climate change thread

[RopeFiend]

Impressed at what, that Psi can be a pedantic asshole?  Using more technical terms to confuse the (general public) audience is a sign of someone hiding something.  I speak in common American, not technical-ese; I save that for design meetings.  I'll continue on in common American, not BS-speak for the benefit of the readers.  If you don't like it, tough shit.

Since you're picking on my English, how about FACTS.  CO2 has roughly 0.1% as much effect on the 'Greenhouse Effect' as water vapor does.  It's so far down in the mud as to be unmeasurable, compared to the effects from water vapor in the atmosphere.  In fact, the ONLY place on the planet with an exceptionally low water vapor content is the Antarctic.  If you're going to see ANY effect from CO2, it'll be in the Antarctic.  Here's the UAH satellite temp for Antarctica from it's inception in 1979 to present:



Since CO2 has been steadily rising during that whole span of time at roughly a consistent rate, WHERE IS THE EFFECT?  The simple answer is that CO2 is a bogus scare-tactic of the IPCC, and their models are amplifying junk data, garbage-in = garbage-out.  The Antarctic temp has DROPPED by about 0.1C over that period of time, not increased.  That's data, not model.  I can point you to the dataset if you want to verify it yourself.  The 0 point on the graph appears to be an arbitrarily chosen point (I suspect it's the average of the first several years), and the +/- deviation is relative to that average 0 point.

Additionally, CO2 has greatest effect at sub-zero temperatures.  The absorption bands shift as the CO2 warms, to the point that it's ineffective as a 'Greenhouse Gas' at typical planetary temperatures outside the poles.

My only bitch about that UAH data above is the measurement range, 60-82 degrees South.  The solid ice is nearly the entire 75-90 range, yet 60-75 degrees is mostly ocean area.  Hey, at least I'm not trying to HIDE anything, I'm coughing up the caveat up front.  It'd take more effort than it's worth to download the dataset and filter for 75-82 degrees South just to prove a point, when I can see a slight decrease over that whole area.  The satellite doesn't have a true polar orbit, so 82S is as far as it can discern.

[psiberzerker]

Since you're picking on my English, how about FACTS.

Those were the facts.  I defined the technical terms.  You pick on my using the proper technical terms, and defining them, then turn around and accuse me of "Picking on your English."

I wasn't picking on your English, you said cloud cover is albedo.  You're wrong.  I corrected your improper use of a technical term, in a technical discussion.

What does using graphs out of context mean?  Does it make you look like you know what you're talking about?  

Just FYI, using the technical terms properly doesn't mean "Something to hide."

[Lois]

We learned that stuff in Freshman year of High School here. Sadly that was a very long time ago for me.

I am still impressed because Psi stated it all clearly and in very easy to understand terms.  It was not overly technical at all.

[psiberzerker]

Well, I'm done for the time being.  There's no use arguing with someone, when they outright state that knowing the technical terms, and what they mean disqualify someone who works in the field, and then keeps stating ignorant opinions as fact.

Also, Ropefiend is a vital respected member here, I don't want to drive off.  I've been warned, and I need to back off.  I said what i had to anyway.  It's just a politicised issue, so it causes tempers to flare.

[Jed_]

There’s some smart people talking about this subject.  I consider myself a smart person.  There’s a trap in being a smart person.  It makes you think you might know things outside your area of expertise.  Sure we can read things, and even understand them to some level, but can we really critically evaluate them as a peer to the real experts?

At my job we use the term SMEs (subject matter experts).  This means that people that are smart and do know something about this particular area, they defer to the SMEs when it comes to ‘really’ knowing the subject.  They don’t think their ‘smarts’ in some way supersedes those of the true SMEs.

So I guess what I am saying is, if you are not an actual climatologist, you are full of shit on this topic.  This is regardless of what side you have taken, which is obviously driven by your bias and politics.  It’s astonishing to me that probably 99.999% of the churn and discussion on this topic at all levels is by people that don’t know shit.

I’m a scientist, but I don’t know shit about climatology.  What I do know based on being an SME in other scientific areas is how to evaluate who to believe and who is full of shit.  Based on that, the current consensus among those that seem to be SMEs on this subject seems to be that global warming is real and recently man-made.

[psiberzerker]

The inverse of that is the "Intelligence" stat, or IQ.  According to that assumption, you can get competent brain surgery out of a rocket scientist, because they're about the same intellect.

[Lois]

 

[joan1984]

  Thirty years since Mr. Hansen's testimony, predictions on the calamity of Climate Change, by whatever name the leftists currently give this issue.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/thirty-years-on-how-well-do-global-warming-predictions-stand-up-1529623442

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Good to know common sense continues to be relevant.

[Lois]

Sorry, but WSJ has a paywall.  Can you paste the article here so we can read?

[joan1984]

The Wall Street Journal

Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?

James Hansen issued dire warnings in the summer of 1988. Today earth is only modestly warmer.
By Pat Michaels and  Ryan Maue
June 21, 2018 7:24 p.m. ET

James E. Hansen wiped sweat from his brow. Outside it was a record-high 98 degrees on June 23, 1988, as the NASA scientist testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources during a prolonged heat wave, which he decided to cast as a climate event of cosmic significance. He expressed to the senators his “high degree of confidence” in “a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

With that testimony and an accompanying paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Mr. Hansen lit the bonfire of the greenhouse vanities, igniting a world-wide debate that continues today about the energy structure of the entire planet. President Obama’s environmental policies were predicated on similar models of rapid, high-cost warming. But the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s predictions affords an opportunity to see how well his forecasts have done—and to reconsider environmental policy accordingly.

Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible scenarios for the future of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A “business as usual,” as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s and ’80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the “most plausible,” and predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely: constant emissions beginning in 2000. In that forecast, temperatures would rise a few tenths of a degree before flatlining after 2000.

Thirty years of data have been collected since Mr. Hansen outlined his scenarios—enough to determine which was closest to reality. And the winner is Scenario C. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Niño of 2015-16. Assessed by Mr. Hansen’s model, surface temperatures are behaving as if we had capped 18 years ago the carbon-dioxide emissions responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect. But we didn’t. And it isn’t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.

James Hansen testifies before a Senate Transportation subcommittee in Washington, D.C., May 8, 1989.
James Hansen testifies before a Senate Transportation subcommittee in Washington, D.C., May 8, 1989. PHOTO: DENNIS COOK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
What about Mr. Hansen’s other claims? Outside the warming models, his only explicit claim in the testimony was that the late ’80s and ’90s would see “greater than average warming in the southeast U.S. and the Midwest.” No such spike has been measured in these regions.

As observed temperatures diverged over the years from his predictions, Mr. Hansen doubled down. In a 2007 case on auto emissions, he stated in his deposition that most of Greenland’s ice would soon melt, raising sea levels 23 feet over the course of 100 years. Subsequent research published in Nature magazine on the history of Greenland’s ice cap demonstrated this to be impossible. Much of Greenland’s surface melts every summer, meaning rapid melting might reasonably be expected to occur in a dramatically warming world. But not in the one we live in. The Nature study found only modest ice loss after 6,000 years of much warmer temperatures than human activity could ever sustain.

Several more of Mr. Hansen’s predictions can now be judged by history. Have hurricanes gotten stronger, as Mr. Hansen predicted in a 2016 study? No. Satellite data from 1970 onward shows no evidence of this in relation to global surface temperature. Have storms caused increasing amounts of damage in the U.S.? Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show no such increase in damage, measured as a percentage of gross domestic product. How about stronger tornadoes? The opposite may be true, as NOAA data offers some evidence of a decline. The list of what didn’t happen is long and tedious.

The problem with Mr. Hansen’s models—and the U.N.’s—is that they don’t consider more-precise measures of how aerosol emissions counter warming caused by greenhouse gases. Several newer climate models account for this trend and routinely project about half the warming predicted by U.N. models, placing their numbers much closer to observed temperatures. The most recent of these was published in April by Nic Lewis and Judith Curry in the Journal of Climate, a reliably mainstream journal.

These corrected climate predictions raise a crucial question: Why should people world-wide pay drastic costs to cut emissions when the global temperature is acting as if those cuts have already been made?

On the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s galvanizing testimony, it’s time to acknowledge that the rapid warming he predicted isn’t happening. Climate researchers and policy makers should adopt the more modest forecasts that are consistent with observed temperatures.

That would be a lukewarm policy, consistent with a lukewarming planet.

Mr. Michaels is director and Mr. Maue an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science.

Appeared in the June 22, 2018, print edition as 'A Hot Summer on Capitol Hill.'

[psiberzerker]

This is an op-editorial from a non-climatologist.  An OPINION, and not a qualified one.  It's also a common one for deniers based on a fallacy:

You can't predict the future.  Climatologists never tried to, which is why all the original predictions back in the 70s were carefully worded like "As much as 4 degrees per decade."

Notice, it said "As much as."  If you want, I can cite the original testimony to Congress this is quoted from.  (If you're actually interested in checking sources.  I'm not going to assume either way.)

Non/anti-scientist "Free thinkers" seize on this either as an innaccuracy "It was only 2 degrees in the last decade" or demand impossible precision in something that was never going to be precise down to 3 significant decimal places in the first place.  They read headlines, skin over articles on actual studies, looking for the fatal eror that disproves the entire "Theory," and use words like "Theory" incorrectly to betray their basic lack of the fundementals of scientific method.  (Just like Evolution is "Just a Theory.")

The rate of change, changes.  We are actively fighting the Rate Of Change.  Just like acceleration, if your car is going too fast, you can take your foot off the gas, stop accelerating, and apply the brakes to Actively change the rate of velocity.  Anyone who's driven a car, or even ridden a bike understands the basic concept of acellerating, and decelerating.  We even have reverse gears so you can look back, and drive the other way, without turning completely around.

The original reports were a Warning:  "If we don't do something soon, we will eventually reach the runaway greenhouse point, and be unable to prevent the Earth from looking a lot more like Venus."

We did.  We couldn't slam on the brakes, but we actively monitored, limited, and even legislated pollution to control the Rate of Acceleration.  In time, we will even be able to reverse it, carefully, and reset it back to where we started, but there's a massive hysteresis curve here, because we don't have a brake pedal here, hydraulically connected to rotors on the axles.  

It takes time, but we have been actively doing it, for over a quarter century now.  

The fact that we have avoided the worst case scenario is proof that we can affect the global mean temperature, because we demonstarted that capability, intentionally.  The fact that we are, currently, actively fighting it, and getting ahead of it, is not "Proof" that it was all a hoax, and a waste of taxpayer money.

No matter what editorials in business magazines claim.  If you take weather reports from MBAs, then do you also take medical advice from rocket scientists?  Of course not, because that would be stupidly risky.

Listen to the meteorologists, and climatologists.  They do this for a living.  Stick to investing advice, and political commentary from things like the Wall Street Journal.

[Katiebee]

GISS measures the change in global surface temperatures relative to average temperatures from 1951 to 1980. GISS data show global average temperatures in 2017 rose 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) above the 1951-1980 mean. According to GISS, the global mean surface air temperature for that period was estimated to be 57 F (14 C). That would put the planet's average surface temperature in 2017 at 58.62 F (14.9 C).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.space.com/17816-earth-temperature.html

[Athos_131]

Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100

#Resist

[Levorotatory]

It is correct that the fuel economy standards would have been largely ineffective at reducing CO₂ emissions as they were far too lenient for larger vehicles compared to smaller vehicles, incentivizing manufacturers to make their vehicles bigger rather than more efficient.   The absurdity is the "we can't fix it so we might as well make it worse" logic.  Hopefully the next administration will take the opportunity to introduce good fuel economy standards based on vehicle capacities for passengers and payload rather than overall size.

[psiberzerker]

It is correct that the fuel economy standards would have been largely ineffective at reducing CO₂ emissions as they were far too lenient for larger vehicles compared to smaller vehicles, incentivizing manufacturers to make their vehicles bigger rather than more efficient.   The absurdity is the "we can't fix it so we might as well make it worse" logic.  Hopefully the next administration will take the opportunity to introduce good fuel economy standards based on vehicle capacities for passengers and payload rather than overall size.

Wait, what?  Okay, fuel economy ALONE is not enough to singlehandedly slow the rise in global mean teperatures, but we're not talking about just making more efficient cars.  We're also helping China convert from Coal (Industrial Revolution Fossil Fuel) to cleaner energy.  Wind, solar, and hydro-electric power here, tighter restrictions in Industrial emissions...

The list goes on, and on.  Our current infrastructure pollutes, at every stage, from pulling the raw crude petroleum out of the ground, to the Diesel tankers that carry Diesel fuel out to the oil fields to power the motors which keep the bird head pumps pecking away at every last drop.



Every one of these is fueled by diesel power, delivered by tanker trucks, fresh from the refinery, fed by a pipleine, from the same fucking field.  The trucks that the pipefitters drive to work in, to build, and maintain the diesel pumps, that pressurize that pipeline are diesel.  There's yer problem.  Reduce, Re-use, THEN Recycle what's left.  Those are the solutionS.  Plural.

Reducing fuel consumption at the car you drive is just the tip of the iceberg you can actually see from behind the wheel, or standing at the pump.  Gasoline is literally the fraction (Of distillation) that doesn't go to Diesel.

That's the Fossil Fuel Economy we have right now.  That's what's raising the global mean temperature.

[Levorotatory]

^ Of course the problem goes far beyond cars, but a large part of the article was on vehicle fuel economy standards. 

A global $500 / ton carbon tax would probably solve the CO₂ emissions problem in 2-3 decades, but Trump is far from the only politician standing in the way of that.

[psiberzerker]

A global $500 / ton carbon tax would probably solve the CO₂ emissions problem in 2-3 decades, but Trump is far from the only politician standing in the way of that.

A carbon tax isn't going to do a whole hell of a lot without changing the system that's causing the problem in the first place.  I sold a patented Diesel still (Single top-fraction) you could drive around on the back of a 1 ton pickup (Flatbed, dually, or double axel) from pump to pump, and top off those peckers without it ever leaving the oil field (And come back.) 

They buried it.  Still doing it like they been doing it, because every time that fuel changes hands, they burn more diesel, and somebody makes a profit.  That's what makes Petroleum>Money, in terms of Power.  Raise it to $1,000,000/ton of CO2, they'll just raise the price of gasoline, and keep doing like they been doing...

I know how to fix it, but nobody listens to me.  I'm crazy.

[RopeFiend]

Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100

Yeah, I always go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration when I'm looking for CLIMATE PREDICTIONS.  <rolls eyes>   You DID read that article before you posted it, right??

[psiberzerker]

You DID read that article before you posted it, right?

With Athos, it's pretty hard to tell.  When he posts 5 articles within as many minutes, it hardly seems likely he read them all completely.

[Levorotatory]

A global $500 / ton carbon tax would probably solve the CO₂ emissions problem in 2-3 decades, but Trump is far from the only politician standing in the way of that.

That's weird.  I posted this (along with an acknowledgement that there was a lot more that cars emitting CO₂), part of it got quoted, now it's gone?  WTF?

Edit:  I see it has been fixed now.