Climate change

[FM75]

Nobel prize nitpick: Einstein published three papers in 1905 (on Brownian motion, on the photoelectric effect and on Special Relativity) and got the prize in 1921 especially for the second one. Relativity probably was also a factor. He published General Relativity in 1916.

 

Good catch.

[Al_U_Card]

News from the weather front...

 

The AMS (American Meteorological Society) was surveyed (a fine consensus-word)concerning views on climate change and human influence thereupon.

 

http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/table.jpg

 

Look at the views in column 1, then look at the % in the rightmost column: 52% state the the warming since 1850 is mostly anthropogenic. One common categorization would categorize the other 48% as ‘deniers’.

 

Shrinkage?

[Al_U_Card]

Maybe this has something to do with their ..... cooling towards warming?

 

http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/AR4_HowsItDoing-500x500.png

 

From the IPCC, what the SRES A1B scenario represents.

 

A1. The A1 storyline and scenario family describes a future world of very rapid economic growth, global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies. Major underlying themes are convergence among regions, capacity building and increased cultural and social interactions, with a substantial reduction in regional differences in per capita income. The A1 scenario family develops into three groups that describe alternative directions of technological change in the energy system. The three A1 groups are distinguished by their technological emphasis: fossil intensive (A1FI), non-fossil energy sources (A1T), or a balance across all sources (A1B) (where balanced is defined as not relying too heavily on one particular energy source, on the assumption that similar improvement rates apply to all energy supply and end-use technologies).

[Al_U_Card]

From Dr. Roger Pielke's blog regarding Super-typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), it's relation to global warming and IPCC conclusions of the same.

 

Roger Pielke, Jr. said...

Seth Borenstein of AP sent me an email asking some questions, my quotes didn't make it into his story, but here they are in 2 comments:

 

Here are ten questions:

1. What human factors do you see in play here in Typhoon Haiyan?

 

RP: If you are referring to the physical qualities of Haiyan, then I will defer to the recent IPCC AR5: "In summary, this assessment does not revise the SREX conclusion of low confidence that any reported long-term (centennial) increases in tropical cyclone activity are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities."

 

That means that the scientific evidence does not presently support claims of attribution of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on tropical cyclone behavior with respect to century-long trends (much less the behavior of individual storms). The IPCC AR5 cites some of our peer-reviewed work in its report (Weinkle et al. 2012, Journal of Climate).

 

Our peer-reviewed work suggests that assuming model predictions for future changes in tropical cyclone behavior are perfectly accurate (for a range of models) that it will be many decades, even centuries, before such a signal can be detected in trend data. More generally, I have written: "In practical terms, on timescales of decision making a signal that cannot be seen is indistinguishable from a signal that does not exist"

 

Of course, there are scientists willing to go beyond what can be supported empirically to make claims at odds with the overwhelming scientific consensus on this subject -- e.g., Mann, Francis, Masters are always good for inscrutable and unsupportable quotes. Such outlier views are welcomed, as help to push science forward. But they are also a minefield for journalists, politicians and activists who may cherry pick them as if they are somehow representative.

 

2. What about poverty and coastal development? How much of those were as factors?

 

RP: In general there is an inverse relationship between loss of life and property damage. The wealthier nations become the less loss of life in big disasters (again, in general). At the same time, more wealth also means more property damage.

 

While the details of Haiyan's course of death and destruction will have to await post-disaster assessment, what we can say is that the development of warning systems and responses have led to a dramatic decrease in loss of life to tropical cyclones (and disasters generally) around the world. See:http://www.jpands.org/vol14no4/goklany.pdf

 

Haiyan, and events like it, tell us that there is still much work to do in addressing vulnerability to disasters. The long-term trends tell us that we have a sense of what actions will be effective in that work.

 

3. How about construction quality or is this a case with winds (depending on who is measuring) of 150 or 200 mph, is construction no longer an issue?

 

RP: Construction quality, including standards, enforcement, etc. is always going to be important in locations exposed to high winds. When the intensity is such that it exceeds building capacity to withstand, then it is important to have plans in place for evacuation to safe zones or shelters. To suggest in any situation that "construction is no longer an issue" is probably the wrong way to think about the challenge - construction always matters.

 

4. What about disaster preparations, quality or lack thereof, as a factor?

 

RP: The Philippines have centuries of experience with typhoons and the tragedies that can result. The specific lessons from Haiyan (Yolanda there) should await a careful assessment of what worked well and what might be improved. It is premature to speculate.

 

Mon Nov 11, 09:34:00 PM MST

6. Roger Pielke, Jr. said...

5. What about sea level rise, especially that attributed to climate change?

 

RP: Sea level rise is inexorable and relatively slow in comparison to the surges associated with tropical cyclones. It is important to be aware of, especially in the context of long-term planning. It is not possible to identify a "sea level rise" signal in historical normalized losses from tropical cyclones, and of course, not a GHG-driven sea-level rise signal. More generally, when we are talking about 5 meter storm surges, I am not convinced that 3 mm/year of sea level rise is a big issue in the magnitude of disaster losses (because building and adaptation along the coast is continuous and in the context of where the sea is presently), even though sea level rise is (again) real and important to consider in long-term planning and will have economic and social consequences.

 

6. When you look at all the human factors and then look at all the natural factors, what percentage would you put at human-caused (including poverty, development, population, preparation, construction, and climate change related) and what part natural? And why?

 

RP: Sorry, I don't understand this question? What part of what?

 

Disasters are well understood to be consequences of human development (As Gilbert White used to say, extremes are acts of God, disasters are acts of Man) -- where we live, how we live, etc. So you could say that a disaster is 100% human caused. At the same time, without the extreme event there wouldn't have been a disaster either. So you could say that the disaster was 100% natural caused. Not sure this is a useful question, though I do understand the urge to assign blame. A better question is, what actions can we be taken so that future storms have a lesser human impact?

 

7. This is an area that normally gets more tropical cyclones than anywhere else in the world and generally stronger ones. And the Philippines are 7000 islands smack in the middle, how much of this is unavoidable? And when we talk unavoidable, what about just avoiding living in dangerous places, does this count?

 

RP: The same question could be asked of Miami, San Francisco, Tokyo, or Boulder etc etc. As Dennis Mileti used to say, we cannot avoid disasters, but we can shape how we experience disasters. The Philippines are always going to experience tropical cyclones, some very extreme. Similarly, San Francisco is always going to experience earthquakes. The questions to be asked well before an event occurs (or in the aftermath of the most recent event) are how do we want to experience those disasters, and what can we do to shape those experiences via purpose action (which invokes issues of wealth, politics. capacity, etc.)?

 

8. There’s also a few human factors that lessen disasters _ warning, good construction, disaster preparations, etc. What were their roles here?

 

RP: Again, rather than speculate we should await rigorous post-disaster assessments. These are important questions that deserve thoughtful approaches.

 

9. In this case did human factors that lessen disasters outweigh or come close to outweighing human factors that exacerbate disasters? And why?

 

RP: Ill posed .. see #6.

 

10. In general, looking at the last decade of mega-disasters worldwide, are human factors worsening or lessening disaster effects? And why?

 

RP: Overall, globally and over decades, disasters from weather events are resulting in lower damages per unit of GDP and less loss of life. This is a sign that the world is collectively doing better. Events like Haiyan remind us that there is a lot of work still to do, and other very large, consequential disaster events (Japan and Boxing day tsunamis, etc.) also remind us that the human toll can still be very tragic. In this sense disasters are too important to merely serve as a talking point in the debate over climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Hope this helps, please follow up if anything is unclear etc.

Mon Nov 11, 09:34:00 PM MST

[Zelandakh]

If I read the chart correctly that 52% number is made up of 73% of (published) climate scientists, 62% of (published) scientists from other areas and 37% of others (non-scientists and non-published scientists). Do these numbers really support your position? What they seem to show is that there is a large difference between informed and uninformed opinions. But it is fairly easy to "fix" survey results so we would need to know more details before coming to such conclusions.

[Al_U_Card]

Like knowing about the Doran survey (77/79) that showed man having "some" impact on the climate. (ie the 97% so often quoted by alarmists in lieu of factual analysis and data)

 

All of the above posts just demonstrate that there is a great deal to be looked at before we leap into impoverishment and energy insufficiency at the hands of any agenda, green or otherwise.

 

The science shows that there is neither alarm nor even unprecedented change in the current climate. What we choose to do about variations should be a function of efficiency and effectiveness, not about guilt, goading or group-think.

[Daniel1960]

It is not readily apparent that the difference is due to informed vs uninformed opinions. Those publishing in the climate science realm tend to be schooled in the IPCC-held belief in global warming. Non-publishing does not necessarily equate to uninformed. Remember, this is a survey of scientists. Those working in academia have a greater impetus to publish, while those working in business in industry have less incentive. Retired scientists and many high-ranking governemtn officials are noe longer publishing either. Using publications as a metric for informative opinions was the major inaccuracy of the oft-quoted 97%. The numbers presented probably most accurate reflect the broader scientific opinion.

[Al_U_Card]

the IPCC-held belief in global warming

 

That "belief" (I prefer "position" as that would make it somewhat more scientific in nature...) is more clearly stated as the position that climate sensitivity is high enough (at least 3 deg. C per doubling) to cause significant global temperature rise and that increasing humidity (clouds and water vapor as THE GHG) triples the effect.

 

Based on most of the current science, that position is less and less tenable so perhaps the term "hope" is more appropriate?

[Daniel1960]

Alright, I will grant you the more apt term "position." Your last post may have misstated the IPCC position on climate sensitivity. While they still maintain that the sensitivity is 3 or above, that is a tripling of the measured effect in a closed system of ~1 C (your post implied that they claim clouds and water vapor triple the climate sensitivity from 3 to 9). Yes, the most recent science is placing this value closer to 2, ranging from 1.5 - 2.5, leaving their position as somewhat pessimistic (hopeful just does not seem like the right word in this case).

[Al_U_Card]

That was indeed the irony intended for that particular usage.

 

When you find out the mandate of the IPCC and observe just how it is proceeding, it becomes clear that their agenda is most definitely to scare and to induce contributions for administration by the UN bureaucracy to oversee the dismantling of our energy infrastructure into something more medieval.

 

The UK is quickly becoming the poster-child for what happens to governments that kow-tow to this pressure.

 

What should we do about climate change?

 

I would expect that defunding (as opposed to defending) the IPCC would be as good a place to start as any... :blink:

[billw55]

Prediction is hard, especially about the future. Ok, Yogi was not talking about climate change, but just about predictions. I can't think of a statement that describes this better. The laws of gravitation are known to incredible precision. Yet the amount of error in predicting the position and speed of an asteroid 40 years into the future are incredibly imprecise. By hundreds of miles, etc.

A couple more nitpicks. I consider +/- a few hundred miles on an asteroid's position, 40 years into the future, to be incredibly precise. Jaw-dropping astonishing, in fact. And the uncertainty comes from measurement precision, not from misunderstanding gravity. Then again, maybe a little from the n-body problem.

 

If we are to believe all of the predictions that are publish about climate change, we must believe things that are FAR less well known and further into the future. For example, the population of the planet, the economic developments that will occur, not to mention the predictions of scientific change. What probabilities were assigned to nuclear war? An epic plague, with 2020 proportions equivalent to the world's previous worst? Any reason why it should not be far worse with far higher global mobility?

Interesting point. The models and predictions always assume, more or less, no major unusual events. But they do have a way of happening.

[Al_U_Card]

I am still smiling.... :D

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uif1NwcUgMU

[cherdano]

Remember, this is a survey of scientists.

That's wrong.

 

Btw, the survey had a response rate of about 13%...

[Al_U_Card]

The looming spectre of global warming (adjustments)...

 

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/santa-rosa-temperatures.jpg?w=640

[Al_U_Card]

That's wrong.

 

Btw, the survey had a response rate of about 13%...

 

So, the "(in)famous" 97% Doran survey had:

 

two questions of 10,257 Earth Scientists at academic and government institutions. 3146 of them responded. That survey was the original basis for the famous “97% consensus” claim.

 

For the calculation of the degree of consensus among experts in the Doran/Zimmerman article, all but 79 of the respondents were excluded.

 

79/10,257 = 0.95%

[Zelandakh]

I am still smiling.... :D

Yes it is funny, providing everyone understands that this video is only meant as humour.

[Al_U_Card]

Yes it is funny, providing everyone understands that this video is only meant as humour.

Maybe it was a wry smile then.... ;)

[Daniel1960]

An interesting article from an otherwise leftist site:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/global-cooling_b_4413833.html

[Al_U_Card]

An article from a corporate site (Shell is going green..... as in money?)

 

What's up next for the Brits if they don't pay attention.

 

I signed up for The Radical Emission Reduction Conference at the Royal Society. This was held in London and put on by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Given the academic reputation of the Tyndall Centre and of course the credentials of the Royal Society, I was hoping for a useful discussion on rapid deployment of technologies such as CCS, how the world might breathe new life into nuclear and other such topics, but this was far from the content of the sessions that I was able to attend.

 

Rather, this was a room of catastrophists (as in “catastrophic global warming”), with the prevailing view, at least to my ears, that the issue could only be addressed by the complete transformation of the global energy and political systems, with the latter moving to one of state control and regulated consumerism. There would be no room for “ruthless individualism” in such a world. The posters that dotted the lecture theatre lobby area covered topics as diverse as vegan diets to an eventual return to low technology hunter-gatherer societies (but thankfully there was one CCS poster in the middle of all this).

 

Much to my surprise I was not really at an emission reduction conference (despite the label saying I was), but a political ideology conference. Although I have been involved in the climate change issue for over a decade, I had not heard this set of views on the issue voiced so consistently in one place. This was a room where there was a round of applause when one audience member asked how LNG and coal exporters in Australia might be “annihilated” following their (supposed) support for the repeal of the carbon tax in that country.

[Al_U_Card]

Any further cooling (Past results are no guarantee of future catastrophe.....or are they????) provoked by us or nature only leads down a path to the deep-freeze.

 

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/MIS11a_zps8cef2935.png

[Al_U_Card]

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_November_2013_v5.6.png

[Al_U_Card]

Going (for the) green.

 

Cui bono

 

"How half of key Climate Change Committee is in the pay of green business"

 

No institution plays a greater role in dictating green energy policy than the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) – the body set up by Ed Miliband when he was Labour Energy Secretary through his 2008 Climate Change Act.

The Mail on Sunday’s investigation has established that four of its nine members have recently had or still have financial interests in firms that benefit from its rulings.

Last week, the CCC urged the Government not to water down its ‘fourth carbon budget’. This binds the UK to slash emissions of carbon dioxide to half their 1990 level by 2025.

The budget also says that by 2030, the CO2 emitted per unit of electric power must be less than ten per cent of what it is at present – a cut of more than 90 per cent.

[PassedOut]

Like the cigarette companies that in the past spent huge sums to fight the science that showed the harmfulness of their products, we've had companies like Koch Industries and ExxonMobil pay huge sums to obfuscate the facts about climate change. In the past few years, though, they've tried to conceal those sums: New Study Exposes Flood of Dark Money Feeding Climate Change Denial.

 

Through an analysis of the financial structure of the organizations that constitute the core of the countermovement and their sources of monetary support, Brulle found that, while the largest and most consistent funders behind the countermovement are a number of well-known conservative foundations, the majority of donations are “dark money,” or concealed funding.

 

The data also indicates that Koch Industries and ExxonMobil, two of the largest supporters of climate science denial, have recently pulled back from publicly funding countermovement organizations. Coinciding with the decline in traceable funding, the amount of funding given to countermovement organizations through third party pass-through foundations like Donors Trust and Donors Capital, whose funders cannot be traced, has risen dramatically.

Cockroaches scurry to darkness.

[Al_U_Card]

Like the cigarette companies that in the past spent huge sums to fight the science that showed the harmfulness of their products, we've had companies like Koch Industries and ExxonMobil pay huge sums to obfuscate the facts about climate change. In the past few years, though, they've tried to conceal those sums: New Study Exposes Flood of Dark Money Feeding Climate Change Denial.

 

 

Cockroaches scurry to darkness.

When they are not busy drinking the kool-aid or spouting the party line...

 

Conservative groups may have spent up to $1 billion a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change

…This headline on this article was amended on 21 December 2013 to reflect that not all the $1 billion referred to will have funded climate change work.

 

Any idea how much has been spent on those climate models that can't hindcast, have no skill and were unable to anticipate 17 years of no warming?

[Al_U_Card]

So, just how bad is the situation, climate-wise? Certainly the advocates of catastrophe are anxious to bring to the attention of the general public, all aspects of the global situation?

 

Sure they are.... which is why we are hearing so much about the "expedition" to expose worsening conditions of the Antarctic ice that could cause significant sea-level rise.

 

The decision to abandon the latest attempt was made at 9am Australian EST. The SMH story appeared at 4.40pm, and the ABC reported it on “just in” at 5.40pm. Marvelous how “fast” satellite communications and social media can work. No mention on The Guardian Australia site (despite them having a reporter on the boat). No twitters seen on the @GdnAntarctica, or @guardian, @alokjha (their journalist), @loztopham (their documentary maker), or #spiritofmawson or @ProfChrisTurney. (Perhaps those trapped on the boat don’t know?)

 

 

Antarctica Live is the Guardian Live blog where you won’t find any live news at the moment.

The Guardian calls it “Antarctica Live” but the latest news is from yesterday. What use is a live blog if extraordinary events happen and you don’t cover them?

 

A month ago the mission of the $1.5m expedition was “to answer questions about climate change”. Now the ABC describes the Australasian expedition as “a Russian ship stuck in sea ice in Antarctica.” The BBC has a reporter on board, and it only took 8 hours for the news to reach the BBC feed. Who is spinning the message to neutralize an embarrassing story then?

Let there be no doubt, the mission was to document and record scientific changes in Antarctica and to broadcast that to the world. Most scientific missions don’t have a dedicated media team, but this one named a staff of five journalists. There is a journalist and a documentary maker from the Guardian as well as a senior producer from the Science Unit at the BBC world service. (See the media list.) If they’d discovered less sea ice, fewer penguins, or big cracks, we know the images would be all over the mass media and it would be evidence for “climate change”.

 

But with the MV Akademik Shokalskiy trapped by thick sea ice, the mission apparently is to call it a tourist boat. The BBC now tell us the mission was “to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago”. Don’t mention the climate. (Search for the word “climate” on the BBC story for example…). If there is any doubt this was a climate science crusade read about it here: SpiritofMawson –The Science Case. It tells us the full message of doom including that they are studying an ice sheet that would raise global sea levels by 52m (!) if it melted. It doesn’t tell us that there is no sign that could happen. The site doesn’t mention that temperatures on Antarctica have cooled in the last 30 years, nor that sea ice has increased to record highs (I bet the team have noticed that now).

 

 

…

The spin is that team has “met heavy ice“. Not “been trapped by unprecedentedly thick sea ice, unlike anything Mawson ever saw, and in record levels”. If they had met thin sea ice, would it have been described as a dangerously thin layer, a risk for penguins, and a stark reminder of how much the climate is changing? Would it have been an undeniable factoid?

 

It’s not what the ABC says, it’s what they don’t say (a.k.a. “lying by omission”). The headlines could read “Global warming scientists trapped in Antarctica by record sea ice they didn’t predict”. As if. That would be against the religion.

 

How touristy is this boat? The three leaders are scientists, there are 8 other scientists and 18 PhD students on the boat. There are also 9 scientists back on the shore who presumably modeled the conditions in Antarctica and are world leading experts on sea ice eh? One of those experts is Matthew England who still describes the hopeless IPCC 1990 predictions were “very accurate”.

 

As per Maybe the "truth" will set them free?