climate change thread

[Lois]

You asked for 'consensus', so I deliver.

The statement you posted above was part of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report in 2011.
 This report has since been superseded by a Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014.

The conclusions of AR5 are summarized below:

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia".

"Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years".

Human influence on the climate system is clear. It is extremely likely (95-100% probability) that human influence was the dominant cause of global warming between 1951-2010.

"Increasing magnitudes of [global] warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts"

"A first step towards adaptation to future climate change is reducing vulnerability and exposure to present climate variability"

"The overall risks of climate change impacts can be reduced by limiting the rate and magnitude of climate change"

Without new policies to mitigate climate change, projections suggest an increase in global mean temperature in 2100 of 3.7 to 4.8 °C, relative to pre-industrial levels (median values; the range is 2.5 to 7.8 °C including climate uncertainty).

The current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is not consistent with limiting global warming to below 1.5 or 2 °C, relative to pre-industrial levels.[16] Pledges made as part of the Cancún Agreements are broadly consistent with cost-effective scenarios that give a "likely" chance (66-100% probability) of limiting global warming (in 2100) to below 3 °C, relative to pre-industrial levels.

[psiberzerker]

Yes, but the answer you want to believe supercedes the change in the same body's assesment.  They said it once, and the conservative mindset is to oppose Change.  Of opinion, or even the changes around them, because it doesn't fit in with the world they've created in their minds.

It doesn't matter.  The minority that don't understand what's happening doesn't outweigh the majority who're working to fix it.  No matter how loudly you yell "NOT LISTENING!  LALALALALA!"

We don't need your belief, so the point is moot.  It's happening with, or without it.

[Athos_131]

 There is no 'concensus' in science

There is no concensus in anything.

https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/31/concensus/

#Resist

[joan1984]

  Seems Mr. Hanson and other Obama folk 'got to them' after 2011, to insure the lie was large enough in the future, and not at all truthful, so the politicians could have something outside of expectation of 'their' control, on which to blame things.

  Katrina is one blamed on Climate Change, backed up with blame on "Bush", of course.  The facts about how the money was squandered by successive Democrat ward politicians over the years, rather than invested in infrastructure to shore up the levy, fix the broken pumps, thad otherwise create more safety for those living in the Ninth Ward, who vote in lockstep with the same thieves, to this day, was amazing.  Climate Change and Bush... that's the ticket.

  With Barrack Hussein Obama in the oval office, there could be no blame on the President, or most of his Administration and so Climate Change had to bear the full brunt of reason for anything and everything. Including adjusting the Military budget, and continuing to squander money on NASA, while little funds were provided for NASA's core mission, or it's core mission altered to Climate Change, and some Muslim outreach, just for good measure.

  Had the levies worked, pumps worked, Corps of Engineers studies been addressed as more a free ticket to cash for local and State politicians to spend on whatever they pleased... walking around money, transportation to the polls for voting, assistance to pull the D handle reliably, lots of '2 piece, and a 40' handouts, just maybe Katrina would have just been another storm, climate change be damned... but hey, gotta blame it on something, why not.

  Never pass up an opportunity...

[Athos_131]

  With Barrack Hussein Obama in the oval office, there could be no blame on the President, or most of his Administration and so Climate Change had to bear the full brunt of reason for anything and everything. Including adjusting the Military budget, and continuing to squander money on NASA, while little funds were provided for NASA's core mission, or it's core mission altered to Climate Change, and some Muslim outreach, just for good measure.

No seriously, go fuck yourself you racist.

#Resist

[joan1984]

  In my case, my reaction is more along the line of "get your hands out of my wallet", when I read about the claims and endless charts and graphs.

 "Why are you telling me this, selling me this?" is my question, and I see the answer as "We need you to pay for whatever schemes may be devised to reorder you and your life, regardless of your will or beliefs." 

  "Your freedom be damned, we will prevail, and everything will cost you so much, you will be forced to comply."

  To date, not one proclamation or deadline of any importance has proved true, when looking at the projections of AlGore and other paid hucksters promoting Climate Change as a reason to stop progress, and raise Taxes in one form or another, in order to aid those who I will never meet, and my progeny likely will not ever meet, or see the result of such Climate Change.

  When nothing happens on the deadline projected, we are to believe: "See, we got rid of Freon, for you anyway...citizen... made you purchase new appliances from GE and others, changed from simple local manufactured light bulbs, to ones that cannot be justified when it comes to breakage and cleanup at all, so we just ignore the written warnings about opening windows in buildings which have few to none as to windows capable of being 'opened', etc. etc. etc.

And, we fixed that bad 'donut hole' we told you about... never mind the later study that said it was all overblown, or bogus, or no one knows what happened to the Ozone hole, etc.

   God forbid some EPA rule is ignored, lets take everyone to endless litigation, except when Climate Change means inhaling broken light bulb Mercury happens, in which case we ignore it, and move along... nothing to see here, no millions to be wrung from GE for creating this pollution source of deadly gas or whatever... it seems like a scam... not that there may be measured changes by some reputable scientists, but that whatever is found requires disruption of your life, right now, a whatever cost may be proposed.

  I call bullshit on the selling of climate change as a promotion similar to the Elixer sales guy, in a wagon, going from town to town with his magic meds.

  Take reasonable measures that have little cost as is prudent. Then leave me alone, and lets see some islands vanishing and huts floating in the surf, before you hit me up for more money to be tossed into the Government pit, on the come, like Barack Obama's Peace Prize, for some nebulous future 'goal' that will likely never happen, in my humble opinion.

   Politicians should address todays ill's, make some careful notes about some future possibilities, and actually get something done that matters NOW, not some fleecing scheme like carbon credits to stop their heckling of large business, passing the cost on to the 'regular people' being made into 'sheeple'.

Yeah.  Experts.  If my dad had ignored the 'experts' at the American Heart Association, he might still be alive today.

All the knowledge and experience in the world can lead to incorrect conclusions in individual cases, and that can of course lead to personally dire consequences. It should go without saying, though, that that does not mean expertise has no value. An expert may not always be right but someone who lacks that knowledge and experience will only ever stumble upon the correct solution by coincidence.

To apply that to the subject of climate change, if you think your beliefs are more correct than those of the people who have devoted their careers to learning about the topic, then you are, at best, an arrogant fool. You're no better than those that deny evolution, or claim vaccines cause autism, or believe the world is flat, etc. They're saying "we've spent the last several decades looking at this from every angle we can think of and this is our conclusion based on all the information available at the moment" and the reply is "yeah, well, I read a thing so I know better."

[psiberzerker]

Okay, I'm an anarchist, a sexual terrorist, and survivalist.  I'm already packed. We probably won't be able to kill all life on Earth, but we sure can make it suck for civilization.  In fact, we already are, 3 "100 year" storms in the same hurricane season is a wakeup call.  We need the Earth, a hell of a lot more than she needs us.

She's a tough old broad, she's survived a lot worse.

So, the question isn't whether we should be fucking with the environment, it's when are we going to start taking responsibilty for it?  Also, it's not going to be cheap.  Looking at the economic costs instead of the ecological ones is what we've been doing since before we switched to Petroleum from Whale Oil.  

[psiberzerker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnX0-TayVjk

#Resist

[Lois]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnX0-TayVjk

#Resist

This certainly supports Joan's conspiracy theories.

[RopeFiend]

It's not a conspiracy, it's 'enlightened self-interest'.

There's a thousand mathematicians that'd be OUT OF WORK if they agreed with the IPCC consensus that you can't predict the weather, and especially not long-term climate.   There's too many variables that they STILL don't understand.  Example: CO2.  It's been rising steadily since the '50s, yet the global temp seems to have utterly ignored the CO2 levels.  Depending on how you average it, it looks basically flat for the last 15 to 18 years.  Sooooo, where's the carbon influence?  Answer: they screwed the pooch on that one.

If you tell everyone that it's all cool, then the public would wonder why we need so many people spending tax dollars modelling the environment.  If you SCARE THE FUCK OUT OF THEM then there's no need to worry about your retirement, and the funds will keep coming in.  There will always be something amusing going on with the weather; it's an assured job.

I saw someone model the climate based purely on solar output, albedo (cloud cover) and La Nina / El Nino events.  It tracked pretty well except for a couple of volcanoes that fudged the numbers.  If your model can't track a significant chunk of history, then it's utterly worthless trying to predict anything with it.  Tracking back 20 to 30 years doesn't count.

Looking at historical temperatures (on the hundreds of thousands to millions of years scale), we're about at the end of THIS interglacial warm cycle, so GIMME GLOBAL WARMING!

[psiberzerker]

Oh, that's it.  It's all those rich, and famous mathemeticians nobody's heard of that are afraid they'll loose their glamourous lifestyle if they don't give in to the hoax.  not like a conspiracy at all, there's just not that many fields that use Calculus.

That sounds so much more reasonable.

[psiberzerker]

Looking at historical temperatures (on the hundreds of thousands to millions of years scale)

That's pre historic.  And no, cloud cover is not Albedo.  It's a measurement of the greenhouse effect.  Literally how much light (Infrared) is absorbed instead of radiated.  Also, cloud cover is an allotrope of Water Vapor.

[joan1984]

From The Wall Street Journal:

Climate Change Has Run Its Course
Its descent into social-justice identity politics is the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality.
Climate Change Has Run Its Course

By Steven F. Hayward
June 4, 2018 6:54 p.m. ET

Climate change is over. No, I’m not saying the climate will not change in the future, or that human influence on the climate is negligible. I mean simply that climate change is no longer a pre-eminent policy issue. All that remains is boilerplate rhetoric from the political class, frivolous nuisance lawsuits, and bureaucratic mandates on behalf of special-interest renewable-energy rent seekers.

Judged by deeds rather than words, most national governments are backing away from forced-marched decarbonization. You can date the arc of climate change as a policy priority from 1988, when highly publicized congressional hearings first elevated the issue, to 2018. President Trump’s ostentatious withdrawal from the Paris Agreement merely ratified a trend long becoming evident.

A good indicator of why climate change as an issue is over can be found early in the text of the Paris Agreement. The “nonbinding” pact declares that climate action must include concern for “gender equality, empowerment of women, and intergenerational equity” as well as “the importance for some of the concept of ‘climate justice.’ ” Another is Sarah Myhre’s address at the most recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in which she proclaimed that climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with the misogyny and social injustice that have perpetuated the problem for decades.

The descent of climate change into the abyss of social-justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality. Climate alarm is like a car alarm—a blaring noise people are tuning out.

This outcome was predictable. Political scientist Anthony Downs described the downward trajectory of many political movements in an article for the Public Interest, “Up and Down With Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention Cycle,’ ” published in 1972, long before the climate-change campaign began. Observing the movements that had arisen to address issues like crime, poverty and even the U.S.-Soviet space race, Mr. Downs discerned a five-stage cycle through which political issues pass regularly.

The first stage involves groups of experts and activists calling attention to a public problem, which leads quickly to the second stage, wherein the alarmed media and political class discover the issue. The second stage typically includes a large amount of euphoric enthusiasm—you might call it the “dopamine” stage—as activists conceive the issue in terms of global peril and salvation. This tendency explains the fanaticism with which divinity-school dropouts Al Gore and Jerry Brown have warned of climate change.

Then comes the third stage: the hinge. As Mr. Downs explains, there soon comes “a gradually spreading realization that the cost of ‘solving’ the problem is very high indeed.” That’s where we’ve been since the United Nations’ traveling climate circus committed itself to the fanatical mission of massive near-term reductions in fossil fuel consumption, codified in unrealistic proposals like the Kyoto Protocol. This third stage, Mr. Downs continues, “becomes almost imperceptibly transformed into the fourth stage: a gradual decline in the intensity of public interest in the problem.”

While opinion surveys find that roughly half of Americans regard climate change as a problem, the issue has never achieved high salience among the public, despite the drumbeat of alarm from the climate campaign. Americans have consistently ranked climate change the 19th or 20th of 20 leading issues on the annual Pew Research Center poll, while Gallup’s yearly survey of environmental issues typically ranks climate change far behind air and water pollution.

“In the final stage,” Mr. Downs concludes, “an issue that has been replaced at the center of public concern moves into a prolonged limbo—a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest.” Mr. Downs predicted correctly that environmental issues would suffer this decline, because solving such issues involves painful trade-offs that committed climate activists would rather not make.

A case in point is climate campaigners’ push for clean energy, whereas they write off nuclear power because it doesn’t fit their green utopian vision. A new study of climate-related philanthropy by Matthew Nisbet found that of the $556.7 million green-leaning foundations spent from 2011-15, “not a single grant supported work on promoting or reducing the cost of nuclear energy.” The major emphasis of green giving was “devoted to mobilizing public opinion and to opposing the fossil fuel industry.”

Scientists who are genuinely worried about the potential for catastrophic climate change ought to be the most outraged at how the left politicized the issue and how the international policy community narrowed the range of acceptable responses. Treating climate change as a planet-scale problem that could be solved only by an international regulatory scheme transformed the issue into a political creed for committed believers. Causes that live by politics, die by politics.

Mr. Hayward is a senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-has-run-its-course-1528152876

[psiberzerker]

From The Wall Street Journal:

...

Mr. Hayward is a senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

And this is basically it, then?  A political science graduate student (That's what "Scholar" means in this instance, "Researcher") declared it "Identity Politics" that's "Run it's course," and that's where the final word comes from.  Not the scientist in the field, actively working on it.  An editorial in a paper for Investors that just want to be reassured that it's not going to cost them anything.

And you bought it.  Because WTF do Climatologists, NASA, and international panels know about the Climate?  This guy's a Harvard Scholar, and he's saying exactly what I want to hear.

To sell papers.

To investors.

That was easy!

You don't see the glaring hypocracy, and conflict of interest here?  What good would pointing it out do?  You're immune to reason.  Good thing we don't need your Faith, either.

[joan1984]

I enjoyed the article, so posted it here, as it fit the discussion, if we are having a discussion, about "climate change" as we define what that means to us, as individual Citizens. 

It means "mo money, now, and forever", with little to no accountability from those who dole out the money, receive the money, and skim off the top/bottom/sides this same money.

The United States Government spends the most money of any Nation on "climate change" writ large, leapfrogging previous year's spending over & over.

We expect to continue squandering large, VAST amounts, continuing the effort.

To what end?

From The Wall Street Journal:

...

Mr. Hayward is a senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

And this is basically it, then?  A political science graduate student (That's what "Scholar" means in this instance, "Researcher") declared it "Identity Politics" that's "Run it's course," and that's where the final word comes from.  Not the scientist in the field, actively working on it.  An editorial in a paper for Investors that just want to be reassured that it's not going to cost them anything.

And you bought it.  Because WTF do Climatologists, NASA, and international panels know about the Climate?  This guy's a Harvard Scholar, and he's saying exactly what I want to hear.

To sell papers.

To investors.

That was easy!

You don't see the glaring hypocracy, and conflict of interest here?  What good would pointing it out do?  You're immune to reason.  Good thing we don't need your Faith, either.

[/color]

[psiberzerker]

"mo money, now, and forever"

LOL, if CAPSLOCK make it true, then 20 point makes it even more truer.

There's really not that much money in it, compared to any other course of study in Applied Sciences.  Which you would know, if you had any experience in Applied Sciences.  Honestly, Astrophysics is a much better field to get talk shows (Star Talk Radio) book deals, and a household name.

Name 1, Climate Change celebrity, with nearl as much of a household name as Neil Degrasse Tyson, or Giorgio Tsoukalos.

We can pretty much eliminate fame and fortune as a motive for EVRY SINGLE CLIMATOLOGIST until there's a rich, and famous Climatologist for them to look up to as a role model.  If that's what you're getting into Science for, you're better off going into Xeno-Archeology than Meterorlogy if you want your own show.  Even if you look like this:



Or this:



You will not find anyone who better typifies the "Hot Weathergirl" more than Rachael Plath, or Emily Procter.  Now, if THEY can't get fame, and fortune through the Global Warming trend, and this guy can:



Then your "Theory" stands up to about as much professional scrutiny as Occam's Teacup.

Because it rests in a saucer.

[Athos_131]

From The Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-has-run-its-course-1528152876

There was one minor detail left out.

OPINION  COMMENTARY

#Resist

[RopeFiend]

Looking at historical temperatures (on the hundreds of thousands to millions of years scale)

That's pre historic.  And no, cloud cover is not Albedo.  It's a measurement of the greenhouse effect.  Literally how much light (Infrared) is absorbed instead of radiated.  Also, cloud cover is an allotrope of Water Vapor.

Yoo hoo!  Cloud cover is both albedo and insulating blanket.   During the day it reflects energy, at night it blankets and holds the heat in.  Look it up.  Snow and ice work equally well for albedo, but the energy makes it all the way to the bottom of the atmosphere in that case, so ice & snow are not as effective as clouds for daytime cooling.

Water vapor is less efficient than clouds as far as reflection, dunno on heat trapping.

White or silvered REFLECTS energy better, black EMITS or transfers heat better.  Why that's true takes a more studied man than I, but as an engineer I know it's true 'cos I've measured the difference of shiny aluminum versus soft black anodize on a critical heatsink.  The anodize made enough difference to be worthwhile.

Diamond is an allotrope of carbon, but I don't think anyone would confuse the two as far as physical properties.

[psiberzerker]

Cloud cover is both albedo and insulating blanket.   During the day it reflects energy, at night it blankets and holds the heat in.

Yes, but that's not what Albedo is.  Technically, it's a factor in the total Albedo, but only for the surface it Covers.  It's not the only factor, much less does Albedo=Cloud Cover.  Cloud cover affects Albedo, but not alone.

Snow and ice work equally well for albedo, but the energy makes it all the way to the bottom of the atmosphere in that case, so ice & snow are not as effective as clouds for daytime cooling.

Okay, another over-simplification/equivalency.  "Equally well."  No, because while fresh fallen snow is as Efficient at Dispersing reflected light, it doesn't stay Fresh Fallen very long, once exposed to direct Sunlight (The energy in this calculation.  Again Albedo is the </> energy coming in to reflected/radiated out into space.  Across the entire daylit surface.)

Water vapor is less efficient than clouds as far as reflection, dunno on heat trapping.

Clouds ARE WATER VAPOR.  Condense water vapor.  Look it up.  It's called an Allotrope.  Condensed water vapor reflects Most of the incoming light back out into space.  Greenhouse gasses absorb only Infrared efficiently (Methane about 20 times more efficiently than CO2, and breaks down into CO2, and Water Vapor)

White or silvered REFLECTS energy better, black EMITS or transfers heat better.

Black ABSORBS, and RADIATEs more efficiently.  Not "Better."  That's why it's called Black Body Radiation.   The frequency of thermal radiation depends on the temperature, but in the temperature range at the surface of the Earth, that's in the Infrared BAND that CO2 Absorbs.  (If you look at the Absorption Bands in the spectrum of sunlight, you can see the CO2 band in Infrared.  The more CO2, the darker that band.  It's how we measured the concentration in the Greenhouse Planet's atmosphere.  Venus, by spectroscopy of the atmosphere when it passes in front of the sun.)  So, CO2 is a Band-Block Filter.

Why that's true takes a more studied man than I,

Then listen to my clarifications.  Look up the Allotropes of Water.  So, you can learn from my expertise, working in the industry.  

Diamond is an allotrope of carbon, but I don't think anyone would confuse the two as far as physical properties.

Right, and Graphite is another.  Now, hold up Graphite. It's fairly black.  Hold up Diamond.  It's fairly shiny.  Now, look up.  See the clouds?  See the rest of the Water Vapor?  You could, in the right frequencies of Infrared, because it would be Black.

The point is, we can't control the Albedo of Water Vapor.  Some of it is white fluffy cloud.  The rest is opaque to Infrared, which everything heated by the sun radiates at night.  That's the Albedo.

What we can control directly is the concentrations of Methane, C02, and Sulfides.  That's why they're important, they're the factors of Albedo we can directly Change.

[Lois]

I am impressed!