It's all over but for the sweating?

[NeilBlanchard]

There are three EtOM videos, and they explain how they use geology and plate tectonics and other fields, too. We know the past fairly well - at one point after Pangaea split up but before what now is India rammed into southeast Asia and started to push up the Himalayas - there was ~1,000ppm because of all the volcanic activity, and the relatively slower weathering process. After the Himalayas started forming (and India slowed way down), the balance tipped toward faster weathering.

There was no ice anywhere, and huge continental-sized land masses were still moving around. There alligators living on what now is Alaska, and Antarctica was a tropical place, too. Ocean level was 100's of feet higher than it is now.

It took about 1,000,000 years to "wash" 100ppm out of the atmosphere (I'm going from memory here, and I could be wrong on the specifics). That is a long, slow change. We know about when the Antarctica ice started to freeze (about 450ppm) and when the Arctic ice started to freeze year round (about 350ppm).

We also know fairly well when the earth's axis changed, and when the sun's output changed, and when the ice ages occurred, etc. We know where carbon 14 and carbon 13 and carbon 12 come from. We know the chemistry that achieved the 170-270ppm stable plateau that we had for ~650,000 years - all lifeforms were changing the atmosphere and all subsequent lifeforms had to adapt to the resulting climate. Before cyanobacteria and plants there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. Volcanoes "saved" the earth from being a perpetual snowball. We know about things like gravitational changes because of lots of ice. All that is history and we have a pretty good idea about the big-picture stuff.

We know the physics of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We know about systemic causation - all weather occurs within the climatic conditions of the moment. We know that temperatures are trending higher, and we know that the relative number of record high temperature vs record low temperatures are changing. We know the ocean is getting more acidic because it is absorbing carbon dioxide as carbonic acid - the ocean has absorbed about HALF of the additional carbon that we humans have emitted. The acidification is worse in areas adjacent to granite-based land, and not as bad adjacent to limestone-based land. The thing is that the granite areas in the USA are also the best fishing areas.

We see amplifying feedback loops occurring: lower albedo, more water vapor - about 5% more, massive methane "burps" all over the tundra, more massive fires, forced deforestation, a massive (~40%) loss of plankton since the 1950's. We see more massive floods, and longer droughts, weakening jet streams, lower salinity and warmer water, rising ocean levels, we see the Arctic ice going into a "death spiral" - all around global weirdness.

Will we suffer more from bigger storms, or bigger droughts, or bigger floods, or the rising ocean? Will we run out of water before we have a crop failure? Will we keep burning fossil fuels until we pass 450ppm or 550ppm? Will we be forced to switch to all renewable energy by the high costs of oil, or the high costs of climate change? What are the health costs of burning fossil fuels vs the cost of transitioning to renewable energy? Will the insurance companies drive where people (re)build their lives after a storm/flood/fire/drought, or the government? When will the human costs from climate change be paid for by the profits of the fossil fuel industry?

[TheEnemy]

EdGCM is not open source, its core is which is based off of the NASA climate model. The trial version doesn't let you change much, and the contribution for rising CO2 is fixed in the NASA core. Even the pay version is relatively limited.

The NASA core is open source, just need to find a Fortran compiler.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Sure, since there's about a billion ...

I'll come back to this later, without name calling - although I agree on the candidates thing- you had a poor selection pool...

However I wonder if it is worth, in the interests of the discussion, moving towards what to do.

Lets assume that CO2 is a primary cause of climate warming / change / disruption and that humans are mainly the cause - parking the debate above for the time being.

So what do we do to effect the changes that might be required - what policies to use, how should they be enacted ? How do you go from where we are now to where you think we should be ?

I'm thinking more on a national and international scale.

[TheEnemy]

It looks like I made a mistake on a previous post, the following diagram corrects it plus provides a better visualization for what I was trying to say.

[niky]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

So what do we do to effect the changes that might be required - what policies to use, how should they be enacted ? How do you go from where we are now to where you think we should be ?

I'm thinking more on a national and international scale.

Replant the forests. Tax fuel. Tax the hell out of fuel, then tax it some more.

I think the increasing reliance on cyber-business goes a ways towards helping lower our energy footprint.

One big problem with a global capitalist system is that it encourages a fast turn-over of products and planned obsolescence. You somehow have to find a way to disincentivize that, make for leaner manufacturing, and less of it. Ironically, for those businesses which make lifetime products to survive, you will probably still need international shipping.

Hell... Let's make this easy on ourselves... Let 90% of the world population die off and we can stop carbon emissions overnight.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

When will the human costs from climate change be paid for by the profits of the fossil fuel industry?

Surely, you jest.

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Lets assume that CO2 is a primary cause of climate warming / change / disruption and that humans are mainly the cause - parking the debate above for the time being.

So what do we do to effect the changes that might be required - what policies to use, how should they be enacted ? How do you go from where we are now to where you think we should be ?

I'm thinking more on a national and international scale.

*cough* Cool Planet *cough* How many times do I have to say it?

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The thing about doubting what the overwhelming scientific conclusion and all the data are, do you also doubt other areas of science? Plate tectonics or DNA or the atomic and subatomic particles or astrophysics or DNA are all beyond what most of us can "know" - and yet we accept them. Why is it that climate change is any different?

Originally Posted by TheEnemy

I don't doubt all other science, the other areas of science you have pointed out have alolowed themselves to be open, if you have questions on those subjects they will show you why, If you disagree with a conclusion they will discuss it, and will not try to discredit your reputation.

I think people argue about climate change because it is comprehensible. Compared to say Quantum Mechanics, which is the bedrock on which all this action takes place.

Astrophysics stamps its little foot and insists that space contains gravity and magnetism but no electric currents coursing between the moons and planets and stars and galaxies and etc. How can you have magnetism without electricity?

And what's up with noctilucent clouds that reach much higher than water vapor could be lifted by the atmosphere?

Would anyone care to comment on this?

[suspectnumber961]

Chris Hedges: Stand Still for the Apocalypse


Humans must immediately implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions or prepare for the collapse of entire ecosystems and the displacement, suffering and death of hundreds of millions of the globe’s inhabitants, according to a report commissioned by the World Bank. The continued failure to respond aggressively to climate change, the report warns, will mean that the planet will inevitably warm by at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, ushering in an apocalypse.

The 84-page document,“Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,” was written for the World Bank by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics and published last week. The picture it paints of a world convulsed by rising temperatures is a mixture of mass chaos, systems collapse and medical suffering like that of the worst of the Black Plague, which in the 14th century killed 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population.

A planetwide temperature rise of 4 degrees C—and the report notes that the tepidness of the emission pledges and commitments of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will make such an increase almost inevitable—will cause a precipitous drop in crop yields, along with the loss of many fish species, resulting in widespread hunger and starvation. Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to abandon their homes in coastal areas and on islands that will be submerged as the sea rises. There will be an explosion in diseases such as malaria, cholera and dengue fever. Devastating heat waves and droughts, as well as floods, especially in the tropics, will render parts of the Earth uninhabitable. The rain forest covering the Amazon basin will disappear. Coral reefs will vanish. Numerous animal and plant species, many of which are vital to sustaining human populations, will become extinct. Monstrous storms will eradicate biodiversity, along with whole cities and communities. And as these extreme events begin to occur simultaneously in different regions of the world, the report finds, there will be “unprecedented stresses on human systems.” Global agricultural production will eventually not be able to compensate. Health and emergency systems, as well as institutions designed to maintain social cohesion and law and order, will crumble. The world’s poor, at first, will suffer the most. But we all will succumb in the end to the folly and hubris of the Industrial Age. And yet, we do nothing.

“It is useful to recall that a global mean temperature increase of 4°C approaches the difference between temperatures today and those of the last ice age, when much of central Europe and the northern United States were covered with kilometers of ice and global mean temperatures were about 4.5°C to 7°C lower,” the report reads. “And this magnitude of climate change—human induced—is occurring over a century, not millennia.”

...

You're on the railroad tracks...I (and many, many others) see a train coming...you don't want to hear about it? Go on...take a look.....

Or...move along...nothing to see here?

[suspectnumber961]

I am quite surprised that you've made it this far. No longer will you dig in your heels and try to deny reality?

That is the real DAMAGE done by denialists....while fools argue...nothing substantial gets done.....

We see this in US politics...the retrograde control the dialog by taking essentially retarded and close to absurd positions...so that way too much time is spent fending off what is essentially...SELF-SERVING ignorance*.

* positions taken to keep others ignorant in order to maintain the status quo and maintain profits and other advantages?

But don't take this personally. You may have a psychosis...see your therapist.

Originally Posted by Arragonis

I'll come back to this later, without name calling - although I agree on the candidates thing- you had a poor selection pool...

However I wonder if it is worth, in the interests of the discussion, moving towards what to do.

Lets assume that CO2 is a primary cause of climate warming / change / disruption and that humans are mainly the cause - parking the debate above for the time being.

So what do we do to effect the changes that might be required - what policies to use, how should they be enacted ? How do you go from where we are now to where you think we should be ?

I'm thinking more on a national and international scale.

[NeilBlanchard]

August 2016 +3 years \ -2 years we will have no permanent Arctic ice.



This is the new "normal".

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But the models ARE pretty much spot on. As for instance Hansen's "Scenario B", which comes fairly close to what actually happened - and comes closer still if you go back and plug in actual CO2 increases instead of the guesses made back in the '80s. And yes, I know you can find some denialist sites that claim Hansen was wrong. If you examine their claims, you'll see that they are lying.

The real world result seems to be between Scenario B and C. Scenario B is based on a "reduced growth in trace gasses" and scenario C assumes "a rapid curtailment". Meanwhile real world measured CO2 is more or less a straight line rise which suggests neither scenario is what happened.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Not true. Sure, the above denialist sites have tried desperately to use a few out-of-context quotes and such to create an impression of a lack of credibility, but the only people who believe them are the confirmed denialists.

Agree the context of the conversations is not available, big bag of salt required when dipping into them. At the same time the UK ICO (who police FOI compliance) didn't see it as out of context - last paragraph of page 1 here :

http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/...esponse+to+UEA*

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Why did it need to be mentioned? You had one party running a pair of (excuse my language) effing creationist idiots, backed up by Senate candidates mouthing off about things like "legitimate rape". And notice that they lost :-)

It is (allegedly) the major peacetime crisis we are facing but not a peep about it, apart from some stuff about renewables investments. It was commented on widely, not not just by skeptics but on "progressive" type websites and blogs.

BTW I'm glad the effin... lost too, and probably for the same reasons as you

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Of course anything can be improved, but if you've just fallen off a cliff, do you really care that a detailed model that takes account of the variability of air resistance with temperature predicts you will impact the ground in exactly 5.328 seconds?

Firstly we need to know if its a cliff or a short fall, or even if there is anything as Mr Enemy states. Secondly we could invent a parachute or an air bag or something to cushion the fall, find a way to abseil our way down - or at worse adopt a position which minimises the injuries. Who knows until the research is done.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

So why should Mann have to release his work to gratify denialists?

Not just them, his supporters and friends would be pleased too, that was in the leaked emails too. But a few reasons off the top of my head :

- The maths is questionable (Ian Jollife's comments on Mann's "different" PCA method for example)
- Taxpayers paid for it
- It isn't a big secret like DoD stuff
- It would prove him right all along, maybe
- He says he likes "robust" - can't get more robust that this
- And he wouldn't have to "waste time" on it any more.
- And the biggie - it would blow away the people who criticise him in one go - those pesky big oil funded etc etc.

Seems like a win - win from his point of view, assuming he is confident of his results and methods of course.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Especially when their primary motive seems to be to keep him and other climate scientists so busy responding to their harassment that they won't be able to do actual work?

He seems to have plenty of time for Twitter, book writing, flying (all that CO2...) to various places for conferences, spending time with his lawyers (although rarely in court) etc etc.

Anyway - damn all those people interrupting him all the time, damn them. Damn them all these evil science hating, er, scientists who keep questionning the work...
Advance online publication : Nature Geoscience

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Plenty of similar data is available, and when analyzed shows similar results, which is a far more robust confirmation than picking apart one study that you disagree with.

The publicity statements about this study explain why it was seen as so significantly different from the others - the data included was more extensive than anything else, the methods used more thorough and accurate. The study baldy went where no study had been before.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Plenty of open source climate code out there. Look up EdGCM, for instance.

Agreed, loads. It would be cleaner if the process itself was open sourced.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Sure, he thought that. Then he actually looked at the data, discovered that he was wrong, and was honest enough to admit it.

The interview I link to was made after his recent "conversion" to non-skeptic status, it (the Al Gore "denier" / scientific fraud thing) is what he believes now and states openly - this is seperate from his belief in the attribution element of the results of the BEST project.

The BEST project (AFAIK) has not yet passed peer review, but I like that they have released results, code etc. for scrutiny.


*(The full exchange is here - Correspondence between University of East Anglia and the Information Commissioner's Office - University of East Anglia (UEA)

The ICO issued a statement that there was evidence of a crime (i.e. scientists breaking FOI law) but that UEA couldn't be prosecuted due to a legal time limit. UEA didn't like this and wanted the ICO to change it, the letter I directly link to is the ICO telling UEA to (in legal language) "get lost". For a fascinating insight into how poor the UEA handled it the third letter is amusing - the ICO state that the only reason for lack of investigation is due to the time limit, the UEA attempt to turn this into them being cleared of any wrongdoing. When a blogger stated this in a newspaper the UEA complained to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) - who also told them (in legal language) to "get lost".

Sunlight is the best disinfectant when it comes to this lot).