Climate change

[Al_U_Card]

A most interesting comment concerning Dr. Paul Bain's paper in Nature.

 

rational vs. gullible

 

I gather you feel that evidence about “the science” is not the point because you are studying the social policy? To which I would ask: Can social policies change the climate, or does climate change our social policies? Is reality the tide gauge results, or the council zoning? Dare I suggest that the point of all the evidence you published rests entirely on the evidence for man-made global warming (that base assumption) that you have not investigated? If there is no empirical evidence for catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, or if the formerly convincing evidence has changed* there is the mystery solved of the rise of the deniers, right then and there. Deniers are the ones following reality.

 

 

One group in our society thinks it can change the weather (you call these “believers”), the other half of the population are not convinced (you call these the “deniers”). The believers have not yet named any empirical evidence to back up their ambitious claims, yet expect the deniers to pay $1,000-$2,000 per household per annum in Australia. The believers want money from the deniers, while the “deniers” want evidence, data, logic and reason (and preferably a debate with good manners). Clearly these labels are inappropriate. Using standard English definitions, those who believe in phenomenon without evidence are gullible. Those who want evidence are rational.

[Al_U_Card]

Since all of the hullaballoo comes from modeled studies of climate effects, what does the peer-reviewed literature tell us about the consistency and accuracy of models and their ability to relate to non-instrumental periods of interest? (Granted, only past results are available for comparison but it is the other direction that creates all the fuss...)

 

Climate of the last millennium:ensemble consistency of simulations and reconstructions O. Bothe, J. H. Jungclaus, D. Zanchettin, and E. Zorita

 

From the abstract: (my bold)

 

The lack of consistency found in our analyses implies that, on the basis of the studied data sets, no status of truth can be assumed for climate evolutions on the considered spatial and temporal scales and, thus, assessing the accuracy of reconstructions and simulations is so far of limited feasibility in pre-instrumental periods.

 

So, send more money so that they can demand more money...right?

[Al_U_Card]

And in the meantime, what with all the data massaging going on, what were the BoM in Australia thinking? (Or on, for that matter.)

 

Going back in time to change results (for whatever reason) needs to be justified but also to be sensible. When you change sub-freezing temps to raise them a bit so that they are not so cold, better not forget to change the newspaper reports of the "third day of consecutive frosts" from back in the day. Warwick Smith is keeping an eye on them.

 

Frostgate

[hrothgar]

Put another way:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/san-francisco-sea-level-alarmist1.jpg?w=640

 

If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again.

 

When will they ever get tired of trotting out those climate-modeled projections with so much "uncertainty"? Oh, right, those ones ARE NOT CATASTROPHIC, just realistic.

 

I'd like to use the following post as a useful example regarding why ad hominem attack is necessary on the internet.

 

Here, once again, we see an example where Al_U_Card is posting a badly flawed analysis, gussied up with a cute graphic.

 

It is well know that different locations in California experience changes in sea level very differently. In part this is due to the fact sea level change is impacted significantly by ocean currents. (This is why sea levels from the middle of North Carolina --> North are rising much more than other locations). California has another very important driver: All of the fault lines that cross that area. The primary reason that the sea level in San Francisco is not rising is that the land itself is buckling up at approximately the same rate that ocean levels are rising.

 

Lets turn to the chart that Al copies from "Watt's Up with That". This chart applies projections for sea level rise for the entire California Coast to one very specific region. I agree that the projections look fairly strange. However, the issue isn't with the underlying models, rather the results of the models are being deliberately misapplied in order to discredit the studies.

 

More simply put: This is yet another example where Al is deliberately posting a biased analysis to try to score cheap points.

 

This happens frequently enough that we can pretty much dismiss any / all posts by Al as a deliberate attempt to inject noise into the conversation.

 

Some people claim that its wrong to attack the source of information rather than the specifics. However, when the source is clearly biased and has a history of posting incorrect information, labeling the source as a ***** seems only right and proper.

[luke warm]

The primary reason that the sea level in San Francisco is not rising is that the land itself is buckling up at approximately the same rate that ocean levels are rising.

this is probably true... in any case, it rings true enough that i'm not going to bother checking it out... however, i don't see what it has to do w/ al's chart, unless the chart itself is fraudulent... the reddish line shows a sea level projection for san fran... do the people making this projection not know about the anomaly of which you speak? if so, why wouldn't they adjust their chart to take that into account?

 

now if the chart has been monkeyed with, that's a different story

[Al_U_Card]

this is probably true... in any case, it rings true enough that i'm not going to bother checking it out... however, i don't see what it has to do w/ al's chart, unless the chart itself is fraudulent... the reddish line shows a sea level projection for san fran... do the people making this projection not know about the anomaly of which you speak? if so, why wouldn't they adjust their chart to take that into account?

 

now if the chart has been monkeyed with, that's a different story

 

 

Monkeyed charts....as in the fraudulent MBH hockey-stick you mean? Using upside-down proxies and spliced-on temperature records to hide the decline? (To say nothing of the rest of the statistical shenanigans heretofore described, for which we are still waiting for a pronouncement from our resident statistics teacher.)

 

Agenda-"science" is all about ad-homs and "neglecting" data and analyses and is never about open discussion (a la Gleick et al) and the real science.

[Zelandakh]

this is probably true... in any case, it rings true enough that i'm not going to bother checking it out... however, i don't see what it has to do w/ al's chart, unless the chart itself is fraudulent... the reddish line shows a sea level projection for san fran... do the people making this projection not know about the anomaly of which you speak? if so, why wouldn't they adjust their chart to take that into account?

 

now if the chart has been monkeyed with, that's a different story

What hrothgar is saying is that the blue part of the chart refers to a different thing (specific location) than the red part of the chart (general projection) and it is therefore misleading to put them together - something akin to taking ocean temperatures of the Mediterranean for 160 years and then splicing on temperatures for the Arctic Sea for 20 years to "prove" that sea temperatures are declining. Not exactly but you get the idea. I have not checked this data so I cannot confirm it either way but I do note that AI's response is to attack which is usually a pretty good indicator of not having a good reply (watch your politicians answering questions sometimes for many examples of this!).

[hrothgar]

Monkeyed charts....as in the fraudulent MBH hockey-stick you mean? Using upside-down proxies and spliced-on temperature records to hide the decline? (To say nothing of the rest of the statistical shenanigans heretofore described, for which we are still waiting for a pronouncement from our resident statistics teacher.)

 

Agenda-"science" is all about ad-homs and "neglecting" data and analyses and is never about open discussion (a la Gleick et al) and the real science.

 

Al, rather than trying to steer the conversation towards a set of imagined grievances, lets focus on something concrete.

You posted a chart which you presumably agree with...

 

Please explain the methodology being used to project sea level changes in San Francisco Bay...

How were the numbers that YOU PROVIDED TO US arrived at?

[Al_U_Card]

Considering the "lack" of attention to isostatic adjustments, glacial rebounds and land subsidence in the latest "analysis" of east-coast sea-level rise hot-spots, the data is everywhere to be seen.

 

Either way, the data for "projected" west-coast SLR (models, models, everywhere)is just that. Over the last century,

global rates of rise during the late Holocene have been steady and have even been decelerating lately. (By satellite measurement and by tide gauge.) Regional and local rates are, understandably, variable. Do we need to go into detail? (There is way more than what is in this thread already.)

[hrothgar]

Considering the "lack" of attention to isostatic adjustments, glacial rebounds and land subsidence in the latest "analysis" of east-coast sea-level rise hot-spots, the data is everywhere to be seen.

 

Either way, the data for "projected" west-coast SLR (models, models, everywhere)is just that. Over the last century,

global rates of rise during the late Holocene have been steady and have even been decelerating lately. (By satellite measurement and by tide gauge.) Regional and local rates are, understandably, variable. Do we need to go into detail? (There is way more than what is in this thread already.)

 

You are the one who proudly posted a completely misleading graphic which failed to deal with just these issues.

 

So, I'd say "Yes", it is important to consider these sorts things...

(It's how we point out that your claims are full of shiite)

[Zelandakh]

Do we need to go into detail?

Actually yes. If you compare apples with oranges and make the claim that this is significant then there is a burden of proof from you to demonstrate why this is so. It seems we have established that the blue and red parts of the graph really do refer to two separate things - why are they comparable? And why is the result significant?

[blackshoe]

labeling the source as a ***** seems only right and proper.

I was with you, in principle, right up to here. Wtf does "*****" mean? I suppose any five letter word will do. How about grape? Al U Card is a grape.

 

Kindly have the balls to say what you mean.

[hrothgar]

I was with you, in principle, right up to here. Wtf does "*****" mean? I suppose any five letter word will do. How about grape? Al U Card is a grape.

 

Kindly have the balls to say what you mean.

 

I originally typed shiitehead (minus one i), however, the forum software automatically substitutes ***** for objectionable terms

[blackshoe]

Ah. My apologies, then. I've since seen that you wrote "shiite" in another message, and wondered why you misspelled it, or if you were talking about Muslims of a certain persuasion. B-)

[hrothgar]

I was actually miss-spelling "shyte"

[blackshoe]

I was actually miss-spelling "shyte"

An alternative spelling with which I was not familiar. Heh. The urban dictionary says of "shyte" (the other spelling) "just like <its four letter synonym>, but more fun to say". :P

[PassedOut]

Interesting piece by Bill McKibben in Rolling Stone about global warming: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe

 

All told, 167 countries responsible for more than 87 percent of the world's carbon emissions have signed on to the Copenhagen Accord, endorsing the two-degree target. Only a few dozen countries have rejected it, including Kuwait, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Even the United Arab Emirates, which makes most of its money exporting oil and gas, signed on. The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can't raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius – it's become the bottomest of bottom lines. Two degrees.

 

Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of saying below two degrees. ("Reasonable," in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)

 

This idea of a global "carbon budget" emerged about a decade ago, as scientists began to calculate how much oil, coal and gas could still safely be burned. Since we've increased the Earth's temperature by 0.8 degrees so far, we're currently less than halfway to the target. But, in fact, computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we're already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target.

 

How good are these numbers? No one is insisting that they're exact, but few dispute that they're generally right. The 565-gigaton figure was derived from one of the most sophisticated computer-simulation models that have been built by climate scientists around the world over the past few decades. And the number is being further confirmed by the latest climate-simulation models currently being finalized in advance of the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Looking at them as they come in, they hardly differ at all," says Tom Wigley, an Australian climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "There's maybe 40 models in the data set now, compared with 20 before. But so far the numbers are pretty much the same. We're just fine-tuning things. I don't think much has changed over the last decade."

Okay, we have a 565-gigaton budget of CO2 to reach the two-degree increase. How much over that are we planning to spend?

 

The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons

 

This number describes the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it's the fossil fuel we're currently planning to burn. And the key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times higher.

A serious mismatch.

[luke warm]

whatever... just dump some iron, problem solved... this could get approval from both sides if truckloads of money were dumped at the same time, to make up for the loss of carbon taxes

[Daniel1960]

Passedout,

 

While the 2C number is a good starting point, it is somewhat arbitrary. Temperatures have risen ~0.8C, but that is from the depth of the Little Ice Age, which was ~1.2C colder than the height of the Medieval Warm Period, which was at least 0.5C cooler than the Holocene maximum. Thus, a 2C increase from the end of the LIA puts at near the peak of the climate optimum. According to ice data, the recent climate optimum was a full degree colder then the previous interglacial high. Who is to say that if temperatures rise another 1.2C, and we reach a climate similar to the Holocene climate optimum, that that is the preferred climate.

 

Also, what is the catastrophy that is supposed to occur? Temperatures have risen and fallen multiple times in the past. Most "catastophies" have occurred when the temperatures have fallen. Historically, civilization has thrived during times of warmer climate; the Roman and Minoan warm periods saw the expanse of the so-named civilizations. Contrast that with periods of global cooling; the Little Ice Age, the Dark Ages, the Migration of Nations, etc.

 

Whilw I do not agree that a catastrophy will occur if global temperatures rise another 1.2C, I would prefer we do not find out. At the present rate (0.6C / century), we would exceed that number near the beginning of the 23rd century. Hopefully, by then we will have moved far beyond carbon-based fuels for energy.

[hrothgar]

whatever... just dump some iron, problem solved... this could get approval from both sides if truckloads of money were dumped at the same time, to make up for the loss of carbon taxes

 

Would this be a quote from the same article?

 

The ocean's capacity for carbon sequestration in low-iron regions is just a fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and such sequestration is not permanent — it lasts only for decades to centuries

[phil_20686]

Passedout,

 

While the 2C number is a good starting point, it is somewhat arbitrary. Temperatures have risen ~0.8C, but that is from the depth of the Little Ice Age, which was ~1.2C colder than the height of the Medieval Warm Period, which was at least 0.5C cooler than the Holocene maximum. Thus, a 2C increase from the end of the LIA puts at near the peak of the climate optimum. According to ice data, the recent climate optimum was a full degree colder then the previous interglacial high. Who is to say that if temperatures rise another 1.2C, and we reach a climate similar to the Holocene climate optimum, that that is the preferred climate.

 

Also, what is the catastrophy that is supposed to occur? Temperatures have risen and fallen multiple times in the past. Most "catastophies" have occurred when the temperatures have fallen. Historically, civilization has thrived during times of warmer climate; the Roman and Minoan warm periods saw the expanse of the so-named civilizations. Contrast that with periods of global cooling; the Little Ice Age, the Dark Ages, the Migration of Nations, etc.

 

Whilw I do not agree that a catastrophy will occur if global temperatures rise another 1.2C, I would prefer we do not find out. At the present rate (0.6C / century), we would exceed that number near the beginning of the 23rd century. Hopefully, by then we will have moved far beyond carbon-based fuels for energy.

 

On the timescale of millennia, ecologies are fluid, on the scale of decades they are not. This is the catastrophe. Look what the baking heat in the USA is doing to the price of corn. Sure, humans can probably move, but its not so easy to uproot a forest and move it a few hundred miles northwards.

 

Also, dumping iron into the ocean to feed algea to capture carbon seems like a terrible idea. We just have no idea what the likely effects will be. Perhaps it will just lead to lots more sperm whales eating all the algae. Messing with ecosystems in teh past has universally turned out badly. While there are plenty of people saying "this time we know more" and "this time will be different because we understand" I am almost entirely sceptical of those claims.

 

 

 

[PassedOut]

whatever... just dump some iron, problem solved...

Nope.

 

Smetacek said ocean iron fertilization could bury at most 1 gigaton of CO2 per year compared to annual emissions of 8-9 gigaton, of which 4 gigaton accumulates in the atmosphere.

[Winstonm]

I still have difficulty understanding the motivation of the skeptic. Skepticism is an important part of the scientific process, but scientific skepticism is not blanket skepticism and it leads to thorough investigation, and along with it follows the necessity to alter positions if evidence so demands.

 

The AGW skeptic does not seem to be use skepticism to gain knowledge or solve problems, but instead seems to simply be taking an opposition side - but opposing what? What exactly is the AGW skeptic so dead-set against?

[helene_t]

Skepticism is an important part of the scientific process[....]What exactly is the AGW skeptic so dead-set against?

You use the word "Skeptic" in two different meanings.

 

I wonder how the use of the word "skeptic" in the meaning of outright opposition/disbelief came into common use. Over here, a "euro-skeptic" is not someone who is skeptical towards the EU, but someone who is outright against it.

[Daniel1960]

Helene,

 

Interesting development. In the U.S. a skeptic is not necessarily someone opposed to the AGW theory, but rather one who has not been convinced of its validity. While the basic premise of CO2-induced warming is generally accepted (based on physics), the enhanced feedback loops presented by those promoting the theory are not. Hence, most skeptics are willing to accept that increased atmospheric levels of CO2 will lead to some warming, the catastrophic scenario presented earlier is not. Many skeptics are basing their acceptance on scientific data and observations, while many warmists are relying on models to come to their conclusions. As long as the observations and models differ, we will have a difference. If the data and observations start to match the proposed models, then I suspect most of the "skeptics" will accept the theory.