now has another mortal defect....all the "Laws" of radiation theory are invalid. See Dr Pierre-Marie Robitaille video at ThermalPhysics(.)org
Absorption/emission varies with temperature and pressure, Kirchoff, Planck, Stefan and Boltzman Laws are invalid.
that quite a bit of global warming is clearly anthropogenic. It is all the hot air emanating from politicians and commentards alike. Most models fail to take that into account
On a serious note, I do not know (i.e. with 100.0000% scientific certainty) whether global warming or climate change is anthropogenic or not. Climate has changed a lot over earth's history, and CO2 levels are quite low at the moment, as compared to the mesozoic era AFAIK. It is also rather cold compared to e.g. the Jurassic. That suited a bunch of big lizards (OK, not really lizards), but not our current society, which has adapted to the current climate. Climate change may therefore disrupt our cosy lifestyle. To me it does not matter so much whether we are to blame. It is more important to see how we can get by, using fewer non-renewable resources, and how we can deal with a potential crisis, preferably without bloodshed. Mankind's performance in the latter case is not stellar, I agree, but maybe we can work things out this time.
Just my tuppence
Re:It seems to me
One point that I don't often see made is that what the temperatures were in the distant past is not a good point to make about ignoring global warming. The earth was inhospitable to life for the majority of its history. A lot of people claim that it is evident that humans aren't causing global warming because the earth has been hotter in the past and we weren't here to cause it. Well, regardless of that, the earth is warming and we need to stop it if practical, and if not learn to live with it for as long as we can. I certainly don't have a definitive interpretation of the data. But I believe in the scientific method and I advocate for more data gathering, more analysis and experiments where feasible. If the earth gets more inhospitable it won't be good. Regardless of any placing of blame.
quote: "The earth was inhospitable to life for the majority of its history."
Life is surprisingly hardy, it can survive within inches of ocean floor volcanic vents, it can survive in meters of glacial ice, and in all sots of conditions in between. It's also theorised that we've had cyanobacteria around for 3.5 billion years, which would actually be the majority of the Earth's 4.5 billion years. It's only been inhospitable to life for maybe 20-25% of it's early history ^^;
Even if the planet goes up 10C in average global temperature, there will be life. 3.5 billion years and several extinction events have already shown that life is still around, it's just the form that changes.
From a personal, human, perspective, we do need to pull our fingers out though; blamestorming is fine keeping the B-Ark element amused, but we should be making sure that the technology and infrastructure is in place to support the continued survival of homo sapiens in the face of climate change, regardless of the contributing factors. Sea levels due to rise? Sort out some decent (sustainable) oceanic farming initiatives, and prioritise the development of floating installations or placing critical non-floating infrastructure a few hundred meters above sea level.
Placing blame is not the problem. The problem is the Watermelon "solution" to this theoretical problem. The solutions all appear to be based in some measure that results in more money for government. For example, in my neck of the woods we have a "carbon tax". This carbon tax takes money from us and hands that money to government, and this is supposed to somehow reduce the creation of CO2.
I guess I will create a little less CO2, and all the other taxpayers will create a little less CO2 because we have less money available to purchase heating fuel or gasoline or whatever... but then what happens to the tax money we paid? Did the government dig a big hole and bury it? Or did the government pay that money to someone else, who then spent it on things like heating fuel and gasoline?
IOW, the carbon tax is a con game that does nothing to address the supposed problem, it is simply another ridiculous tax grab foisted on us by government to benefit themselves.
Yep time is running out before everyone, even the most hardened Skeptical science/Real climate/Sci American/Nature subscribing echo chamber-ist, realises that CO2 is not the global thermostat they thought it was.
As temperatures drop well beyond what can be fiddled in the global temperature data sets as the real threat of a maunder minimum little ice age approaches the fear of a backlash will grow.
Keep an eye on the satellite temperature sets and buy thermals.
What happened a million years ago or even 100,000 years ago is more or less irrelevant now - the climate and environment changes all the time. It's the correlation* between the fairly rapid temperature increase and the increase in production of CO2 due to industrialisation that's significant here; there's a very real chance that we might be affecting the climate and so we might be able to prevent things getting 'worse' (obviously a matter of perspective). The last 20 years of stagnation isn't significant yet, the overall trend is still upwards.
Personally I think that trying to achieve some kind of political consensus is pointless now, and that it's probably easier for each region to try and mitigate their own problems - if they can do it in a way that doesn't screw neighbouring regions over, all the better.
*Yes, I know.
True what happened a million years ago is irrelevent. What happened OVER the last million years IS relevent because it shows to the common man that any correlation in the last 100 years is chance. But you are a believer and in denial over the lack of warming in thr last 20 years so you willfully missed my point.
OK yes, I missed your point there about the millions years. But the last 20 (still more like 10/12) years of lack of warming is insignificant, there have been other flat periods over the last 100 years followed by periods of increase. If it continues flat for another 20 years or starts to continuously decrease then it might indicate something (assuming there are no other significant changes).
"the lack of warming in the last 20 years."
Average global surface temperature has still been increasing in the last 20 years. A tiny bit slower than before, but that's because the heat is currently going into the oceans instead. And guess what - the oceans' capacity to store heat is finite...
You need to go back to school. The heat capacity of the oceans is magnitudes greater than the atmosphere. Ergo for all intensive purposes it is infinite. So if the heat is somehow magically going into the oceans now when it wasn't before it makes global warming a non-problem (for the heat to come back out of the oceans would require the laws of physics to change - and y' canna' change the laws of physics).
Actually the heat capacity of the oceans is about 1,000 times greater than the atmosphere - so nowhere near infinite. Also a warming climate tends to concentrate the heat in the upper layers and thereby impede downward mixing of the warmth. Resulting stratification can enhance the early surface temperature response to radiative forcing from increased greenhouse gases, even as it delays the ultimate fully-mixed equilibrium warming of the entire system.
So take the 1000 times then. So a doubling of CO2 leads to an increase of about 3 degrees in the atmosphere (including feedbacks - IPCC bad case scenario) - so this is 3/1000 of a degree warming in the oceans........
So rough approximation of square root of f' all (all things being equal).
Again where is the problem AC? Even AR5 says the likelihood of anything negative happening before 2100 is at the "very low confidence" level.
"Move the starting point of the graph to 1 million year ago and you will see how ludicrous it is to conclude co2 causes warming"
Well I moved it back as far as records exist (800,000 years) and temperature versus CO2 still correlates: http://warmgloblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/co2-and-temperature-changes-are.html
"Warmists are in denial over the lack of warming in the last 20 years."
All current figures still show continued warming over that period.
We can all believe in MMCC Co2 theory and its utterly destructive effects because 97% of scientists agree that it is real and it is coming with 95% certainty! And your total commitment to the cause must be 110% and your taxes will rise 10% per year from now on to provide 300% more funding for more scientists/books/robes/churches to ensure the truth reaches 99% of the worlds population (with money money) and drown the 1% to demonstrate that the worlds water has risen*. 100% of the worlds extreme weather events will be recorded and compared to the 90% recorded past extreme weather events (where deemed applicable to the cause) of the last 6 months to give an accurate representation of how strange the event is in human history (starting point of human history is variable to the last perfect day as per your holy text revision 660, book of Gore chapter 5 verse 8).
* Containers may be required to fetch the water which will increase tax to ensure production of a green bucket not using anything Co2 intensive. Maybe the hollowed skulls of heretics! Because what else is a witch good for?
For those interested in how much this rhetorical "300%" more money means for science, you might try looking at the uk research council budgets - eg http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ (0.8bn) or http://www.nerc.ac.uk/
Then, just for a lark, you could compare their budgets to the annual uk spend on petfood given at http://www.pfma.org.uk/ or
http://www.independent.co.uk/property/house-and-home/pets/news/pampered-pets-uk-7717640.html
(range 2.1 to 2.7bn)
Yep. 300% would put EPSRC on a par with cats, dogs, goldfish, and budgies.
As for what is actually happening to science budgets, well, you can search for those news items yourself. Do let us know what you find.
There are three types of denial, which are often phased:
1) Straight denial — It's not happening
2) Minimization denial — OK, it's happening, but it's not as bad as you say
3) Transference denial — OK, it's happening and it's bad, but it's somebody else's fault
@ Identity
That is where the religion becomes a problem. You point out all the flaws and failures and believers do group up into those forms of denial. Just no reasoning with them nor discussion, they think they are right and everyone else is a heretic (they call denier which must be confusing for them)
1 Actually the idea that people thought the world was flat is a myth.
2 The earth does look round, have you ever seen the sea?
3 No, 'the church' never told you that the earth was flat.
This typifies the sort of blind fath the warmists have in emotive misleading nonsense.
I can pretty much gurantee that none of the warmists reading this have ever looked at a graph of the raw tempertures (all the temperature readings not just the warmer ones)
Warmist - why are you so angry - is it because you suspect that it is possible that you have not had the time or expertise to actually look at the real data and you may just be following a lie. That you have been very foolish and are not capable of or dont have the time for independant thought and research?
Or are you, understandably, just chicken little afraid?
A close inspection of the chart above illustrates that while CO2 has rocket, warming came to an abrupt halt in 1997. Oh, and BTW, the governments own weather data show NO statistically significant increase in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events over the past 100 years (the AGW alarmists are deliberately using the increased cost of such events due to there being more of everything to be damaged to mask this inconvenient truth).
Half the climate change articles are pro-Science, and I can post normally.
Half the climate change articles are rabidly denialist, and anything I post gets two days of "awaiting moderation" regardless of content, and then randomly get posted, rejected or simply disappears.
Climate change has been occurring during the last many years of computer and space ads.
But not one person is looking at the sources.
In the Teampa Tribune in 2007 or so, there was an item about the airports changing their coordinates on the incoming runways to aid planes coming in to the the airport. I am quite sure the reporter got fired for the article.
A comment at the end of the article claimed that the USAF had been doing the same thing since 1982.
It was a bit shocking, but with six SRB's around each airborn shuttle to the stars, it means that the 2.8 million pounds of force on the launchpad from each SRB has created a huge launchpad sledge hammer into the earth. And the SRBs that are tossed back and laid in the ocean is one reason that the coral reefs in the Atlantic are dying. When will the moneymen wake up? Our earth is being destroyed and it cannot take much more. Anyone complaining about carbon monoxide or any other airborn chemical is baying up at the wrong tree- clutching animal that is on its last hour of life before the hunters shoot it.
I don't believe it. And I'm not going to be shamed into believing it by these arrogant, "smarter than thou," self-important, environmental poindexters, especially when my skepticism is all their fault to begin with. These unpersuasive scammers have been crying wolf and trying to defraud the public for years! It is no wonder that they are disbelieved now. I remember back in the 70's, when it was a "ozone hole" causing the "greenhouse effect" that was going to bring about a "new ice age." (You don't believe me? Just do an on-line search for the words "global cooling 1970's") Thus the lobbyists got their way, taxes and regulations.
Here are a few headlines from the 70's (back when it was global cooling); "Science: Another Ice Age?" (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972) "The Ice Age Cometh" (The Saturday Review, March 24, 1973), "Scientists Fear Smog Could Cause Ice Age" (Milwaukee Journal, December 5, 1974), "B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon?" (The Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1975). Books were written; "The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun?" (Lowell Ponte, 1976), "Blizzard - What Happens if it Doesn’t Stop?" (George Stone, 1977). And talk about celebrity scientists like Bill Nye, back then we had Carl Sagan, and Isaac Asimov "A Choice of Catastrophes - The Disasters That Threaten Our World" (1979), and (not a scientist but he played one on TV) Leonard Nimoy "The Coming Ice Age" (In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, May 1978). Back then it was the same argument as it is now, "these scientists are smarter than we are and they know what they are talking about." They made it seem like you were a Luddite with a planetary death wish if you doubted the "accepted scientific fact" that the end of the world was just around the corner (they were worse than the Jehovah's Witnesses).
This scam goes way back; The existence of the greenhouse effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824. The argument and the evidence was further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838, and reasoned from experimental observations by John Tyndall in 1859, and more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell wrote “[The unchecked burning of fossil fuels] would have a sort of greenhouse effect”, and “The net result is the greenhouse becomes a sort of hot-house.” No doubt a long time ago a crop destroying wildfire was blamed upon a fire-breathing dragon (carbon production) to whom some group of witch-doctors (ancient scientists) insisted that the villagers appease with sacrifices (taxes and regulations). It is no wonder that the public has become inured to this blatant fear mongering, and it's not the people's fault either; the fault lies squarely with the "wolf crying" scientists themselves (even if they turn out to be right in the future, you can't blame people for being skeptical today).
Sadly, Salverda, you appear to be a comprehensively and fully embarrassing raving looney. Please take your meds, son, and extend my sincere apologies to those poor unfortunates tasked with dealing with you on a daily basis.
Poor soul...
Deniers are ahead of the curve;
*Occupywallstreet now does not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded and corporate run carbon trading stock markets ruled by politicians.
Prove us deniers wrong and find us one single IPCC warning that "believes" beyond "could be" as you "believers" do and find us one that says; inevitable or "will be" or eventual or proven or... All deniers want is more proof than 32 years of "95%" certainty that THE END IS NEAR. Is that too much to ask? Who's the neocon again here? We are not the ones determined to "believe" in this misery happening for our kids.
*Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a freely elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (a comet hit).
Nonsense!
I cared. I cared quite a lot. In fact, I cared so much that I cheered on the PM and sent his party a (small) cheque when he actually demonstrated that he had the balls and the brains to tell these flim-flam con-artist thermageddonists to take a hike.
"I'm wondering how this constitutes a crisis, as this is a nice steady rate of increase, over 130 years."
Because it's going to keep rising. And as the rise in the rate of CO2 concentration is accelerating, so eventually will the rate of temperature rise. The effect on the climate is also likely to get more extreme, the pH of the sea of going to continue to and things (like the barrier reefs for instance) are going to start dying, and the sea level is going to keep rising and accelerate. And that's just the stuff we know for sure.
IF say the permafrost that currently covers 24% of the northern hemisphere melts then things could get a whole lot worse very quickly. The melting of clathrates in this way was likely the cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Strange that TWICE in the last 2000 years global temperatures have been 2-4C warmer than today, the grossly ignored one being the medieval warm period, and the other when the Romans were whooping it up growing wine in a Berwick on Tweed, not normally famous for its great vintages.
Were they dying from the consequences?
Nope.
Most of the most disastrous periods for wars, famines and pestilences were during the COLDEST temperatures such as the mini ice age, which after the temperature FALLS of the last 17 years, and the absence of sun spots, is just in the process of appearing in a new grand Dalton minimum.
There is no doubt that humans have modified the Earth with urbanization, deforestation, modifying flood plains, irrigation, river dams, seawalls, levees, intensive row cropping, concentrated animal feeding, mineral mining, wars, cloud seeding,etc.. With this extensive a report, one would think all possible causations would be measured. However, this report probably centered one thing...Carbon. Carbon is the "glue" that holds the Earth, and possibly the Universe, together by being able to exist in many forms and recycles itself via the Carbon cycle. When it doesn't work right in the human body most people suffer illness and often obesity. There are natural occurrences, solar winds, volcanoes, earthquakes, tectonic plate movement, etc.. These should have been factored out. The change in the environment(e.g.)from forested area to a skyscraper, of monitoring sites should have been taken into account. It is regrettable that with all our increased knowledge we seem to be suffering a lack of wisdom. When drinking water was a problem aboard ships many solutions were sought. Then, tea, which didn't intoxicate as rum or beer did, was discovered and it seemed to "purify" the water. Boiling the water did seem to enhance tea's ability to purify. By the time Louis Pasteur discovered it was the boiling, not the tea, that purified the water, a bustling trade in tea and spices had occurred. East India Tea Co. manged colonies around the globe for the Crown until those upstart Americans didn't want to pay for the French and Indian War. That's about the level of science occurring in "climate disruption" and as in the aforementioned example, some will win and some will lose at the behest of government. Go for zero CO2 and see how much climate disruption occurs.
Stop the BS about central planning making the average person better off. We know that more centrally planned economies are worse for the citizens, so why do all these UN people want more of it? Why is Venezuela an economic basket case? What is more important - the truth or control of others' lives?
When will the earth's temperature be optimal? What is the optimal temperature? It may be that for most of earth's history there were no polar ice caps. The earth was warmer.
The one thing that people talk about is Co2 increasing. The one thing they never do, is to measure it for themselves. It is quite simple and accurate (as used in atomic submarines) and comparatively cheap to do.
I can tell you now that the Co2 level has not changed in twentyfive years and stands at 311 ppm. Dont take my word, test it for yourself . All of the claims come from people who take notice of 'experts' that usually have an axe to grind. Just spend a few hundred and try.
Onething that has not been mentioned except about 3 or 4 column inches in the middle of a daily newspaper is that a team of scientists did an investigation into how long Co2 stays aloft. It is between 3 months and 17 months, not hundreds of years.
Theres another fact that is never mentioned. That is that for the last 280 million years, apart from five ice ages (we live in the last of the five) that the temperature has been warmer enough to be without permanent ice. We are about 10,000 years overdue to go back to 'normal' for another long period. It is though possible that we shall relapse inti another glaciation.
The global warmers never mention that the earth may well go back to 'normal' and that we are balaced on the top of a pinnacle that could go either way. You may draw your own conclusions as to why they wish to hide the truth .
Dave.
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