Climate change

[Al_U_Card]

Scientific American weighed in today: Mystery of Ocean Heat Deepens as Climate Changes

 

 

No serious person doubts that putting billions of tons of heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere each year will cause more heat to be trapped. Scientists are getting a handle on where that trapped heat is being stored.

 

Hmnnnn SciAm, you say? If by " beyond 6,500 feet, have not warmed by very much in the past decade" they mean "has cooled" then we start to get an idea of their agenda.

 

 

W. Llovel, J. K.Willis, F.W. Landererand and I. Fukumori

 

Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2387 [link]

 

Abstract. As the dominant reservoir of heat uptake in the climate system, the world’s oceans provide a critical measure of global climate change. Here, we infer deep-ocean warming in the context of global sea-level rise and Earth’s energy budget between January 2005 and December 2013. Direct measurements of ocean warming above 2,000m depth explain about 32% of the observed annual rate of global mean sea-level rise. Over the entire water column, independent estimates of ocean warming yield a contribution of 0.77 +/- 0.28mmyr-1 in sea-level rise and agree with the upper-ocean estimate to within the estimated uncertainties. Accounting for additional possible systematic uncertainties, the deep ocean (below 2,000 m) contributes -0.13+/- 0.72mmyr-1 to global sea-level rise and -0.08 +/- 0.43Wm2 to Earth’s energy balance. The net warming of the ocean implies an energy imbalance for the Earth of 0.64 +/- 0.44Wm-2 from 2005 to 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

Anything to do with modeled values flies in the face of measurement. Why? Well...

 

 

An essay by Dr. R. G. Brown (Duke University) on why climate models are...well...of no value when it comes to using them to "project climate scenarios" (to use the officially sanctioned term).

"Here’s the climate model argument in a nutshell. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Increasing it will without any reasonable doubt cause some warming all things being equal (that is, linearizing the model in our minds before we even begin to write the computation!) The Earth’s climate is clearly at least locally pretty stable, so we’ll start by making this a fundamental principle (stated clearly in the talk above) — The Earth’s Climate is Stable By Default. This requires minimizing or blinding ourselves to any evidence to the contrary, hence the MWP and LIA must go away. Check. This also removes the pesky problem of multiple attractors and the disappearance and appearance of old/new attractors (Lorenz, along with Poincaré [Jules Henri Poincaré], coined the very notion of attractors). Hurst-Kolmogorov statistics, punctuated equilibrium, and all the rest is nonlinear and non-deterministic, it has to go away. Check. None of the models therefore exhibit it (but the climate does!). They have been carefully written so that they cannot exhibit it!

 

Fine, so now we’re down to a single attractor, and it has to both be stable when nothing changes and change, linearly, when underlying driving parameters change. This requires linearizing all of the forcings and trivially coupling all of the feedbacks and then searching hard — as pointed out in the talk, very hard indeed! — for some forlorn and non-robust combination of the forcing parameters, some balance of CO2forcing, aerosol anti-forcing, water vapor feedback, and luck that balances this teetering pen of a system on a metaphorical point and tracks a training set climate for at least some small but carefully selected reference period, naturally, the single period where the balance they discover actually works and one where the climate is actively warming. Since they know that CO2 is the cause, the parameter sets they search around are all centered on “CO2 is the cause” (fixed) plus tweaking the feedbacks until this sort of works.

 

Now they crank up CO2, and because CO2 is the cause of more warming, they have successfully built a linearized, single attractor system that does not easily admit nonlinear jumps or appearances and disappearances of attractors so that the attractor itself must move monotonically to warmer when CO2 is increasing. They run the model and — gasp! — increasing CO2 makes the whole system warmer!

 

Now, they haven’t really gotten rid of the pesky attractor problem. They discover when they run the models that in spite of their best efforts they are still chaotic! The models jump all over the place, started with only tiny changes in parametric settings or initial conditions. Sometimes a run just plain cools, in spite of all the additional CO2. Sometimes they heat up and boil over, making Venus Earth and melting the polar caps. The variance they obtain is utterly incorrect, because after all, they balanced the parameter space on a point with opposing forcings in order to reproduce the data in the reference period and one of many prices they have to pay is that the forcings in opposition have the wrong time constants and autocorrelation and the climate attractors are far too shallow, allowing for vast excursions around the old slowly varying attractor instead of selecting a new attractor from the near-infinity of possibilities (one that might well be more efficient at dissipating energy) and favoring its growth at the expense of a far narrower old attractor. But even so, new attractors appear and disappear and instead of getting a prediction of the Earth’s climate they get an irrelevantly wide shotgun blast of possible future climates (that is, as noted above, probably not even distributed correctly, or at least we haven’t the slightest reason to think that it would be). Anyone who looked at an actual computed trajectory would instantly reject it as being a reasonable approximation to the actual climate — variance as much as an order of magnitude too large, wrong time constants, oversensitive to small changes in forcings or discrete events like volcanoes.

 

So they bring on the final trick. They average over all of these climates. Say what? Each climate is the result of a physics computation. One with horrible and probably wrong approximations galore in the “physics” determining (for example) what clouds do in a cell from one timestep to the next, but at least one can argue that the computation is in fact modeling an actual climate trajectory in a Universe where that physics and scale turned out to be adequate. The average of the many climates is nothing at all. In the short run, this trick is useful in weather forecasting as long as one doesn’t try to use it much longer than the time required for the set of possible trajectories to smear out and cover the phase space to where the mean is no longer meaningful. This is governed by e.g. the Lyupanov exponents of the chaotic processes. For a while, the trajectories form a predictive bundle, and then they diverge and don’t. Bigger better computers, finer grained computations, can extend the time before divergence slowly, but we’re talking at most weeks, even with the best of modern tools.

 

In the long run, there isn’t the slightest reason — no, not even a fond hope — that this averaging will in any way be predictive of the weather or climate. There is indeed a near certainty that it will not be, as it isn’t in any other chaotic system studied so why should it be so in this one? But hey! The overlarge variance goes away! Now the variance of the average of the trajectories looks to the eye like it isn’t insanely out of scale with the observed variance of the climate, neatly hiding the fact that the individual trajectories are obviously wrong and that you aren’t comparing the output of your model to the real climate at all, you are comparing the average of the output of your model to the real climate when the two are not the same thing!

 

Incidentally, at this point the assertion that the results of the climate models are determined by physics becomes laughable. If I average over the trajectories observed in a chaotic oscillator, does the result converge to the actual trajectory? Seriously dudes, get a grip!

 

Oh, sorry, it isn’t quite the final trick. They actually average internally over climate runs, which at least is sort of justifiable as an almost certainly non-convergent sort of Monte Carlo computation of the set of accessible/probable trajectories, even though averaging over the set when the set doesn’t have the right probability distribution of outcomes or variance or internal autocorrelation is a bit pointless, but they end up finding that some of the models actually come out, after all of this, far too close to the actual climate, which sadly is not warming and hence which then makes it all too easy for the public to enquire why, exactly, we’re dropping a few trillion dollars per decade solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

 

So they then average over all of the average trajectories! That’s right folks, they take some 36 climate models (not the “twenty” erroneously cited in the presentation, I mean come on, get your facts right even if the estimate for the number of independent models in CMIP5 is more like seven). Some of these run absurdly hot, so hot that if you saw even the average model trajectory by itself you would ask why it is being included at all. Others as noted are dangerously close to a reality that — if proven — means that you lose your funding (and then, Walmart looms). So they average them together, and present the resulting line as if that is a “physics based” “projection” of the future climate. Because they keep the absurdly hot, they balance the nearly realistically cool and hide them under a safely rapidly warming “central estimate”, and get the double bonus that by forming the envelope of all of the models they can create a lower bound (and completely, utterly unfounded) “error estimate” that is barely large enough to reach the actual climate trajectory, so far.

 

Meh. Just Meh. This is actively insulting, an open abuse of the principles of science, logic, and computer modeling all three. The average of failed models is not a successful model. The average of deterministic microtrajectories is not a deterministic microtrajectory. A microtrajectory numerically generated at a scale inadequate to solve a nonlinear chaotic problem is most unlikely to represent anything like the actual microtrajectory of the actual system. And finally, the system itself realizes at most one of the possible future trajectories available to it from initial conditions subject to the butterfly effect that we cannot even accurately measure at the granularity needed to initialize the computation at the inadequate computational scale we can afford to use.

 

That’s what Goreham didn’t point out in his talk this time — but should. The GCMs are the ultimate shell game, hiding the pea under an avalanche of misapplied statistical reasoning that nobody but some mathematicians and maverick physicists understand well enough to challenge, and they just don’t seem to give a, uh, “flip”. With a few very notable exceptions, of course.

 

Rgb

[PassedOut]

It's easier to prepare for more wars than it is to reduce CO2 emissions: Pentagon: global warming will change how US military trains and goes to war

 

The Pentagon’s strategic planners have for years viewed climate change as a “threat multiplier”– worsening old conflicts and potentially provoking new clashes over migration and shortages of food and water in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and opening up new military challenges in a melting Arctic.

 

But with Monday’s report, climate change moved from potential threat to an immediate factor in a wide range of operational and budgeting decisions.

 

“It makes it a reality that climate change indeed is a risk today, and we need to plan, programme and budget for it now and into the future,” said Sherri Goodman, chief executive of the military advisory board, a group of former generals and other high-ranking officers that studies US national security.

It probably shouldn't shock us that the representatives in the US Congress who pretend in public that climate change isn't happening support these military plans nevertheless.

[PassedOut]

Because models are the essential tool for projecting future measurements from historical data, it's important to incorporate refinements as we go along. Here is an interesting piece from the BBC: Global climate models have underestimated the amount of CO2 being absorbed by plants, according to new research

 

Scientists say that between 1901 and 2010, living things absorbed 16% more of the gas than previously thought.

 

The authors say it explains why models consistently overestimated the growth rate of carbon in the atmosphere.

 

But experts believe the new calculation is unlikely to make a difference to global warming predictions.

 

The research has been published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I can say that Constance does her part in keeping plants thriving.

:)

[Al_U_Card]

"The authors say it explains why models consistently overestimated the growth rate of carbon in the atmosphere.

 

But experts believe the new calculation is unlikely to make a difference to global warming predictions."

 

:blink: Of course not...

 

Meanwhile, considering updating the settled science, how about:

 

 

 

The shorter more hockeystick reconstructions included upside-down proxies as well as contaminated endpoints and did not include the warmer times past. This, too, will not likely change the global warming projections... :ph34r:

[PassedOut]

Global Summary Information - September 2014

 

September global temperature reaches record high;

 

January–September global temperature ties as record highest

 

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for September 2014 was the highest for September since record keeping began in 1880. It also marked the 38th consecutive September with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average global temperature for September occurred in 1976.

Just the facts.

[Al_U_Card]

That global temperatures are on the rise, after the Maunder Minimum (and the concurrent Little Ice Age) is no surprise and that it has yet to rise to the levels attained during the Medieval, Roman and other warm periods, is not particularly alarming.

 

We might want to be more alarmed by the kind of "adjustments" made to the historical record, such that the past is cooled and the present is warmed.

 

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ushcn-adjustments.jpg?w=720

[Al_U_Card]

Global Summary Information - September 2014

 

 

Just the facts.

 

You can see through the politics of ISIS and other machinations but when it comes to climate, it's a no-go?

 

Factually (and more importantly, accurately)

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Yearly-global-LT-UAH-RSS-thru-Sept-2014.png

 

The eye in the sky says...

[Daniel1960]

On October 23, a debate occurred between a group of pro- and con- climate change scientists in Vancouver. Here is a lnk to the video:

 

http://old.cityofvancouver.us/cvtv/cvtvindex.asp?catID=999&fileID=20107

[PassedOut]

The IPCC released its summary of the Climate Change 2014 Report yesterday. It is sobering.

 

The Post has a front-page article about the report today: Effects of climate change ‘irreversible,’ U.N. panel warns in report

 

The Earth is locked on an “irreversible” course of climatic disruption from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the impacts will only worsen unless nations agree to dramatic cuts in pollution, an international panel of climate scientists warned Sunday.

 

The planet faces a future of extreme weather, rising sea levels and melting polar ice from soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other gases, the U.N. panel said. Only an unprecedented global effort to slash emissions within a relatively short time period will prevent temperatures from crossing a threshold that scientists say could trigger far more dangerous disruptions, the panel warned.

 

“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts,” concluded the report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which draws on contributions from thousands of scientists from around the world.

 

The report said some impacts of climate change will “continue for centuries,” even if all emissions from fossil-fuel burning were to stop. The question facing governments is whether they can act to slow warming to a pace at which humans and natural ecosystems can adapt, or risk “abrupt and irreversible changes” as the atmosphere and oceans absorb ever-greater amounts of thermal energy within a blanket of heat-trapping gases, according to scientists who contributed to the report.

Most of the stupid and/or corrupt actions of mankind can be corrected in a relatively short time frame. This one cannot.

[Al_U_Card]

The IPCC released its summary of the Climate Change 2014 Report yesterday. It is sobering.

 

The Post has a front-page article about the report today: Effects of climate change ‘irreversible,’ U.N. panel warns in report

 

 

Most of the stupid and/or corrupt actions of mankind can be corrected in a relatively short time frame. This one cannot.

 

Since it has been "warming" since the 1970's, please point to the devastating effects that this change has caused during that time. Are the actual trends even alarming? Oh, actually beneficial? Hmnnnn, but there is disaster awaiting, according to the models that predicted twice as much warming as actually occurred, so far? Sure, why not...

[Al_U_Card]

Meanwhile, the alarmists continue to use (and abuse) questionable (I am being kind here) data in profusion but even that fails to show cause for concern... read all about it at recycling is good for the environmental cases

 

 

They even use yet another "trick" (ie subterfuge) to try to show confirmation of their results. Different scales do make a difference...

 

 

 

 

Why people continue to put faith in these presentations is, well, obviously an act of belief-based faith and has nothing to do with reality.

[Al_U_Card]

Age of majority vs. age of consensus...the other thing being spewed is the hot air coming from alarmist rhetoric.

 

http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/graph/temp/global/2014/global-pause-18-years.gif

[Al_U_Card]

Meanwhile, back at the agenda, we have what the scientists produced and how it got massaged to stay on message:

 

http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/figure-7.png?w=640&h=512

 

kick it on up to the appointees that want it to look more threatening and less realistic

 

http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/figure-6.png?w=640&h=452

[PassedOut]

Vox has a piece today that includes a new NASA animation that illustrates the spread of CO2 around the world: NASA found a way to visualize the most important process behind global warming

 

This NASA simulation is the first to show in such precise detail precisely how carbon-dioxide moves around the atmosphere. Among other things, it reveals a significant difference in concentrations over the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. It also shows how plant growth in the spring absorbs some of the carbon-dioxide in the air (and then releases it again in the winter). It also revealed some surprises — like how the Himalayas block carbon dioxide from China's industrial base from traveling west.

It's good to see more and more ways that folks are getting the facts about climate change. I see that even some republicans in the US congress are having to back away from the stupidity of denying man-made climate change. That's a result of more and more voters understanding the facts.

[Al_U_Card]

Vox has a piece today that includes a new NASA animation that illustrates the spread of CO2 around the world: NASA found a way to visualize the most important process behind global warming

 

 

It's good to see more and more ways that folks are getting the facts about climate change. I see that even some republicans in the US congress are having to back away from the stupidity of denying man-made climate change. That's a result of more and more voters understanding the facts.

 

From the link: An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.

 

Sure, their other (climate) models are accurate, aren't they?

 

Oops.

[mikeh]

Since it has been "warming" since the 1970's, please point to the devastating effects that this change has caused during that time. Are the actual trends even alarming? Oh, actually beneficial? Hmnnnn, but there is disaster awaiting, according to the models that predicted twice as much warming as actually occurred, so far? Sure, why not...

I know it is useless 'debating' climate change with you. Facts are irrelevant or, more accurately, facts are bits of data to be distorted and taken out of context in order to fit your view of reality.

 

I normally don't engage in this thread, because of the futility of trying to argue with a closed mind, but this post of yours is arguably the single most deluded piece of crap you have posted so far.

 

Take a look at the historical data for ice in both the Antarctic and the Artic over the past several decades.

 

Do you really think that just because in your smug little world this has as yet made no impact discernible to you that that means that there have been no devastating effects yet? You're a self-centred troll.

 

Closer to (my) home, I lived and worked in a small city known as Prince George until the mid 1980's...I was there for 10 years.

 

Forestry was the big industry. In particular, pine trees were a major part of forestry. Prince George also had an excellent golf course, heavily treed.

 

The forest industry is a tiny fraction of what it was. Part of that is simply non-sustainable practices but a huge, huge part is the pine beetle. The pine beetle was a rare and not-particularly dangerous pest in the 1970s because it couldn't survive the cold winters. Every year I was there, the temperature would drop to -25 or below (Celsius) for at least part of the winter, and -40 wasn't unknown. In one memorable winter, the temperature in PG didn't rise above -30 for 6 weeks!

 

A couple of years ago, the golf course had to cut down all of its pine trees because the pine beetle infestation that has disrupted and destroyed much of logging in the interior and north of British Columbia, and has spilled into the neighbouring province of Alberta, swept through the PG area. The damage to the golf course was not the worst of the economic harm but to me, as an avid golfer with fond memories of the course and the people I played with, it made it very real to me. Why has this happened? Because it now NEVER gets cold enough for a long enough time to kill the beetles.

 

Meanwhile, the annual snowfall has dropped and more importantly, the time when one could assume snow was here for the winter has moved. It was usual when I lived there to see some snow in October, but the snow didn't usually stick around until Halloween. The ice would be off the lakes by May. Now the snow, what there is of it, sticks later and goes away earlier, and the lakes are clear of ice weeks earlier than they used to be. One might argue that these changes are beneficial to humans, and maybe in some ways they are, but many forms of wildlife and vegetation evolved over millennia to adapt to the climate as it was. Changes such as those we see all around us, if we but open our eyes and look, cannot be as readily adapted to by animal and plant species, and while that may not mean much to a self-centred troll like you, this can have huge impacts upon humans, assuming that one cares nothing for other forms of life. Diseases such as West Nile are spreading...why? Because the pests that carry the virus have seen their habitats expand/move due to climate change. Deserts are spreading, including in the oceans, where minor changes in salinity and temperature can kill off populations of plankton and so on.

 

There is no doubt AT ALL that climate change is directly responsible for the truly devastating effects of the pine beetle problem, locally in B.C. and many other 'devastating' effects seen elsewhere..

 

And when 97% of qualified experts state, clearly and without equivocation, that human activities play a major role in the climate change, only a complete idiot would maintain a denial of reality. Are other factors at play? Probably. Are models less than perfect? Undoubtedly. Do some studies yield results that appear to contradict results from other studies? I would expect so, especially given the imperfect modelling.

 

You are like the lunatic creationists who point to debates amongst evolutionary biologists to argue that since they don't agree on some details of evolutionary theory, the entire structure of and conclusions to be drawn from evolutionary theory must be wrong.

 

I know, I am wasting my time. People like you are why the phrase 'invincible ignorance' was invented.

[Al_U_Card]

This Prince George?

 

And regarding how "climate change" (I prefer (catastrophic) anthropogenic global warming) is perceived and is actually measured relative to various extreme situations and disasters. All we can deal with is [CO2] and how (much) it effects our climate. The rest is mostly hyperbole and agenda. Otherwise (climate) science descends into the realm of politics and religion as subjects of opinion and belief rather that the factual observation of reality. But don't take my word for it, you might find this treatise edifying:

 

 

The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change Paperback – 13 Nov 2014

by Roger A. Pielke Jr. (Author)

 

In recent years the media, politicians, and activists have popularized the notion that climate change has made disasters worse. But what does the science actually say? Roger Pielke, Jr. takes a close look at the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the underlying scientific research, and the data to give you the latest science on disasters and climate change. What he finds may surprise you and raise questions about the role of science in political debates.

The Rightful Place of Science is a book series published by Arizona State University's Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, and edited by G. Pascal Zachary. The series explores the complex interactions among science, technology, politics, and the human condition.

[Daniel1960]

Mikeh,

I do not think anyone can argue about the devastating effects of the pine beetle. This has hit some areas much harder than others. However, one aspect of the temperature increase over the past century, does not tell the entire picture. Agriculture has boomed due to the triple effect of longer growing seasons, increased rainfall, and higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The pine beetle infestation and agricultural boom are just two results, and many more must be included before a net benefit or loss can be determined. Also, these effects would occur regardless of the cause of the rising temperatures. Even though most scientists acknowledge the human factor, the jury is still out on whether mankind or nature will predominate, and to what extent mankind can change the climate in the future. Some have even claimed that the recent cold spells are due to global warming. Although, I am quite skeptical about these claims.

 

Regarding the poles, Antarctica appears to be rather immune to any climate change activity, as temperatures have remained relatively steady over the past several decades, and sea ice has expanded to record levels. Contrarily, the Arctic has lost sea ice, on average 80,000 square km per year since 1998. This equates to a decrease of 7% from the winter maximum or 18% from the summer minimum. While there was much fanfare with the record low Arctic sea ice in 2012, the average global sea ice has been within 5% (both above and below) its 30-year average over the past two years.

 

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

[blackshoe]

Actually, the biggest potential benefit to global warming might be putting both Wall Street and Washington underwater. :P :ph34r:

[Al_U_Card]

I know it is useless 'debating' climate change with you. Facts are irrelevant or, more accurately, facts are bits of data to be distorted and taken out of context in order to fit your view of reality....

 

Take a look at the historical data for ice in both the Antarctic and the Artic over the past several decades....

 

Do you really think...

 

'invincible ignorance' ...

 

IPCC AR1 Northern Hemisphere sea-ice anomaly (p224) Rather than starting the graphs in 1979 as they do now (a maximum extent) they showed the NOAA data that was available, if somewhat inconvenient. Hard to convince the doubters when you include the doubt...

 

http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/screenhunter_170-jun-15-11-10.jpg?w=700

 

 

Mike, perhaps you judge precisely but without accuracy?

[mike777]

"Also, these effects would occur regardless of the cause of the rising temperatures. Even though most scientists acknowledge the human factor, the jury is still out on whether mankind or nature will predominate, and to what extent mankind can change the climate in the future. Some have even claimed that the recent cold spells are due to global warming. Although, I am quite skeptical about these claims."

 

 

To be fair mankind is fully nature, we are fully of nature and part of nature. What mankind creates or destroys is just as much part of nature as what stars create or destroy or the birds and the bees. :)

 

I still do not know how urgent the problem of global warming is, perhaps it is too late no matter what we do or do not do?

[Daniel1960]

"Also, these effects would occur regardless of the cause of the rising temperatures. Even though most scientists acknowledge the human factor, the jury is still out on whether mankind or nature will predominate, and to what extent mankind can change the climate in the future. Some have even claimed that the recent cold spells are due to global warming. Although, I am quite skeptical about these claims."

 

 

To be fair mankind is fully nature, we are fully of nature and part of nature. What mankind creates or destroys is just as much part of nature as what stars create or destroy or the birds and the bees. :)

 

I still do not know how urgent the problem of global warming is, perhaps it is too late no matter what we do or do not do?

Yes, we are part of nature. However, people tend to separate what is natural from what is "manmade". I think your last statement says it all. Exactly how urgent is global warming? Currently, I do not think anyone knows.

[mike777]

Ya but that is not science, manmade is nature. I agree I see people make the distinction but one that does not exist, to be honest I think many do not believe manmade is fully part of nature, that somehow, someway it is antinature. They somehow do not view nature as full of death, destruction and fury.

 

===

 

Ya saw a cute tv show where they have an EPA official come out on the news and says the science says it is too late, 20 years to late, we are all dead. The news continues after a commercial.

[PassedOut]

It seems possible now that serious action will finally be taken to mitigate some of the harm we're dumping on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren: Grim Reality Amid Optimism Ahead of Climate Talks

 

For the next two weeks, thousands of diplomats from around the globe will gather in the desert metropolis of Lima, Peru, for a United Nations summit meeting to draft an agreement intended to stop the global rise of planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution.

 

The meeting comes just weeks after a landmark announcement by President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China committing the world’s two largest carbon polluters to cuts in their emissions. United Nations negotiators say they believe that advancement could end a longstanding impasse in the climate talks, spurring other countries to sign similar commitments.

 

But while scientists and climate-policy experts welcome the new momentum ahead of the Lima talks, they warn that it now may be impossible to prevent the temperature of the planet’s atmosphere from rising by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. According to a large body of scientific research, that is the tipping point at which the world will be locked into a near-term future of drought, food and water shortages, melting ice sheets, shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels and widespread flooding — events that could harm the world’s population and economy.

 

Recent reports show that there may be no way to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising, given the current level of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and the projected rate of emissions expected to continue before any new deal is carried out.

 

That fact is driving the urgency of the Lima talks, which are expected to produce a draft document, to be finalized over the next year and signed by world leaders in Paris in December 2015.

 

While a breach of the 3.6 degree threshold appears inevitable, scientists say that United Nations negotiators should not give up on their efforts to cut emissions. At stake now, they say, is the difference between a newly unpleasant world and an uninhabitable one.

 

For sure. Of the two, unpleasant is definitely preferable.

[Al_U_Card]

Yes, we are part of nature. However, people tend to separate what is natural from what is "manmade". I think your last statement says it all. Exactly how urgent is global warming? Currently, I do not think anyone knows.

Past performance may not be indicative of future results but, since 1980, [CO2] has been on the rise and so have temperatures...how urgently? Well, if you find a site that is relatively free of urban influence and Stephenson screen degradation and time of day adjustments then maybe you will get a better idea of the urgency of action related to the warming climate.

 

 

 

Sure you will. But send your money and rights to those involved in saving us from the terrors of...how many degrees?