[Daniel1960]

WellSpyder, on 2015-March-05, 10:44, said:

Isn't the problem with that that both sides in this debate have made false claims? So is everyone a fraud?

That is true for those claiming that global warming is a hoax; that mankind has had absolutely no effect (being all natural), and those claiming catstrophic warming will occur; that mankind is the sole cause (no natural influence). My personal favorite are the clowns over at skeptical science who state that natural cooling has been reigning in the warming potential of CO2, and that global temperatures should have risen much more over the past century, solely due to rising CO2 levels.

In reality, the truth lies somewhere in between (as in most stories that ignore the facts). Much research has gone into determing how much of the recent warming can be attributed to natural causes (solar, volcanic, and oceanic cycles) compared to those that are manmade (deforestation, urbanization, pollution, albedo changes, and, of course, burning carbon-based fuels). When listening to either extreme, they tend to focus on how the opposite causes sould not possibly results in the observed warming, rather than how their own causes could. If the warming could be attributed soley to one cause, then it would be easy to ascertain. When you listen to most scientists (as opposite to various politicians or activists), they will tell you that the warming is due to a combination of several factors, some of which we are just now starting to understand. While some may claim that they know the influence of these many factors, most will acknowledge the large uncertainty to which we really comprehend the climate of this planet. Many seem to gravitate to a 50:50 natural vs. manmade inlfuence, but this is really more of a cope out due to the many unknowns that exist, rather than an inate understand of the process. Scientists in particular fields tend to overemphasize the influence to climate from their area compared to others. Hence, astrophysicists tend to focus more on solar influences, than vulcanologists, hydrologists, geologists, meteorologists, etc.

When you compare the claims of those on either extreme in this debate to the actual data, you see that neither side represents reality very well. The Earth has been warming at an average rate of ~0.6C/century for 135 years, based on our best temperature measurements. Prior to that, the data is more uncertain, although the warming appears to have started near the beginning of the 19th century. This rate has oscillated between higher rates and no warming (even slight cooling), with about 60-year cycles imbedded within. Much research has gone into this cyclicality also (is it real or a figment of the data).

Those claiming that the warming has stopped, tend to use the last 17 years or so as evidence, while those claiming accelerated warming is occurring, tend to use the previous 17-year period. If you glance at the temperature plot over the past 135 years, you will see that we currently reside very close to the long term trendline. Based on this trend, we would expect to experience another 0.5C of warming this century. Who is the bigger fraud, those claiming no warming will occur, or those claiming warming of twice that? Each would be wrong by the same value. Science deals in probabilites, and as such, both the no warming scenario or 1C warming could potentially occur by the year 2100. These just seem like the least likely scenarios.

[hrothgar]

Al_U_Card, on 2015-March-05, 07:00, said:

Indeed, and that is what all of the peer-reviewed references and the actual, factual (non-modeled) observational evidence that I have presented here, is all about. The idea of the IPCC was a noble (if somewhat erroneous) cause that STARTED with the premise that AGW was a serious and actual problem that needed to be curtailed by any and every means necessary. All of their endeavor has been guided toward that end but for it to hold together, they needed "proof". Besides the gradually (naturally) warming world of the past two centuries, all they had was a chaotic, non-linear, UNPREDICTABLE system (by their own, and correct admission in AR1) and computer models that were based on the fallacious notion that climate forcings were net positive feedbacks that would lead to runaway warming if allowed to grow. This flies in the face of actual observations and historical analysis. Without such calamitous effect, there would be no need to "control" CO2 (the only factor we contribute to in any real sense) and therefore no reason for them (the IPCC and the carbon control crowd) to continue to exist.

The latest ad-hominem attack on the author(s) of the Why models run hot paper has to do with the demonstration that the GCMs used by the IPCC are all operating in a way that ensures that they exceed the actual, observable temperatures that they attempt to project. Since these same models are used for all of the other scenarios of doom and gloom provided by other "modeled" studies, such a paper cannot be recognized as valid. Thus, they denigrate the authors rather than address the science.

Since this issue, at its core, is all about the science, if that fails then the whole house of cards will tumble. The science is not settled but what is clear is that the position held by the IPCC is not founded on sound scientific principles. This is why R K Pachauri (ex IPCC head) in his resignation letter stated that fighting this fight is his religion and his dharma.... 'nuff said.

Al? Have you had yourself checked for Alzheimer's recently?

Your posts were never that coherent and you frequently contradict yourself within individual threads, but complaining about ad hominem attack in one sentence and then launching the same against Pachauri in the very next is startling even for you.

Your "loop" seems to have gotten pretty short. Might be time to see whether there are any decent experimental trials going on in your neck of the woods.

[Winstonm]

http://www.theguardi...nktanks-network

[Al_U_Card]

Still no discussion of the science nor of the impact and implications of the corrective measures needed to "control" the climate by using the "[CO2] knob on the black box modeled by the IPCC.

Quoting people is not an insult no matter how insulting their quote may be. Pachauri also referred to the information that the 2035 Himalayan glaciers melting was false as "voodoo science". His specialty seemed to be on the metaphysical side... Quotes, like the scientific evidence and peer-reviewed studies that refute CAGW, the individual that refers to them does not invalidate them.

[Al_U_Card]

Daniel, we all know that climate change "denial" is a euphemism for not accepting the party-line and kow-towing to those that insist that we spend our time and money on their ideas and ideals. The issue is simply, as all parties realize whether they admit it or not, are the changes that man can make to the climate of significance in real terms and can we do anything salient and effective about them.

[y66]

I am not a frequent visitor to this thread so sorry if this has already been posted or if the points Mr. Rignot makes here are old news:

https://www.youtube....h?v=ANBHZfH4l6M

[Al_U_Card]

y66, on 2015-March-11, 22:40, said:

I am not a frequent visitor to this thread so sorry if this has already been posted or if the points Mr. Rignot makes here are old news:

https://www.youtube....h?v=ANBHZfH4l6M

Well, despite the interview being "conducted" by John Cook of SkS, many of the points are not only valid but they reinforce that both uncertainty an inexactitude in the science of glaciology as it applies to both tipping points and polar ice sheets (land and sea). Careful, close looks at the nature of the studies conducted leads to the appreciation that science is both hard and imprecise, especially where human influence, interference and interpretation is involved. As for scientists being activists, objectivity is the keystone of scientific exploration. Holding a viewpoint or having an agenda leads to biased or otherwise questionable investigation of the reality.
Scientists need only provide an accurate portrayal of the actual situation (Models being slower or faster, if they are inaccurate, they are ineffectual.) as well as their assumptions, methods and conclusions. That would be a great start.

[PassedOut]

y66, on 2015-March-11, 22:40, said:

I am not a frequent visitor to this thread so sorry if this has already been posted or if the points Mr. Rignot makes here are old news:

https://www.youtube....h?v=ANBHZfH4l6M

Parts one and two are good also. In particular, the time-lapse view of the collapsing Greenland glaciers in part two is pretty dramatic.

[blackshoe]

Crazed street person: "The world ends tomorrow!!"

Climatologist: "Dude, the world ended yesterday. You just don't know it yet."

[Al_U_Card]

Crazed climate modeler: " The world could end tomorrow because all of my models are in agreement!"

Rational person: "Just like yesterday?"

[y66]

From Climate Fight Won't Wait For Paris by Bill McKibben

Quote

And so the race is fully, finally on. There are three teams. Team one, in the green: that’s the climate justice activists and the solar engineers, working together, scrappy but gaining. Team two, in the red as the price of oil drops: that’s the fossil fuel industry. It has a big lead, but a big gut too; it’s tiring fast. And the third? That’s physics, the most mysterious of the contestants, and arguably the most important. So far physics has meant that a single degree of global warming was enough to melt most Arctic ice. Last year the California heatwave lifted 63tn gallons of groundwater from the drought-stricken state, allowing its main mountain range to jump half an inch skyward. The heavy groundwater was depressing the Earth’s crust so when it evaporated in the drought, the land rebounded upwards. The world’s sea levels are now rising inexorably, turning every storm and high tide into peril. It’s happening faster and scarier than we thought a quarter-century ago when I wrote the first book for a general audience about all this.

Had we acted a quarter century ago, physics would be working on our side by now. We could have acted from a sense of justice, since global warming’s inherent unfairness – that those who contributed the least suffer the most – has been obvious from the start. Or we could have acted, you know, rationally: every economist, left, right and centre, has said for a generation that it makes no sense to let the fossil fuel companies pour their carbon out for free, and that the economic mess we’re creating far outweighs the cost of preventing it.

But this fight, as it took me too long to figure out, was never going to be settled on the grounds of justice or reason. We won the argument, but that didn’t matter: like most fights it was, and is, about power. The richest industry in human history wants to keep on their current path for a few more years, even if it means dragging the whole planet over a cliff. (Never forget for a moment that this industry, having watched the Arctic melt, immediately set out to drill the newly open waters for more oil.) Their power lies in money and the political favour it can buy; our power lies in movement-building, and the political fear it can instill. They know they’re in a tough spot so they’re spending like crazy (the Koch Brothers, party of two, just announced plans to dump $900m on the next US election, which is more than the Republicans or the Democrats will spend). We’ve therefore got to organise like crazy.

And if we do we have a chance. The Copenhagen climate summit was a fiasco, but not because the science wasn’t clear – in 2009, too, the world had just come off a record hot year. Copenhagen was a fiasco because environmentalists were hopeful that our leaders would do the right thing. Not this time – we’ll push as hard as we possibly can, and if we do then good things will happen before Paris, after Paris, and for years to come. Our task is brutally hard and painfully simple: keep the carbon in the ground.

[Al_U_Card]

"keep the carbon in the ground." and pay no heed to man behind the (models) curtain.

Long on hyperbole and imagery yet short on facts and analysis. "Weepy" Bill fights on for what he believes is right. [CO2] at 350 ppm or less. The activists are going for ever-more scary scenarios and intimidation tactics because the facts just don't support their proposals and arguments. They have a vision and it is an idyllic, wind and solar-powered (etc.) utopia where energy costs and availability are not a cause for concern because the planet has been kept from warming a few thousandths of a degree...

[y66]

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief, and his colleagues at The Guardian are trying to figure out how to tell this story in a way that doesn't turn people off and succeeds at getting more people to pay attention to this problem and change attitudes and habits which is a fascinating story in itself.

[PassedOut]

The rise in sea levels has already accelerated from 1 mm per year to 3mm per year, that is certain. If the East Antarctic ice shelf starts to contribute, the acceleration will increase. And it looks like that will happen: The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse.

Quote

A hundred years from now, humans may remember 2014 as the year that we first learned that we may have irreversibly destabilized the great ice sheet of West Antarctica, and thus set in motion more than 10 feet of sea level rise.

2015, meanwhile, could be the year of the double whammy — when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again. Northern hemisphere residents and Americans in particular should take note — when the bottom of the world loses vast amounts of ice, those of us living closer to its top get more sea level rise than the rest of the planet, thanks to the law of gravity.

The findings about East Antarctica emerge from a new paper just out in Nature Geoscience by an international team of scientists representing the United States, Britain, France and Australia. They flew a number of research flights over the Totten Glacier of East Antarctica — the fastest-thinning sector of the world’s largest ice sheet — and took a variety of measurements to try to figure out the reasons behind its retreat. And the news wasn’t good: It appears that Totten, too, is losing ice because warm ocean water is getting underneath it.

We should have taken action to reduce CO₂ emissions years ago, but doing so now will still help to slow the consequences of global warming. Seems to me that most folks are starting to pay attention to the harm being caused by CO₂ emissions, despite the millions being spent to obfuscate the truth. In that respect it's like the cigarette companies all over again, except that those who will suffer the most from the damage will be those who've contributed least to causing it.

[Daniel1960]

PassedOut, on 2015-March-16, 11:22, said:

The rise in sea levels has already accelerated from 1 mm per year to 3mm per year, that is certain. If the East Antarctic ice shelf starts to contribute, the acceleration will increase. And it looks like that will happen: The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse.


We should have taken action to reduce CO₂ emissions years ago, but doing so now will still help to slow the consequences of global warming. Seems to me that most folks are starting to pay attention to the harm being caused by CO₂ emissions, despite the millions being spent to obfuscate the truth. In that respect it's like the cigarette companies all over again, except that those who will suffer the most from the damage will be those who've contributed least to causing it.

Can you link to the data to support your statement. The satellite data show no change in rise sien 1979, and the tidal gauge data show no change over the past century.

[hrothgar]

Daniel1960, on 2015-March-16, 12:27, said:

Can you link to the data to support your statement. The satellite data show no change in rise sien 1979, and the tidal gauge data show no change over the past century.

http://www.realclima...e-accelerating/

[Al_U_Card]

"Accelerating" at up to several HUNDREDTHS of a MILLIMETER per year. Why, we'll have several centimeters more sea-level in a few centuries...

And the above chart from Realclimate stops in 1970 but the "modeled" curve looks like disaster looming for the turn of the millenium. How are we doing so far?

[PassedOut]

Daniel1960, on 2015-March-16, 12:27, said:

Can you link to the data to support your statement. The satellite data show no change in rise sien 1979, and the tidal gauge data show no change over the past century.

Sea level is rising at about 3.2 mm per year; you should have no trouble verifying that for yourself. If sea level had been rising at that rate since 1870, then the sea level in 1870 would have been much lower than actually measured. (I trust you can do those calculations yourself.)

If you know how tide gauges work, you will know that they cannot give readings high above actual water levels (to say nothing of the problems that incorrect readings in that direction would have caused for shipping).

Therefore the overall yearly increase since 1870 must be lower than 3.2 mm.

Therefore, the rise in sea level has accelerated.

[blackshoe]

PassedOut, on 2015-March-16, 11:22, said:

"when the bottom of the world loses vast amounts of ice, those of us living closer to its top get more sea level rise than the rest of the planet, thanks to the law of gravity."

Huh? Gonna have to show me the math on that one.

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-16, 14:58, said:

Huh? Gonna have to show me the math on that one.

C'mon now. Look at the globe.

The huge mass of ice on Antarctica pulls water toward it. Remember gravity? When the Antarctic ice sheets melt, the reduced mass reduces the gravitational pull.