A stormy Forecast for Climate Change Reporting

[wyly]

What you think that the earth's temperature will just stop rising? If we keep pumping CO2 into the air the earth average temperature will continue to rise indefinitely. At the current rate it will take about 500 years for the earth temperature to rise 10 degrees, that's the geological blink of an eye. Humans may be able to adapt to that nothing else will.

and at the "current rate" assumes we will not increase emissions(but we will)...and Tim suggests we should not bother to reduce "I think reducing CO2 emissions is futile and a pointless waste of resources." apparently Tim like a few other forum members believes we can change the mixture of a gas and not have any effect on it's properties, that GHG's have some magical ability to ignore their warming properties for our convenience...this is a great discovery on Tim's part maybe he could ask CO and H2S not to reach such levels where they kill people...

[waldo]

speaking of a projected 5°C (11°F) temperature rise... over much of the United States... by 2090

from yesterday's Washington Post: Don't believe in global warming? That's not very conservative

Few causes unite the conservatives of the newly elected 112th Congress as unanimously as their opposition to government action on climate change.

But it's conservatives who should fear climate change the most. To put it simply, if you hate big government, try global warming on for size.

Many conservatives say they oppose clean-energy policies because they want to keep government off our backs. But they have it exactly backward. Doing nothing will set our country on a course toward narrower choices for businesses and individuals, along with an expanded role for government. When catastrophe strikes - and yes, the science is quite solid that it will - it will be the feds who are left conducting triage.

In fact, far from being conservative, the Republican stance on global warming shows a stunning appetite for risk. When faced with uncertainty and the possibility of costly outcomes, smart businessmen buy insurance, reduce their downside exposure and protect their assets. When confronted with a disease outbreak of unknown proportions, front-line public health workers get busy producing vaccines, pre-positioning supplies and tracking pathogens. And when military planners assess an enemy, they get ready for a worst-case encounter.

When it comes to climate change, conservatives are doing none of this. Instead, they are recklessly betting the farm on a single, best-case scenario: That the scientific consensus about global warming will turn out to be wrong. This is bad risk management and an irresponsible way to run anything, whether a business, an economy or a planet.

The great irony is that, should their high-stakes bet prove wrong, adapting to a destabilized climate would mean a far bigger, more intrusive government than would most of the "big government" solutions to our energy problems that have been discussed so far.

But it's not this cost-benefit arithmetic that should most concern conservatives. Their real worry should be what it will take to manage the effects of climate change as they are felt across the economy over the course of our lifetimes.

The best science available suggests that without taking action to fundamentally change how we produce and use energy, we could see temperatures rise 9 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit over much of the United States by 2090. These estimates have sometimes been called high-end predictions, but the corresponding low-end forecasts assume we will rally as a country to shift course. That hasn't happened, so the worst case must become our best guess.

With temperature increases in this range, studies predict a permanent drought throughout the Southwest, much like the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, but this time stretching from Kansas to California. If you hate bailouts or want to end farm subsidies, this is a problem. Rising ocean acidity, meanwhile, will bring collapsing fisheries, catch restrictions - and unemployment checks. And rising sea levels will mean big bills as cash-strapped cities set about rebuilding infrastructure and repairing storm damage. With Americans in pain, the government will have to respond. And who will shoulder these new burdens? Future taxpayers.

This is just the beginning. If conservatives' rosy hopes prove wrong, who but the federal government will undertake the massive infrastructure projects necessary to protect high-priced real estate in Miami and Lower Manhattan from rising oceans? And what about smaller coastal cities, such as Galveston and Corpus Christi in Texas? Will it fall to FEMA or some other part of the federal government to decide who will move and when and under what circumstances? Elsewhere, with declining river flows, how will the Bureau of Reclamation go about repowering the dams of the Pacific Northwest?

And while we're busy at home, who will help Pakistan or Bangladesh in its next flood? What will the government do to secure food supplies when Russia freezes wheat exports? Without glaciers, what will become of Lima, Peru, a city dependent on melting ice for drinking water? Will we let waves of "climate refugees" cross our borders?

As the physicist and White House science director John Holdren has said: "We basically have three choices: mitigation [cutting emissions], adaptation and suffering. We're going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be."

Today's conservatives would do well to start thinking more like military planners, reexamining the risks inherent in their strategy. If, instead, newly elected Republicans do nothing, they will doom us all to bigger government interventions and a large dose of suffering - a reckless choice that's anything but conservative.

[TimG]

What you think that the earth's temperature will just stop rising? If we keep pumping CO2 into the air the earth average temperature will continue to rise indefinitely.

The relationship between CO2 and temps is logarithmic. The rate of rise slows the more CO2 is added. e.g. going from 280 to 560 will have the same effect as going from 560 to 1120. The effect never goes to zero but the danger does decrease over time. In order to make the armageddon claims climate modellers introduce 'tipping points' which are best described as 'crap we made up in order to scare people for which we have zero actual evidence'.

On top of that the disaster scanarios depend on extremely optimistic economic assumptions that assume everyone in the world will enjoy a lifestyle like we have today. Change those ECONOMIC assumptions and the peak CO2 concentration will be much lower. And even if these ECONOMIC turn out to be true people in the future will be in a much better position to pay for adaptation measures. Than they are now.

Edited November 8, 2010 by TimG

[TimG]

your knowledge/understanding of the big picture (environment) is apparently very limited.

I am pretty sure I know more than you. The difference is I look at the basis for scientific claims and seperate the claims that have a solid basis in physics and those which are nothing but handwaving speculation. Edited November 8, 2010 by TimG

[Guest TrueMetis]

The relationship between CO2 and temps is logarithmic. The rate of rise slows the more CO2 is added. e.g. going from 280 to 560 will have the same effect as going from 560 to 1120. The effect never goes to zero but the danger does decrease over time. In order to make the armageddon claims climate modellers introduce 'tipping points' which are best described as 'crap we made up in order to scare people for which we have zero actual evidence'.

You have a source or are you talking out of your @$$.

[TimG]

Today's conservatives would do well to start thinking more like military planners, reexamining the risks inherent in their strategy. If, instead, newly elected Republicans do nothing, they will doom us all to bigger government interventions and a large dose of suffering - a reckless choice that's anything but conservative.

Actually, the conservative approach is to look at different strategies and eliminate those with no or negative ROI. Every CO2 mitigation plan which has been put on the table cannot possibly work because it assumes that government policy is like a magic wand that can suspend the laws of physics and make non-emitting energy production economically viable. If the magical fix cannot be found then society will much worse off than it would have been if it has done nothing. This, in turn, will make the adaptation problem much more difficult.

Adaptation first may not be a strategy that pleases people in search of excuses to increase government control over the economy but it is the only strategy that has a chance of working.

Edited November 8, 2010 by TimG

[TimG]

You have a source or are you talking out of your @$$.

Here is ugly math extracted from the IPCC reports: http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/07/more-on-the-logarithmic-formula/

Plug some numbers in F = 5.35 ln(C/C0) and you will see that my claim is indeed correct. You also missed the bit I added about economic assumptions:

On top of that the disaster scanarios depend on extremely optimistic economic assumptions that assume everyone in the world will enjoy a lifestyle like we have today. Change those ECONOMIC assumptions and the peak CO2 concentration will be much lower. And even if these ECONOMIC assumptions turn out to be true people in the future will be in a much better position to pay for adaptation measures than they are today.

Edited November 8, 2010 by TimG

[Guest TrueMetis]

Here is ugly math extracted from the IPCC reports: http://climateaudit.org/2008/01/07/more-on-the-logarithmic-formula/

Plug some numbers in F = 5.35 ln(C/C0) and you will see that my claim is indead correct. You also missed the bit I added about economic assumptions;

In the future link the study not a blog. Though honestly I'm having trouble understanding a lot of what's in the study, It doesn't seem to support what you are saying. What I'm getting from it is that the overall effect CO2 will have was overestimated, not that increased CO2 will have a lessened effect the more CO2 is added.

[TimG]

Though honestly I'm having trouble understanding a lot of what's in the study, It doesn't seem to support what you are saying.

You don't understand math involved yet you assume that I must be wrong because it undermines the 'CO2 is a disaster meme' which you have adopted. Plug some numbers into a formula and you will find that adding 100ppm to the atmosphere today will have 30% less of an effect than the 100ppm added since 1900.

I will link to the sources which I feel show the point I am making. In this case, the link I gave you has references to the appropriate studies. If you want to chase them down be my guest. Frankly, your demands for 'links' sound more like an excuse to ignore information that you don't like rather than a desire for more information. It is a game have no interest in playing.

Edited November 8, 2010 by TimG

[Guest TrueMetis]

You don't understand math involved yet you assume that I must be wrong because it undermines the 'CO2 is a disaster meme' which you have adopted. Plug some numbers into a formula and you will find that adding 100ppm to the atmosphere today will have 30% less of an effect than the 100ppm added since 1900.

I will link to the sources which I feel show the point I am making. In this case, the link I gave you has references to the appropriate studies. If you want to chase them down be my guest. Frankly, your demands for 'links' sound more like an excuse to ignore information that you don't like rather than a desire for more information. It is a game have no interest in playing.

I did chase down the study involved and it doesn't seem to being saying what you claim. I freely admit I may be wrong. You on the other hand have done nothing but show arrogance.

[TimG]

I did chase down the study involved and it doesn't seem to being saying what you claim.

If you feel the study does not support it then provide an argument that explains why. Simply waving your arms after I gave you the formulas that the IPCC uses is quite absurd. It leaves the impression that you have no interest in learning and all you really care about is finding some way to rationalize your current beliefs.

Frankly, I am floored that you would even dispute basic scientific knowledge like this. FWIW, the IPCC predicts a large temperature rise despite the decreasing effect of CO2 because the IPCC ECONOMIC models predict an exponential increase in emissions. The trouble with these claims is they are ECONOMIC models - not physics models and no rational person should ever take them as a fact or even as remotely plausible.

[GostHacked]

http://www.weathermodification.com/cloud-seeding.php

http://www.weathermodification.com/projects.php#projects

This gotta do anything with the increase in rains/stormy weather?

[TimG]

This gotta do anything with the increase in rains/stormy weather?

There is no credible statistical evidence to support the claim that rainy/stormy weather has increased in frequency. The only thing that has changed is the number of people who get affected by bad weather because there are many more people living on the planet.

Incidently, people always think the current weather is unusual. That is true today and was true 1000 years ago and it will be true 1000 years from now. Trying to attribute random weather variations to CO2 is a perfect example of cargo cult science.

Edited November 8, 2010 by TimG

[GostHacked]

There is no credible statistical evidence to support the claim that rainy/stormy weather has increased in frequency. The only thing that has changed is the number of people who get affected by bad weather because there are many more people living on the planet.

Incidently, people always think the current weather is unusual. That is true today and was true 1000 years ago and it will be true 1000 years from now. Trying to attribute random weather variations to CO2 is a perfect example of cargo cult science.

You don't think that messing with clouds on this kind of scale is altering weather patterns somewhat even just a little? The main purpose of cloud seeding is for rain.

[wyly]

I am pretty sure I know more than you. The difference is I look at the basis for scientific claims and seperate the claims that have a solid basis in physics and those which are nothing but handwaving speculation.

letting emissions increase will have no effect on temp other than a 2 degree rise, that's not scientific that's more like voodoo science...

when future generations are busy adapting to the impossible temp rise which will magically halt at 2 degrees, you can perhaps explain to us idiots how the oceans and the life they contain will adapt, the birds and the bees, all the creepy crawlies, the plants and the trees will adapt....explain to us how humanity will disconnect itself from the ecological collapse of the biosphere we are apart of...

[TimG]

letting emissions increase will have no effect on temp other than a 2 degree rise, that's not scientific that's more like voodoo science.

You are assuming that emissions won't start to decline on their own as population decreases and oil prices increase.

We went through the same nonsense in the 70s when people used simplistic economic models to predict mass starvation by 1990. It never happened because the economic models could not possible predict how human society and technology would adapt.

Remember the predictions of doom depend entirely on ECONOMIC models. Not physics. Do you really believe we should be making massive investments today based on ECONOMIC models predicting what the economy will look like in 100 years?

[Keepitsimple]

The next 100 years - if not the next 50 - will see practical solutions involving Fusion power generation....as well as energy from artificial photosynthesis - which has the potential to actually extract CO2 from the air and generate energy. These processes are farther along than most people would think - of course the alarmist community would like to keep a hush over any such advancements. Silly people would have us believe that nothing will change over the next 100 years. Here's an article on Artificial Photosynthesis:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2009) For millions of years, green plants have employed photosynthesis to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into electrochemical energy. A goal of scientists has been to develop an artificial version of photosynthesis that can be used to produce liquid fuels from carbon dioxide and water.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now taken a critical step towards this goal with the discovery that nano-sized crystals of cobalt oxide can effectively carry out the critical photosynthetic reaction of splitting water molecules.

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090311103646.htm

Edited November 8, 2010 by Keepitsimple

[GostHacked]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-climate-scientists-20101108,0,545056.story

"This group feels strongly that science and politics can't be divorced and that we need to take bold measures to not only communicate science but also to aggressively engage the denialists and politicians who attack climate science and its scientists," said Scott Mandia, professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College in New York.

Release the hounds!!

A rapid-response team, however, is willing to delve into politics. In the week that Abraham and others have been marshaling the team, 39 scientists agreed to participate, including Richard Feely, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; and Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University

Science and politics never work well together. Scientists should not engage in politics.

[waldo]

Release the hounds!!

I certainly have no reservations over your categorization of the U.S. Republican led House

Science and politics never work well together. Scientists should not engage in politics.

2 distinct efforts... the AGU's Climate Q&A service, separate and distinct from anything being planned by the so-called 'rapid response' team of scientists. Both groups have emphasized the focus is intended to be entirely on the science.

really, c'mon... this post belongs in the 'no backdown' thread... Denier's worst nightmare come to fruition! Targeted, timely response from climate scientists to refute the lies, distortions and fabrications emanating from Denialtown.

[bush_cheney2004]

....Science and politics never work well together. Scientists should not engage in politics.

Agreed...scientists do not and should not determine such things.

Politics is the art of the possible. - Otto Von Bismarck

[waldo]

The effect never goes to zero but the danger does decrease over time. In order to make the armageddon claims climate modellers introduce 'tipping points' which are best described as 'crap we made up in order to scare people for which we have zero actual evidence'.

what... danger... decreases over time?

ya, ya... those positive feedbacks and threshold behaviors are just benign annoying circumstance - hey? Are you really suggesting the concept of tipping points doesn't fit within physical systems... say, like... Arctic Sea Ice loss, Greenland Ice Sheet melt, Amazon Forest dieback, Permafrost & Tundra loss, Boreal Forest dieback... the Antarctic Ozone Hole, etc., etc., etc.

On top of that the disaster scanarios depend on extremely optimistic economic assumptions that assume everyone in the world will enjoy a lifestyle like we have today. Change those ECONOMIC assumptions and the peak CO2 concentration will be much lower. And even if these ECONOMIC turn out to be true people in the future will be in a much better position to pay for adaptation measures. Than they are now.

this is the second time you've emphasized economics over physical science as determinants for climate sensitivity... citation request.

[waldo]

from yesterday's Washington Post: Don't believe in global warming? That's not very conservative

selective re-quote of the WP article - by TimG:

Today's conservatives would do well to start thinking more like military planners, reexamining the risks inherent in their strategy. If, instead, newly elected Republicans do nothing, they will doom us all to bigger government interventions and a large dose of suffering - a reckless choice that's anything but conservative.

Actually, the conservative approach is to look at different strategies and eliminate those with no or negative ROI.

the focus within this segmented discussion is the U.S. Republican style conservative... and that entire lock, stock and barrel complement are deniers. The surveys have been done - the results are in! Those self-avowed U.S. Republican Congressional members are deniers... they won't be concerned over strategies, over ROI. Otherwise your statement is a generalization that would apply to any/most disciplines.

Every CO2 mitigation plan which has been put on the table cannot possibly work because it assumes that government policy is like a magic wand that can suspend the laws of physics and make non-emitting energy production economically viable. If the magical fix cannot be found then society will much worse off than it would have been if it has done nothing. This, in turn, will make the adaptation problem much more difficult.

nonsense - you simply refuse to accept that existing sustainable technologies... and nuclear... can act to begin lessening the reliance on fossil fuels. You accept R&D expenditure (even from governments), yet can't fathom that actual R&D results (over a decades+ roadmap) will surface and deal with any identified shortfall gaps... yours is one of the most conflicting and contradictory statements concerning R&D that I've ever read.

Adaptation first only may not be a strategy that pleases people in search of excuses to increase government control over the economy but it is the only strategy that has a chance of working.

corrected it for you... rational persons consider a threefold approach that blends mitigation with adaptation and prevention. Obviously you didn't care for the WP articles emphasis on an even larger, more intrusive government required to deal with failed adaptation only efforts within a destabilized climate.

[GostHacked]

Agreed...scientists do not and should not determine such things.

Politics is the art of the possible. - Otto Von Bismarck

Once you start, bias slips into the equation which will tarnish honest results.

[GostHacked]

this is the second time you've emphasized economics over physical science as determinants for climate sensitivity... citation request.

The economics was in the CAP n TRADE and Carbon Credits, which was a money scam more than anything, because it does not get at the root of AWG. But that has changed since, because people understand it was a scam. That is all the citation you need.

[waldo]

FWIW, the IPCC predicts a large temperature rise despite the decreasing effect of CO2 because the IPCC ECONOMIC models predict an exponential increase in emissions. The trouble with these claims is they are ECONOMIC models - not physics models and no rational person should ever take them as a fact or even as remotely plausible.

again, you are quite liberally mixing the physical science basis with economic modelling and predictive emission increases. As this is the second recent similar claim you've made, it would be helpful to gain a verifiable contextual link to your statements, particularly in regards to IPCC temperature predictions projections... citation request.