By Judith Curry
We found that the term “global warming” is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement, and support for personal and national action than the term “climate change.”
A new report has been issued by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication entitled Climate Change in the American Mind.
From the Guardian:
The survey sample of 1,657 people, compiled over a two-week period late last year, found a large swathe of Americans turned off by the words “climate change”.
“The use of the term climate change appears to actually reduce issue engagement by Democrats, Independents, liberals, and moderates, as well as a variety of subgroups within American society, including men, women, minorities, different generations, and across political and partisan lines,” the researchers said.
Americans in general were 13% more likely to say that global warming was a bad thing.
From an article in Time:
In a new report by the Yale Project on Climate Communications, researchers led by Anthony Leiserowitz surveyed Americans and found that “global warming” is used much more commonly than “climate change,” both in conversation and in Internet searches, and that “global warming” is significantly more engaging than “climate change.” That’s because global warming generated more alarming associations, causing survey respondents to think of disasters like melting ice, coastal flooding and extreme weather, while “climate change” generated more banal associations with generation weather patterns. “Global warming” was also associated with:
- Greater certainty that the phenomenon was happening
- Greater understanding that human activities were the primary driver of warming, especially among political independents
- A greater sense of personal threat, as well as more intense worry about the issue
- A greater sense that people are being harmed right now by warming, and a greater sense of threat to future generations
From the Carbon Brief:
So does it matter whether people use the term “climate change” or “global warming”? It depends on motivation of those using it.
If the objective is to impart climate with a sense of urgency, “global warming” may work better, the Yale survey suggests. If the aim is to communicate science, “climate change” may be best as scientists say it better encapsulates the broad impacts of rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The New Yorker has a satirical piece, excerpts:
After a report from the Yale Center on Climate Change Communication showed that the term “climate change” elicits relatively little concern from the American public, leading scientists are recommending replacing it with a new term: “You will be burnt to a crisp and die.”
Other terms under consideration by the scientists include “your cities will be ravaged by tsunamis and floods” and “earth will be a fiery hellhole incapable of supporting human life.”
Scientists were generally supportive of the suggestions, with many favoring the term “your future will involve rowing a boat down a river of rotting corpses.”
“Any of these terms would do a better job conveying the urgency of the problem,” Tracy Klugian, a spokesperson for the newly renamed Yale Center for Oh My God Wake Up You Assholes, said.
The real problem is identified by Jaime Jessop in a tweet: Oh dear, ‘climate change’ (TM) re-brand has back-fired somewhat. Back to GW? But there isn’t any. What to do?
The title of a post by JoNova sums it up: Yale says “Global Warming” is a better misused-phrase for propaganda – dump “climate change”
JC reflections
Well, I am not going to play the propaganda game here; I don’t care which phrase is more effective at mobilizing ‘action.’ What concerns me is accuracy.
Personally, I use AGW (shorthand for anthropogenic global warming); I think it is important to include the ‘A’ when we are talking about that unknown fraction of warming since 1950 that can be attributed to humans. If you leave out the ‘A’, people are misled into thinking that all warming for the past 1000 years is caused by humans (the ‘hockey stick’ argument).
With regards to ‘climate change’, I think this is extremely misleading. The Carbon Brief article states: If the aim is to communicate science, “climate change” may be best as scientists say it better encapsulates the broad impacts of rising greenhouse gas emissions. Well, I guess ‘climate change’ helps you get around the inconvenient truth of the hiatus in global surface temperature increase. And it implies that any change, or weather you don’t like, is caused by humans.
But from a scientific perspective, I’m not sure that the phrase ‘climate change’ has any meaning at all. If you are going to talk about ‘climate change’, you need some reference time scale, and some amplitude of change to consider. This time scale is nominally taken to be 30 years. Is there a scientific justification for this period? I don’t think there is, particularly since 30 years is half of the nominal time scales of the AMO/PDO/stadium wave. Apart from this nominal 60-70 period, there is a full spectrum of natural climate variability from interannual to millennial time scales. By contrast, from the human perspective, Tony Brown argued in a post Noticeable climate change that periods shorter than 30 years are of substantial importance to humans and ecosystems.
From a scientific perspective, I suggest that the following be used: ‘anthropogenic global warming’ and ‘climate variability.’ We should retire ‘climate change’ from the public discourse, since it is misleading, and apparently not even ‘effective’. There is also the unfortunate use of the term ‘climate change’ in all sorts of government programs, not to mention the IPCC.
==> “With regards to ‘climate change’, I think this is extremely misleading.
[…]
Well, I guess ‘climate change’ helps you get around the inconvenient truth of the hiatus in global surface temperature increase….”
—————–
Actually, “climate change” might be less misleading – because some folks say things like that there has been a “hiatus in global warming,” – with reference to a relatively short term decrease in a longer-term significant trend of of increase in mean surface air temps.
But good thing no one around these here parts does that, eh Judith?
Perhaps it is better if everyone uses more precise language? So maybe you might consider going back to Congress and clarifying your statements about a “pause in global warming?”
OK – to do some clarification myself:
In your testimony, you said:
Joshua, what are you talking about? ‘Warming’ has a very specific meaning, so does ‘greenhouse warming’. ‘warming’ means an increase in temperature, ‘greenhouse’ implies warming is caused by CO2 etc. The problem is with using terminology that is supposed to infer that any increase in temperature or other adverse climatic effects or inconvenient weather is caused by humans.
Judith, you should put on some sturdy socks and paint your ankles with a noxious substance.
Judith –
==>”Joshua, what are you talking about? ‘Warming’ has a very specific meaning, so does ‘greenhouse warming’. ‘warming’ means an increase in temperature. ”
Presumably, an increase in OHC temps would also be considered “warming?” Has that paused? If not, then what does it mean when you testify about a “hiatus in warming?”
—————————————-
==> “The problem is with using terminology that is supposed to infer that any increase in temperature or other adverse climatic effects or inconvenient weather is caused by humans.”
Yes, that is a problem. But the problem is not with the term itself, but with a lack of precision in how it is used.
Hence, my criticism of your testimony. Neither “global warming,” or “climate change” or a “stagnation in greenhouse warming” are adequate without more specificity.
Same with “anthropogenic climate warming” or “climate variability” as stand-alone terms. They can both, also, be used in misleading ways.
A lack of consistent terminology with agreed upon definitions roils the dialog about climate change, but the problem is not with the terms themselves, but with how they are used.
J. If I were a fish, I might worry about OHC – but it is so trivially small a temperature change, I probably wouldn’t even notice.
To your point Joshua,
It would be scientifically accurate if people would talk about a “hiatus” in the rise in tropospheric surface temperatures, while at the same time talking about:
1) The huge reliance of that sensible tropospheric heat on ENSO dynamics over less than decadal average time-frames.
2) The overall low amount of climate system energy that in the troposphere
3) The very high probability that the oceans have been warming quite strongly and taking up the bulk of the energy imbalance.
But stating that there has been a hiatus in “global” warming (when it is really just tropospheric sensible heat) makes it simpler, but hides the true dynamics, and more importantly, seems to imply that climate sensitivity is lower, even though energy continued to accumulate just as strongly during the “hiatus” period.
“Judith, you should put on some sturdy socks and paint your ankles with a noxious substance.”
_____
Do you want this site to become just another echo-chamber? Joshua may or may not have good counterpoints to Judith, but a diversity of opinion and some actual accepted dissension is healthy for a balanced blog -as long as it is respectful. More damaging to this site is not viewpoints like Joshua’s, but the ad homs that continue to slip through even though Judith does her best to clean them up when she can.
Rgates
I for one welcome an exchange of different views as an echo chamber only serves to reinforce our existing positions.
There is a tendency to call those with different views ‘trolls’ which is sometimes true but is often just an attempt to drive away those you disagree with.
It’s a shame you don’t still post at WUWT as that is becoming Rather one sided. Joel shore turnes up sometimes, Scott Mandia never. It’s a loss to reasoned debate.
Tonyb
” jim2 | June 1, 2014 at 2:46 pm |
If I were a fish, I might worry about OHC – but it is so trivially small a temperature change, I probably wouldn’t even notice.”
_____
Of course this is a completely unscientific perspective, displaying a complete lack of understanding of ocean to atmosphere energy flux dynamics. But is convenient to believe that a warming ocean has no effect on you as a land dweller, however, that belief is not based on science, so you should at least know that.
Tony said:
“It’s a shame you (R. Gates) don’t still post at WUWT as that is becoming Rather one sided.”
____
I squarely put the blame on Anthony. He was forcing me to reveal my true name, which I have no problem with, as I have nothing to hide, and did so quite freely on other sites, as you know, but I did not like being “forced” to do so by Anthony. Secondly, I had spent considerable time setting up an actual meeting in Boulder at NCAR, where Trenberth agreed to give a presentation to Anthony and the entire WUWT faithful- including a tour of the computing center. I even agreed to pick up Anthony (for free) at the airport and personally drive him to Boulder from Denver. It took me several months to set this up and convince Trenberth to do this. It was all set and at the last minute, Anthony decided to bail out. Bad move. Ultimately WUWT proved to be too restrictive and even then, I saw it becoming an echo-chamber like so many other sites.
I hope that CE does not go this way and with good practices by Judith, it will not.
Joshua,
Are you making pretzels again?
Rgates
Yes, it was a shame about the true berth episode.
I’m looking forward to coming over to denver at some point for my promised three course dinner. I’ve already selected the wine. Hope your credit card has a large limit
http://www.frw.co.uk/content-detail-fine-wine-news-rare-bordeaux-breaks-record-for-most-expensive-bot_offerid-1657-offertypeid-7.aspx
Tonyb
Tony,
You will thoroughly enjoy Colorado, but I must cap the wine at $50/bottle (sorry). We’ll go up to NCAR, where I’m sure you’ll want to spend several hours, and of course take a trip to the top of one of our 14,000 ft+ peaks.
All in all, it will be a great trip, I promise.
A THEORY THAT EXPLAINS THE LEVEL OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2
AND ALSO WILD VARIATIONS IN LOCAL WEATHER
The phenomenon of global warming puzzles me and many other people also. We have much evidence of global warming shown by losing ice caps and rising oceans, and yet we have record cold temperatures, and estimated global temperature rises do not materialize. This theory may explain this confusing evidence. It also provides a path for how the pre-industrial CO2 level of .25% was reached.
The theory assumes that man made CO2 is not uniformly mixed into the earth’s atmosphere. For example, down wind air masses generally east of major sources such as China, USA and Europe are high in CO2. These air masses capture more heat from the sun that causes extra evaporation of water from the oceans for that particular air mass. As such an air mass moves in an east by northerly or southerly direction toward a pole, it rains more than usual which entrains more than usual amounts of CO2 as acid rain, which ends up in an ocean. This particular air mass that has been cleared of much of its CO2 then retains less than an average amount of heat from the sun, resulting in a cool spot. This phenomenon, taking place in spots all over the globe, leaves an irregular atmosphere with respect to its ability to absorb heat from the sun. As a result, weather patterns become varied and extreme..
In short, more CO2 causes more heat to be absorbed from the sun that causes more water to evaporate from an ocean that causes more rain that entrains more CO2 as acid rain, all of which reduces the amount of heat absorbed from the sun by that particular air mass. These steps describe a self-regulating system that has the characteristics of a proportional type industrial controller. Proportional controllers have a bandwidth where control action takes place but there is no fixed set point. The controlled variable (CO2) simply comes to rest at a value that is in balance with the corrective action (air-mass temperature). If the control system obtains a large correction in the controlled variable (CO2) for small change in corrective action (air mass temperature), it is described as “high gain”. Where gain, in this case, refers to the amount of CO2 removed from the air mass for a 1 degree rise in its temperature. In the case of increased man-made CO2, temperature would increase until the gain of the system causes removal of the additional CO2, at a higher air-mass temperature. From the extremes of weather we have seen, the CO2 – air-mass-temperature system is a very high gain system that makes it likely to be unstable. Also, air masses around the globe with different CO2 contents act as “upsets” for each other that make it difficult for the CO2 – global temperature system to reach a single world-wide combination that would mean calmer weather patterns.
If man-made and natural CO2 declined for any reason, global temperature would decline until there was a new balance between global temperature and global CO2. Weather events around the world will be erratic as long as air masses have significant variations in their CO2 concentrations. However, as global temperature and CO2 come near to a new balance, corrective changes in temperature would become smaller which in turn would result in less erratic weather excursions.
David N. Low Feb.5, 2014
1425 Athens Rd., Wilmington, DE 19803, (302) 478-6476, d.n.low@att.net
“However, as global temperature and CO2 come near to a new balance, corrective changes in temperature would become smaller which in turn would result in less erratic weather excursions.”
____
Time frames, thermal inertia, and the concept of “Earth system sensitivity” would be useful for you to include in your thinking.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120508_ClimateSensitivity.pdf
It takes a great deal of external forcing to get the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctic to begin to melt (mainly from warmer oceans, by the way), but once started, they are equally hard to stop. Their melting will continue to alter the climate for many centuries, and include some slow acting positive feebacks.
ordvic –
Please explain. And before you do, please read Gates at 2:58.
jim2 –
I don’t “worry” about OHC.
My point is w/r/t how, and which, terminology is likely to lead to misunderstanding (or contribute to tribal warfare).
Judith makes a fair point in that respect, and I think it is important. But as such, I also think it is important to be consistent. I consider the “hiatus in warming” or “stagnation in greenhouse warming,” etc., to be likely to mislead. If one isn’t engaged in tribal warfare, them it seems to me, one is better served by being more precise. And of course, the “pause in global warming,” rhetoric is even (somewhat) worse, and I haven’t noticed Judith pointing that out when someone like Rose uses it.
> “With regards to ‘climate change’
I am wondering how your summer has been so far in USA?
I’d note that Eastern Australia has had twice as much winter as you’ve had summer in 2014!
What does that say about global warming, eh?
“I’d note that Eastern Australia has had twice as much winter as you’ve had summer in 2014!
What does that say about global warming, eh?”
_____
Absolutely nothing, but thanks for playing.
@ R. Gates | June 1, 2014 at 3:18 pm |
Of course this is a completely unscientific perspective, displaying a complete lack of understanding of ocean to atmosphere energy flux dynamics. But is convenient to believe that a warming ocean has no effect on you as a land dweller,
*****
So, what’s it gonna be, Gates? Are we to worry about air temps or ocean temps. You guys are so wishy-washy.
Sensibly, we live in the troposphere, where temperatures agglomerate around two attractors, one a great deal more lethal than the other. Even more sensibly, fishes live in the ocean, where temperatures change slowly enough for easy adaptation.
=========
In reviewing correspondence and blog posts, I see that “R.Gates.” memory of what transpired seems to be selectively faulty, but I’m glad to see he no longer has any problems using his real name.
I see from your Facebook page that you like dressing up in Furry head gear, that would make a good (funny) WordPress avatar for you now that you have decided to start using your real name. I applaud that decision. Good for you!
You are welcome to post at WUWT, with or without furry headgear avatars.
R. Gates: Secondly, I had spent considerable time setting up an actual meeting in Boulder at NCAR, where Trenberth agreed to give a presentation to Anthony and the entire WUWT faithful- including a tour of the computing center. I even agreed to pick up Anthony (for free) at the airport and personally drive him to Boulder from Denver. It took me several months to set this up and convince Trenberth to do this. It was all set and at the last minute, Anthony decided to bail out. Bad move.
That’s bad. Do you know why he bailed out?
I drive up to near Denver a couple times a year; could you arrange such a meeting for me? Anyone else?
Anthony Watts: I see that “R.Gates.” memory of what transpired seems to be selectively faulty,
That’s a “non-denial denial”. What’s your version?
@Matthew Marler
Oh I plan to provide details, just not today since I only have part of the archives on that whole affair on the computer I’m using at the moment.
Since “R.Gates” says he has no problem using his name anymore, I’ll probably post some correspondence to back up what I’m saying.
Multiple observations by R. Gates, multiple affirmations by Sou from Bundangawoolarangeera.
Nothing especially new, eh Climate Etc readers? Albeit plenty of the usual denialist comedy.
Definitely nothing to attract talented young scientists and/or foresighted young family-starting voters.
Josh,
I left a reply that went to the bottom of the comments as my tablet is iffy. Second try actually.
WUWT is the Coast2Coast AM of science blogs, a site devoted to creatively interpreting science through pseudo-arguments. It’s a popular blog because there is a huge demand for the kind of conspiracy-oriented thinking that they c(r)ater to.
We do have Global Warming; its sign is currently negative.
Rgates
Anthony Watts generously said (to you)’;
‘You are welcome to post at WUWT, with or without furry headgear avatars.’
I don’t know the ins and outs of your spat. You both come over as straightforward guys. I hope you will provide a balance at WUWT in future.
Do NOT wear furry headgear during our meal..
tonyb
WebHubTelescope: WUWT is the Coast2Coast AM of science blogs, a site devoted to creatively interpreting science through pseudo-arguments. It’s a popular blog because there is a huge demand for the kind of conspiracy-oriented thinking that they c(r)ater to.
they are open for you to dispute anything they write. I visit most links that are put up there, same as I do here.
RG,
Don’t you think it fair to note that “tropospheric surface temperature” is what the climate science community is/was using to determine “global warming”?
If you want to change the metric used to measure “warming”, fine. Just don’t act like people who refer to the previous metric are trying to fool people, or are inaccurate or unscientific.
R. Gates
Jim 2 is right, of course, when he writes:
Your retort misses the point entirely:
“Unscientific”?
“Lack of understanding”?
“Ocean to atmosphere energy flux dynamics”?
Spreading the BS two feet thick doesn’t cut it, Gates.
The fact of the matter is that an increase in ocean temperature (if it exists at all, which is anything but sure), can be expressed in hundredths or even thousandths of a degree per decade, which is utterly meaningless for humanity.
Use your common sense, Gates.
Max
Some people wanted to know my side of the story where “R. Gates” laid all the blame for the Trenberth meeting falling apart squarely on me., and since I was happy to leave the entire thing alone, as a dead issue as he requested of me, but then used the issue to bash me over the head here, I’m happy to oblige with some documentation of what transpired.
Basically it went like this: I lost trust in Randall over his restrictions he put in place, combined with a squabble with David Hoffer where he was demanding “witnesses” (more below) and few people that I invited were interested in attending. In quickly became a non-event.I never even got a plane ticket.
You see Randall is a video producer, he works for a government TV channel in Colorado. All well and good, But when he started saying videotape wasn’t good enough for him as proof of what transpired in another venue, well that’s when I started losing trust in him. Read on.
1. He demanded control of the videotape of the session with Trenberth. We would not be allowed to post it at WUWT, only link to it wherever it ended up being posted. Randall claims this was to prevent us and others from “taking segments out of context”. i.e. editing it. I agreed to this, but asked if we could stream it live. That never got resolved.
2. Nothing was set in stone, there was a lot to be worked out, and it was starting to fall apart…or example:
==========================================================
From: Randall
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2011 9:22 AM
To: Anthony Watts
Anthony,
Good to talk to you, and glad to see this event still might happen. A few things:
1) I did let NCAR know that we might not have a full group of purely skeptics, but that we might need to fill up most of the seats with High School or College science students. I would hope that Dr. Trenberth would not be opposed to this, but I thought it only fair that I let them know that the composition of the group would be different than what was first discussed.
2) I also let them know that we would like to live-stream the video and would need outbound network access from NCAR. If they balk at this, they do know that I plan to put it up on the internet later (in its entirety) anyway. They simply want no editing to occur, which I completely agree with.
Before you buy your airline ticket to Denver, I would suggest you wait to see if they have a problem with the group being different than what was first discussed.
Thanks,
Randy
========================================================
3. I had not even purchased a plane ticket, and the group of people was in flux, I didn’t get much interest from people except for some WUWT commenters. Randall suggested we infill with high school and college students.
Meanwhile, some people privately said to me “this is a set-up” all this is about is getting you and Trenberth together, so it can be claimed that “Trenberth reached out to you, but you didn’t listen, and therefore you are a denier”. Basically I was told he just wants to tell us why we are all wrong and use that video with you for PR purposes.
That point was proven to me earlier when Dr. Trenberth gave an AMS address, and refused to remove some ugly language. I wrote him personally, asking him nicely, and he didn’t even bother to respond.
See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/16/trenberth-reacts-edits-speech-to-fix-copying-leaves-deniers/
4. So coupled with what else was going on,, the lack of interest, the infilling of high school and college kids (Why? This was supposed to be a meeting with WUWT skeptics.) made me start to see that this really wasn’t about reaching out, but something else was going on. They didn’t want empty seats.
With Randall being in the video business, and then starting to demand “witnesses” in lieu of video for a proposed experiment, I realized he didn’t trust me at all. And things stared to fall apart from there.
=======================================================
To Randall
Oct 1, 2011
I’ve privately invited 6 people. 3 scientists, 2 well known bloggers. You know them all.
It is not looking good, five out of six people have declined. No answer for number six yet. The common theme so far is “why would I pay my own way to fly across the country to hear Dr. Trenberth?” They have a point, especially the one who wrote:
“Trenberth won’t even make an effort to attend my presentations when we are at the same conference together, why should I take 3 days out of my work and pay my own way to hear him on some whim”?
Its going nowhere.
The only reason I’m considering coming is that I have a free Southwest voucher, even then it is money out of my pocket for hotel and three work days instead of two, Since I originally requested Sunday. People like yourself who work int he public sector think nothing of these sorts of things. People like me and others who have limited funds, have a family to support…its a big deal.
As for ustream, anybody can take any video presented on the web (yours included) and edit it and repackage it. So your concerns are really moot.
Further, given that you want “witnesses” at my office for this experiment feud with Hoffer, while at the same time giving Gore a pass, and while you yourself not having the integrity to use your own name on the forum while making demands of me and Mr. Hoffer who do, my inclination to tell you take take this whole thing and shove it.
The gall you exhibit with demanding witnesses instead of video or photo evidence (your domain) is beyond my ability for description.
I don’t want to hear from you for a few days, by email or the WUWT website because that demand for witnesses has royally pissed me off. Take a few days off.
Anthony
=========================================================
5. So as you can see video tape was apparently good enough for Randall in recording the Trenberth lecture, but not good enough for me to use when I wanted to record an experiment. When he can’t trust me for such a simple thing that is his work domain, yet he wanted to entirely control the videotaping and distribution on his end with Trenberth, I began to see that Randall really had a one-sided view of trust.
I recorded video about Gore and Co2 experiments anyway. See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment/
So far nobody has accused me of editing it.
> If you leave out the ‘A’, people are misled into thinking that all warming for the past 1000 years is caused by humans (the ‘hockey stick’ argument).
Citation needed for the two claims.
Quotes might be nice too.
Willard grow up
Willard
Citation, as requested:
Check the “shtick” as used by Al Gore in AIT (or as used by IPCC in the TAR SPM)
Got it?
Max
Global warming when temperatures increase; Global climate change when they decline.
With respect to willard’s request for a citation:
==> “If you leave out the ‘A’, people are misled into thinking that all warming for the past 1000 years is caused by humans (the ‘hockey stick’ argument).”
I thought that the “consensus” position is w/r/t “most” warming of a recent nature – distinctly different than “all warming for the past 1,000 years” as you speak of. Did I get that wrong?
The hockey stick argument is that
A) the MWP was no warmer than today
B) the warming we have seen (1750 to present ) is 50-100% due to man some argue for more than 100%.
for the argument that the past 250 years of warming is due to man you need go no further than my boss Muller. Since it cooled from the MWP to the LIA, the argument is pretty simple. the warming we have seen in the last 1000 years ( that is… the warming in the last 250 years ) is due to man.
Willard is being stupid. don’t follow suit.
“…for the argument that the past 250 years of warming is due to man you need go no further than my boss Muller.”
____
I would hope that he realizes that it there is a mix of natural and anthropogenic factors at play. The two largest volcanic eruptions of the past 1000 years (1257 and 1453) had huge impacts on ocean heat content and ultimately took centuries to fully recover from. If you doubt the ability of volcanoes to impact climate over these longer periods, see:
http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Gleckler_Krakatoa.pdf
Now Krakatoa was much smaller than either the 1257 or 1453 eruption. And the recovery of ocean heat content (with OHC being a key driver of climate) was partially stalled during the LIA by lower net insolation to the ocean from the Maunder and Dalton minimums.
So, over the past 250 years, certainly some of the warming was from LIA recovery (mainly complete by 1900 ,but stalled somewhat by Krakatoa in 1883), and especially during the later part of the 20th century, driven mainly by Anthropogenic GH gas increases.
Mosh
Mans co2 in 1750 was trivial. If the warming since then is all our fault it is difficult to see how man can live on this planet as we can’t emit less co2 than ‘trivial.’
Tonyb
That “all warming for the past 1000 years is caused by humans” is contradicted by the fact that the MWP was a warming period that may not have been caused by humans.
The best way to show concerns about accuracy is not to paraphrase the “unpredecented” with a claim that one may not be able to document.
“All warming” may have been a bit strong. Own it.
“’All warming’ may have been a bit strong. Own it.”
Go tell the Mann.
“All warming” may have been a bit strong. Own it.
Oops
“’All warming’ may have been a bit strong. Own it.”
Go tell the Mann.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Lest we forget that the hubris of Muller’s ‘all warming since 1750 is anthropogenic’ stumbles over the nemesis of attribution. Great Heavens, we’d be cold without man’s input if that were so.
=============
“The hockey stick argument is that
A) the MWP was no warmer than today”
Nope. The “final” argument is that it as regionally and temporally spread – not global at all.
RG,
You left out the obligatory reference to the Human Carbon Volcano.
Joshua
Yes.
(See my response to Willard.)
Max
When you’ve lost the New Yorker…
Surprised it took so long for someone to say this. They have turned into a DNC talking point clearing house.
Well, heck, this is where the remark about cultural adaptation to the ludicrous of the catastrophists was supposed to land.
==============
‘ludicrousness’, but I like ludicrosity and ridiculosity, too.
=================
Ridiculosivity?
I don’t have any issue with “climate change” since “climate variability” is just one part of “climate change.” Given the choice of a “global warming” or “global cooling” world for whatever reason, give me warming. Civilization has probably suffered more from global cooling.
“Global Warming” as a shorthand for “anthropogenic global warming” seems to work just fine. There isn’t any even half-way accurate scientific term that’s going to work in “communication”, because what it really stands for is
@ AK
“The Global Warming Disaster Creed:………”
Exactly!
It is an axiom, not a theory.
It is unquestioned and unquestionable.
+1
The lack of distinction between “climate change” and “anthropogenic climate change” was one of Botkin’s main points in his testimony. At best, it’s sloppy to ignore that distinction, but the IPCC does it regularly.
Don’t call it anything. Just do the remaining bits of science that actually qualify as science without trying to hook them together in a mosaic of anything.
How many times have you heard the question, “Do you believe in global warming?” or “Do you believe in climate change?” Of course, both are meaningless without some clear definition. Nevertheless, poll after poll asks these questions, such as http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/Climate-Beliefs-April-2013 or http://www.wunderground.com/news/global-warming-poll-believe-hoax-20130403 or http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/15/chris-murphy/sen-chris-murphy-says-just-3-percent-voters-dont-b/
They keep trying to make the issue to be “IS GLOBAL WARMING HAPPENING”. Of course Global warming is happening, it happened before in many warming periods, including the Roman and Medieval and Modern warming. The issue is how did the warming periods before now happen without man-made CO2 when this warm period can only happen because of man-made CO2. That is really stupid. This warming has the same drivers that all the past warming periods of the past eleven thousand years had. Show any evidence that this is wrong.
Climate Model Output is not data and it is not evidence.
I do not find “AGW” to be adequate. There are many of us skeptics who believe AGW is real, but think that the effect of adding more CO2 to the atmosphere from recent levels has a negligible effect on anything to do with temperature. So we need to have both AGW and CAGW in our catalogue of terms.
There is a strong case for aGW which would be a better representation of the science.
aGW (small a) does have some pizzazz.
I am unclear on when the IPCC rebranded global warming to climate change. But the opinion polls seem to think that this was a wrong decision. This confusing and backtracking reflects the basic and ongoing reliance by the climate consensus on opinion science rather than allowing outcomes be decided by real science. Time also had an article back in Nov 2011 that talked about changing the discussion to climate science from global warming. http://science.time.com/2011/11/18/ipcc-report-global-warming-and-changing-population-will-worsen-the-toll-of-extreme-weather/ which says:
“Maybe we should retire the term “global warming,” which makes climate change sound like a nice, pleasant bath. It’s true that climate change—caused chiefly by the rapid increase in manmade carbon emissions—will result in warmer temperatures, fewer cold days and longer and more intense heat waves. But the real damage, both economically and in human lives, is likely to be inflicted by an increase or amplification of extreme weather events—floods, storms, droughts. The trouble is that attributing extreme events to climate change has always been challenging, which makes it that much more difficult to predict how weather will respond to warming.”
Nothing will convince like the experience itself. Those of who have experienced “climate weirding” , don’t care what it is called. Attribution does indeed become the “wicked” part of the issue though, as natural variability and anthropogenic forcing get mixed up quite well and completely. There is no longer any pure “natural variability”, and indeed, according to some, there has not been for many centuries. Anthropogenic forcing from the the rapid increase in GH gases (and related anthropogenic forcings) are completely intertwined with global climate dynamics.
@ Danley Wolfe | June 1, 2014 at 2:14 pm | Reply
… ongoing reliance by the climate consensus on opinion science …
***
Oxymoron much?
So you are wondering why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “re-branded” global warming to climate change?
R Gates wrote:
There is no longer any pure “natural variability”
Ok, R Gates, what was it that stopped and why did it stop?
You have no answer, so the answer is that natural variability is still working. Earth will stay inside the same bounds as it has been in for eleven thousand years, and it does not matter what we do, we cannot push temperature and sea level out of bounds.
RGates says “Those of who have experienced “climate weirding” ”
From a UK perspective, I grew up in a period which from memory was dominated by hot, dry summers and mild, snowless winters. The next generation of my family is experiencing snowy winters and washed out summers. Go back in time a generation from me and we are in conditions similar to today. If that continues then presumably their weird will be my normal and my normal their weird.
I’m also not against the idea that all weather has some human fingerprint on it, it an idea well worth considering. I suppose I should be thankful in some small way to humanity for the great weekend of weather we just had, or should I be thinking it would have been that little bit better in an anthro-free realization? Maybe this is irrelevant but your comment made me think of a (possible) fact that has never left me. It is the idea that there isn’t a square inch of the UK that could be described as truly natural. That even the most isolated rugged and beautiful parts of those islands (and there are many) have been shaped by the action of man, his grazing animals or whatever. As a species we certainly make our mark, I think the problem with the age we are living through is that is often seen as a negative thing.
When it comes to weather (even the weird stuff) and climate the question still remains what proportion we attribute to humans or maybe more importantly what trajectory that puts us on. That seems a challenging question.
R. Gates | June 1, 2014 at 3:15 pm |
“There is no longer any pure “natural variability”, and indeed, according to some, there has not been for many centuries.”
Wow! Just Wow! Write your words on your bathroom mirror and think about them for a few months.
You really believe that Mother Nature is well understood, don’t you? You really believe that Mother Nature has no more genuine surprises remaining for us. I have often said that Alarmists have no instinct for the empirical. Across your bathroom mirror, add the words “I have no instinct for the empirical.”
The tandem anklebiters have awakened. Let the games begin.
There are only two anklebiters left on this site? Pity, as that means just two stops to an echo-chamber.
Why do you continue to post stuff (name calling) like this?
So, they do studies to determine how to scare the most people the most.
But this is done on both sides as Industry has a very poor track record in predictions and tries to scare people: http://thehill.com/regulation/207384-chamber-epas-climate-rules-cost-could-top-50b-a-year
We can just look at what has gone badly in many other countries that have tried to get rid of CO2. It really works badly, everywhere it is tried. There are no success stories. The Economy of countries that don’t do this stupid stuff, does much better.
Read this newsmax article by Larry Bell
http://www.newsmax.com/Insiders/LarryBell/id-228/
The EPA must be stopped before they totally destroy Energy Production and withit, our Economy.
Stephen Segrest
For an excellent discourse on why “predictions usually fail” and why “experts are no better at making predictions than non-experts”, read Nassim Taleb’s, “The Black Swan”.
This applies as well for climatologists, government planners, economists, etc.
Take them all with a large grain of salt, Stephen.
Max
Global Warming vs Climate Change.
The real issue is Natural Variability vs Natural Variability suddenly stopping and being replaced by man-made warming.
No one has explained how and why natural variability stopped.
Natural Variability has made Earth warm and cold and warm and cold and warm and cold, inside the same bounds, for eleven thousand years.
They tell us this stopped working and now we can only warm because of man-made CO2. This is way beyond stupid.
We are well inside the bounds of natural variability.
They do not explain what stopped working!
Look at actual data.
MODEL OUTPUT IS NOT DATA!!!!!!!
popesclimatetheory –
==> “No one has explained how and why natural variability stopped.”
Why is an explanation called for. Has anyone been arguing that natural variability has stopped?
==> “They tell us this stopped working and now we can only warm because of man-made CO2.”
What is “this,” and who be “they?”
Alarmist Theory and Models take away ice, faster and faster, as Earth Warms.
Mother Earth uses warm, thawed, Polar Oceans to add ice, faster and faster, as Earth Warms.
Every Warm period in the past Million years ended with a cold period because that is when much more Snow Falls on Land and Replenishes the ice that will advance and bring the next cold period.
Ice Extent is ALWAYS in phase with temperature. This is not a result, it is the reason.
Joshua
“Why is an explanation called for. Has anyone been arguing that natural variability has stopped?”
An explanation is called for to answer the attribution argument.
jeez. Let me explain.
First we take the models and we run them without any anthro forcing.
lets say the temperature stays flat.
Next we run the models WITH anthro forcing.
lets say the models show .8C of warming which matches observations
Conclusion:
we cannot explain the rise in temperature WITHOUT appealing to the human Carbon volcano. Therefore, we attribute the warming to GHGS.
Simple. Get it?
Problem: here comes the question
Q1) How well do your models replicate the “natural” warming of the 1900 to
1940 period?
A1) Opps not so good.
Q2 ) How well do the models capture long cycles
A2) Opps, not so good.
Conclusion:
You cannot use models that dont capture natural variability to RULE OUT
natural variability as a cause.
Pretty effin simple counter argument.
This is the gist of judiths argument against attribution studies. We have to use models that DONT GET NATURAL VARIATION CORRECT, to rule them out as a potential cause.
That’s a good argument. If this were any other topic than climate science, these questions would be respected and investigated. They go to heart of the methodological assumptions.
There are three ways to settled this.
1. shut Judith up
2. wait a couple of decades
3. Improve the models.
You are just trying to confuse the little anklebiter with facts and logic. Anyway, he chooses option number 1. He’s trying to whittle her down, starting at the ankles.
There’s no need for these models to rule out natural variability.
Checkmate.
Jeez.
Mosher, thanks for a solid post, very much to the point. Now, add this quandary:
Which of the climate models, without anthropogenic forcing, predict the next ice age and when? How about with anthro forcing?
To me we are being asked to believe that these models, which don’t replicate the natural warming of 1900-1940, and which don’t forecast the next ice age, somehow magically work over the next 100 years.
Balderdash.
“We have to use models that DONT GET NATURAL VARIATION CORRECT.”
___
But models will never get “natural variation” correct, as they reach the limit of trying to model a deterministically chaotic system, right? Further confounding this is the fact that anthropogenic forcing, (both positive and negative) to the climate may be influencing formerly what was purely “natural variation”. Hence, the potential “stadium wave”, even if it is a real phenomenon, might be difficult to pull out of a system so strongly influenced and mixed with anthropogenic forcing.
willard.
you dont know what you are talking about.
Nobody claimed the models need to rule out natural variability, however to do the attribution argument robustly you need models that can represent it.
Not rule it out, but rather represent it.
If you can represent it then you can apportion the warming observed between anthro and natural. In fact this is what some recent experiments have tried to do.. wise the hell up.
“But models will never get “natural variation” correct, as they reach the limit of trying to model a deterministically chaotic system, right?
I’m not convinced of this. It has to do with initialization experiments.
These are the requirements
1. The model has to get the amplitude roughly correct
2. the model has to get the frequencies roughly correct
then comes the hard issue of getting the “timing” corrrect which is basically inititializing the run so that the cycles come close to matching what we have observed.
It may not be feasible. Thats cool.
That said, I am happy basing policy on a model free basis. In short,
we dont need much of a model to set policy..Policy can and should be set regardless of what models say. we know we cannot burn it all. Trying to use models to guide an optimum strategy is a mis use of the models. they are ready to do that. maybe never. But we know we cannot burn it all. And we know that phasing out coal is good for a bunch of reasons. If my conservative brothers cannot sit down in good faith to negotiate a phase out of the killer coal then they deserve every trick that obama dishes out to them.
Once you disconnect the policy from the models, once you give up the notion that you can use models to engineer the future, then you
actually have the freedom to play around with models and try different things.. They return to being what they are: tools to explore questions where we cannot do experiments.
Its only when you insist that models guide policy that you run into troubles and have to make silly arguments defending them.
“If my conservative brothers cannot sit down in good faith to negotiate a phase out of the killer coal then they deserve every trick that obama dishes out to them.”
Conservatives don’t sit down with progressives and negotiate central planning, There are plenty of progressive Republicans dying to do just that. But no conservatives.
Oh, and it isn’t only conservatives who are going to pay the price for the policies of perhaps the worst president in American history.
“Its only when you insist that models guide policy that you run into troubles and have to make silly arguments defending them.”
____
I agree…mostly. Models can show us potential dynamics that are impossible to see any other way. But again, natural variability and the limits to modeling a chaotic system will always prevent models from matching exactly what will happen, i.e. they are always wrong. Thus, policy based on model dynamics, while difficult to distinguish, can be a basis for rational policy– thus, “I can’t tell you exactly what the global temperatures will be in 30 years, but I can tell you they’ll be warmer than today to a very high degree of probability”, is not a unsound basis for policies enacted today affecting society in 30 years.
Gary said:
“Conservatives don’t sit down with progressives and negotiate central planning, There are plenty of progressive Republicans dying to do just that. But no conservatives.”
____
Gary, your obsession with seeing everything through a narrow political perspective may be severely stunting your growth.
Career politicians of all stripes, conservative, progressive, dem or republican all must suck at the corporate teet– get it? Pandering is the way of Washington. The system is corrupted. No change of one politician for another will fix it– they just change the corporate cow they are suckling on.
R.Gates,
“Gary, your obsession with seeing everything through a narrow political perspective may be severely stunting your growth.”
I don’t see everything through a narrow political perspective. I see political issues like CAGW as political, and analyze them accordingly. I am not the least surprised that as a progressive, you would rather not see an analysis or discussion of progressivism, and its political aspirations and tactics.
You and your co-advocates stop using “climate science” as basis for centralizing the economy, and I will stop pointing out that your primary motivation is centralizing the economy?
Deal?
Forgive willard, moshe; he knows not whence he sources.
===============
Mosher misses the point–it’s all going to get burned until something cheaper and better is invented/developed, regardless of national policy. Coal may be exported or it may be burned at home, but it is the privately cheapest baseload source for much of the world much of the time. Fracking may change that in the U.S.–that would be nice–but the jury is still very much out on that as a long-term proposition.
Peter Huber was the first person I read who pointed out the impossibility of preventing fossil-fuel combustion when it provides such a huge gap between private consumer value and private production cost. The only thing stopping African nations right now from filling up the sky with coal emissions are the institutional and political barriers to development that keep most of them poor. If they ever get things lined up to achieve economic takeoff (as all well-meaning people hope) it’s going to be Sulfur Over the Savanna, Nitrous Over the Nile, and CO2 over the Sahara, 24/7. Even Hansen’s proposed policy (a common CO2 tax deal with China along with substitution of nukes for coal) won’t stave this off.
Unless nukes or algae fuels or some other source gets a lot cheaper a lot faster than it appears they are set to do, Fatalism is the most realistic policy stance. Arguing about the science is just a matter of deciding whether to be an Optimistic Fatalist or a Pessimistic one.
> Nobody claimed the models need to rule out natural variability […]
Of course not:
Models don’t need to rule out natural variability, but we have to use models that don’t get natural variation correct to rule them out as a potential cause.
Now, as much as I like Moore’s paradoxes, I don’t think scientists are allowed to express themselves with these.
And certainly not if they’re concerned about accuracy.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_paradox
Joshua, you wrote:
What is “this,” and who be “they?”
This is Natural Variabililty and they is “The Consensus Climate Clique”, “The so-called 97%”
If natural variability is still working, and it is, it has caused all of the warming and did not need any help from CO2. If CO2 does add any heat, Natural Variability will add more snow and ice extent do deal with it.
An interesting exchange between Gary, Mosher and Gates.
Mosher does seem to miss the point that Coal will be used worldwide as long as it is cost effective. You also seem certain that the additional ACO2 will lead to a net worstening of conditions for the US and the world overall. What is the basis of that conclusion?
Gary somehow believes that he establishes how what he considers conservative people should act.
How much are people negatively impacted by unemployment?
“models will never get “natural variation” correct”
Right, because Natural Variation is Unicorns, according to Mosher.
How can you program correctly for something that doesn’t exist?
Andrew
Josh,
“Has anyone been arguing that natural variability has stopped?”
Yes. RGates just a few posts above.
Willard
Climate scientists “concerned about accuracy”?
Huh?
Get serious, Willard.
Max
Advertisers and other propagandists know what you call something is key to modifying perceptions, so of course “global warming” is more effective than “climate change”. But let’s take Judith’s higher road and simply talk about the terms themselves, as well as some other potentially more useful ways of thinking about the issue from a scientific perspective.
Let’s get down to the basic scientific effect of increased GH gas forcing as GH gases increase. It is essentially an climate energy balance issue. So, the very fundamental thing you could scientifically call it would be:
#1:Anthropogenic Earth climate system energy imbalance.
Accurate, but wow, that would really grab the masses attention, eh?
So, since energy takes many forms in the Earth system, and once you begin the process of unbalancing or accumulating energy in the climate energy system, the energy can go to a multitude of forms in any of the climate “spheres”, i.e, sensible heat, latent heat, geopotential energy, kinetic, etc, and be in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere, etc. This additional energy will undoubtedly affect or ‘change’ the climate, and so t he next most generic term would be:
#2: Anthropogenic climate change.
Again, as realized, hardly the kind of things to rally the troops.
So, if you want to really “rally the troops”, how about focusing on one form the additional energy takes, in the sphere that the “troops” live in, namely, sensible tropospheric heat. And let’s use the term:
#3 Anthropogenic global warming.
Now, this term may “rally the troops” better than some others, but in using it, it is at least two steps away from the scientifically most accurate term #1 above. Furthermore, the term “global”, becomes muddied as in fact what they mean to impart is “tropospheric sensible heat”. The use of this term also cuts both ways so to speak, as during the so called “pause” in tropospheric sensible heat increases, it allows room for misinterpretation of the basic energy-balance issue or science, either intentional or unintentional by so-called skeptics.
Given that the majority of the energy imbalance (which is somewhere around 0.5 to 0.8 w/m^2 TOA) is being stored in the ocean, as the natural heat sink of the planet, how do you “rally the troops”, who live in the troposphere? You certainly would gain no propaganda points with:
#4,Anthropogenic ocean warming
Who cares, I live on the land, right?
Well of course, the so-called skeptics would like to suggest that this additional energy is “harmlessly” being dispersed into the ocean as “waste heat”, never to return to the surface, while others, who study the subject a bit more know that alterations in the temperature profiles of the ocean, including greater advection of warm water to the polar regions will have, and is already having profound effects on the cryopshere. But again, short of photoshopping polar bears on ice-bergs, only the experts on polar regions understand how warming oceans affects those regions.
So, probably, as inaccurate as it is (since it conflates the term “global” when it is actually meaning “tropospheric sensible heat”), the dumbed-down, but higher propaganda value term of Anthropogenic global warming is probably the best alternative– especially considering the rather rapidly decline in American understanding of science issues in general.
But overall, it really won’t matter what you call it, no propaganda terminology is as effective as experiencing Anthropogenic (energy imbalance, climate change, global warming, ocean warming, cryosphere warming, climate wierding, etc.) for yourself. As an intelligent species, still somewhat in tune with the environment around us, nothing convinces like first-hand experience. Ask those who are already experiencing the first waves of climate change for themselves.
The consensus don’t use “anthropogenic” in any of their terms. That way, when skeptics argue against CAGW, if they allow the consensus to define the issue, they are arguing against “global warming” of “climate change.”
I like globalclimatewramingchange because it makes obvious the facile, Humpty Dumpty style bastardization of the language by progressives.
The dumped “global warming” for “climate change” for the same reason they got rid of “liberal.” The terms were poll testing badly.
The goal of progressives is not communication, of science or anything else. It is the acquisition and maintenance of power. The debate about terminology is inseparable from the debate about honesty/integrity. One side views integrity as an objective moral norm to be followed by all. The other sees it as an annoyance to be dispensed with whenever the ends requires it.
“The goal of progressives is not communication, of science or anything else. It is the acquisition and maintenance of power.”
____
This is true, and equally true for those on the right–hence my disdain for both. Serving in office should be a privilege and should be time restricted (term limits) so that “career politician” is not a career option, and the kind of corporate pandering and bastardization of our democratic republic cannot occur. You can’t be a career politician and not be forced into coroprate pandering. But, the tide is thoroughly the other way and we end up with Corporate fascism, where “corporations are people”. Sad times for the U.S. republic.
Let me be clear– as people, I have nothing against “career politicians”– it is the system and concept of there even being “career politicians”. They inevitably end up as corporate panderers, and that is acid to our democratic republic.
Call me silly, but when so much time is focused on how to name something so that one can better communicate/scare/advise, then that’s a pretty big hint that the science behind whatever it is is neither settled nor particularly well done.
Haven’t heard anyone are aging what to call gravity lately, have you?
“This is true, and equally true for those on the right–hence my disdain for both.”
That is patently, demonstrably false,
Many real ideological conservatives were prepared to adopt broad policies to deal with “global warming.” Margaret Thatcher, and Sarah Palin being just two examples.
It was only when the political nature of the movement began to be evident that they reconsidered. Not just climategate, but the debate over the politicization of the Summary for Policy Makers of the AR4 (of which most of you were oblivious, because you relied on filtered media).
Once conservatives began looking in to who started the movement, who was running it, and what their own stated goals were, did they start to really seriously scrutinize the “science.”
Progressives embrace lying as a means to an end, ala Steve Schneider.
Conservatives reject it, as a core principle.
There is no moral equivalence between the two.
“Earth climate system energy imbalance”
Can you explain this to me? Let us take a single local, the Island of Guam. Explain to me how this island and it surroundings are ‘out of balance’ with respect to energy.
Show me the science that demonstrates this lack of ‘balance’.
Having another rebranding exercise, however it turns out, does one very useful thing. It reminds us of who is having this conversation. Those of us outside of science spend a lot of time peering in to see if we can understand what is going on. This sort of thing is those people looking at the mirror and wondering why things aren’t working.
Scientists don’t talk about rebranding, other than with bewildered amusement. Marketers do. (As an aside, some day someone will ask who is paying these marketers? They haven’t asked as yet. There’s an assumption that it’s all Greenpeace, etc. and all the Koch machine on the other, but I doubt it all comes from them.)
People don’t talk much about rebranding Coca Cola or other successful brands. People talk about it when they’re losing the various battles involved in brand communication.
What do you call it when the majority of scientists (not 97% but probably 81%), the majority of the public, and most organizations agree that Whatever It Is exists, is potentially harmful and should be addressed?
Consensus.
What do you call it when political and social battles rage on for two decades about the same issue that can be described so calmly?
Expensive.
謝謝 Tom Fuller.
‘nuf said indeed.
+100
Ack, New Coke made me switch to Royal Crown.
================
Hmmmm, possibilities: New Climate Change, or Classic Global Warming.
==============
Nuclear Climate Destruction – that’ll scare ’em.
Tom Fuller,
“What do you call it when the majority of scientists (not 97% but probably 81%), the majority of the public, and most organizations agree that Whatever It Is exists, is potentially harmful and should be addressed?
Consensus.”
Talk about rebranding. “Whatever It is..should be addressed.”
Nice euphemism for global decarbonization. The New York Times couldn’t have filtered the truth any better.
Try this, the honest way of setting forth the CAGW agenda.
“We in the consensus agree among ourselves that the risk of catastrophic global warming at some indeterminate time in the future, justifies massive immediate tax increases, the shuttering of coal, oil and natural gas power plants, and conversion of all motor vehicles to ‘renewable’ fuels.
We don’t have the technology to replace any of the above at a price the world can afford now, but we’re going to start the shut down right away anyway. But Barack Obama said he was going to make energy prices skyrocket before he was elected. (Even though we in the media didn’t think you needed to know that before voting for him.) So it’s OK.
We don’t have any control over China, Russia and India, who will continue emitting CO2 at rates that will make western decarbonization futile in reducing atmospheric levels of CO2.
Our climate models suck; our measurements of surface temperature are sparse, estimated, and proxies of proxies of proxies; our measurements of ocean heat content are even worse.
And we denied the ‘pause’ in what we called ‘global average temperature’ for almost 17 years, and still can’t really explain how or why it has happened.
But we are nonetheless going to decarbonize western society beginning now, because we think it’s the right thing to do.”
Yeah, try that on a bumper sticker.
kim | June 1, 2014 at 8:04 pm |
In April of 1985, in a misguided attempt to revitalise the brand, The Coca-Cola Company stunned millions by announcing their decision to change the formula of Coca-Cola.
After 87 years of going at it eyeball to eyeball, the other guy just blinked.
Coca-Cola is withdrawing their products from the marketplace, and is reformulating brand Coke to be “more like Pepsi.”
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/other-guy-just-blinked.html
–What do you call it when the majority of scientists (not 97% but probably 81%), the majority of the public, and most organizations agree that Whatever It Is exists, is potentially harmful and should be addressed?–
Tom, I must be serious.
It has proven by a scientifically sound nutcase that the number is 97%, **exactly**.
In the interest of validating any member of educational institute who is member of perilously endangered species, Marxist, Australruses, we must remain firm on the Consensus Number of 97%.
To do otherwise is allow the horrible deniers a voice in the process of humping their leg.
R. Gates
Thanks for a good summary explaining why the general (common sense) public is not going the get their knickers all twisted about this hypothetical future disaster scenario, no matter what name it is given.
It is an imaginary hobgoblin by any name.
Max
kim
Yew caint find nuthin better fer washin down a Moon Pie” than an ice-cold RC Cola.
Max
It is fairly easy to tell that this is an election year, and that rebranded climate change wasn’t selling. AGW won’t either, because it isn’t. And that kiboshed the old science is settled thing. What is a true believer to do?
What this episode shows more than anything is the now near terminal politicization of the entire CO2 issue. And for the US, the possibility of a mid-term election result like that in Australia.
There are two flavors of AGW. Lukewarm, and Catastrophist. CAGW is what Hansen preaches, what the 2014NCA falsely alleges, and what the EPA endangerment findings are aimed at. Urgent mitigation to ward off all the impending catastrophes from dead polar bears to Norfolk Virginia disappearing beneath the waves of SLR (this mornings WaPo).
I offer another naming suggestion for CAGW believers, by historical/political rather than scientific analogy. Communism is a supposedly scientific belief system. It is based on the flawed theories of Karl Marx set forth in Das Kapital, which overlooked incentives the same way CAGW overlooks climate sensitivity. Communism demands state control (EPA regs) while avoiding the rule of law (ignore Congress having rejected cap and trade, stretch CAA beyond recognition), forces drastic wealth redistribution (UNFCC Green Climate Fund), eliminates opposition ‘denier’ voices and evidence (Solzenitsyn in Russia, Bengtsson most recently in climate, Mann saying Curry Congressional testimony is anti-science, Holdren’s comments to Congress on Pielke Jr’s drought testimony). It requires continuous propaganda about the worker paradise being created, in order to counter actual worker experience (EU wind and solar subsidies). Communism spawned scientific perversions like Lysenkoism, akin to ever increased funding for fundamentally incapable supercomputer finite element GCM models (c.f. the Ellison post on Ghil and mathematical chaos, the pause). In short, an environment where politically correct forcibly trumps factually correct in order to impose a belief system of the few on the many.
Belief in CAGW by analogy is warmunism. Believers are warmunists. IPCC is (thanks to selection bias and artificial ‘consensus’ and ‘95% confidence’) a warmunist propaganda bureau. Warmunists are behaving accordingly, from the unelected EU climate “Kommissars”, to the President and EPA, to MSM propaganda (WaPo Norfolk today) to ‘denier’ appellations.
Somehow, I suspect this quite serviceable rebranding suggestion was not on the list of Yale test marketed options. Nyet, too close to Pravda!
Sarcastic humor with a bite of truth is an effective political counter punch.
That Yale felt the need to publish this at all is the real joke.
+1000 Rud. Here’s hoping US voters are awakening to what’s going on and act this November.
“+1000 Rud. Here’s hoping US voters are awakening to what’s going on and act this November”
____
Yes, and replace one group of corporate panderers with another group. Big progress…
‘Four legs good, two legs better.’
> Communism spawned scientific perversions like Lysenkoism […]
Sure, and Capitalism spawned phrenology and mesmerism, which surely means something.
And I can remember when Rud was offended and “disgusted” by polemics in blog comments.
It’s always fascinating just how selective smart and knowledgeable people can be in their reasoning, and in what they find disgusting.
willard (@nevaudit) | June 1, 2014 at 6:56 pm |
> Communism spawned scientific perversions like Lysenkoism […]
Sure, and Capitalism spawned phrenology and mesmerism, which surely means something.
_________
And the negative impact of phrenology and mesmerism is?
R.Gates,
“Yes, and replace one group of corporate panderers with another group. Big progress…”
There are panderers in both political parties, no doubt. There are really only a couple political factions that do not join in the politcal “consensus,” which is Euro style crony socialism.
You have the libertarians, who will never have political power, because they can’t even agree among themselves what they believe, and they are too few.
Then you have the hard core progressives, who want out right socialism – not what they see as the namby pamby Bill Clinton/Tony Blair “third way.” Some of these folks in fact run the Deomcrat Party in the US, but have to lie to their own constituents to maintain power.
The third is what I call genuine conservatives, those who hold to all three “legs” of the conservative stool: free market capitalism, democratic republican government, and the Judeo-Christian ethhic (without which you will never keep the first two.)
Take your pick.
Beth – catastrophist linear logic: four legs good, two legs better, one leg best. Pogo sticks for everybody. All equal now.
Say, Harold, less is more.
R. Gates
Corporate panderers are not the main problem here, Gates.
It is the self-serving big government politicians and their group of supporting climatology panderers.
And the over-zealous anti-industrialists in the regulatory agencies, like EPA, which are “hangers on”.
And these guys need flushing out of the system before it collapses.
Max
Temperatures will probably continue to fall for some decades albeit slightly but the whole argument is totally nonsense.
When exactly did the temperatures “start to fall”? The past decade has been the warmest on instrument record, and anything less than a decadal average in surface temperatures is completely dominated by the ENSO cycle. Whose cherries have you been nibbling on?
“When exactly did the temperatures “start to fall”?”
The past decade or so, depending on the linear trend (30 year) being centered or trailing.
http://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p623/Oefinell/HC4LR60and30.jpg
Edim,
That was a “rate of change” graph for tropospheric sensible heat, not an actual measure of temperatures, You realized the difference between a decline in the rate of change, and an actual temperature decline, yes?
The past 10 years were the warmest on record, and that decadal average is the least minimum tropospheric proxy you could have an not be highly influenced by ENSO variability. You understand this point, right?
No, it’s the 30 year trend, in annual rate of change units.
Like the black line here:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/figure-27.png
Edim,
Okay, be obtuse if you want. Even you graph shows the past 10 years had the highest decadal rate of change.
GH gases never sleep.
R. Gates, of course the 30-year linear trends in global temperature indices are still postive, but they started declining around the middle of the past decade. Shorter trends (~10 – 15 years) already declined to zero. If the quasi-oscillatory variability continues, the 30-year trend wiil be zero by ~2020.
“If the quasi-oscillatory variability continues, the 30-year trend wiil be zero by ~2020.”
____
This is akin to saying, if I put my money on the double-zero on the roulette wheel, I could make a fortune. Nothing in the 30-year trend indicates it could return to zero, so the odds are against it.
R. Gates | June 1, 2014 at 2:48 pm |
When exactly did the temperatures “start to fall”? The past decade has been the warmest on instrument record, and anything less than a decadal average in surface temperatures is completely dominated by the ENSO cycle. Whose cherries have you been nibbling on?
__________
Aren’t you supposed to be too smart for the lame “warmest on instrument record” argument.
Three things to remember:
1) if any year/decade is the warmest or coolest, then it’s likely the next year/decade will also be given the reality of how slowly temperature changes.
2) what we call the “global mean temperature” is certainly not. Try integrating the data under the time/temperature curve globally and report that then we’ll be close to a global mean temperature (i.e. the average of Tmin and Tmax for a 24 hour period is not a global average.)
3) the reliable instrument record is very, very short relative to making claims for warmest/coolest/most normal.
“if any year/decade is the warmest or coolest, then it’s likely the next year/decade will also be given the reality of how slowly temperature changes.”
_____
This is statistically true, but statistics don’t reveal dynamics. Dynamics are at the heart of the issue. Thermal inertia in the system gets to why warm may follow warm periods, but digging deeper still, it always get’s back to the oceans. It takes a lot to warm the oceans and a lot to cool them off. And the 10,000 pound elephant in the room for fake-skeptics is the data that shows the oceans very likely continued to warm during the so-called “hiatus” in tropospheric temperatures. Furthermore, given the fact that dynamically the oceans drive the global climate and have continued to warm, the tropospheric “hiatus” becomes an interesting ocean to atmosphere dynamical bit of data, but tells us very little about GH gas sensitivity.
Sensibly, we dwell in the troposphere.
===========
Huh, it’s almost as if the oceans are a buffer against runaway warming or cooling, isn’t it. Imagine that.
“Huh, it’s almost as if the oceans are a buffer against runaway warming or cooling, isn’t it. Imagine that.”
____
Not almost, definitely. But like all buffers, they can only buffer so much over a certain given time frame before being overwhelmed. There is a high probability the HCV is overwhelming even the oceans great buffering ability. The last time this happened…well, let’s not go into that…
High probability, eh? Exactly how was that measured Gates? C’mon, you’re too smart for this kind of fluff.
“High probability, eh? Exactly how was that measured Gates? C’mon, you’re too smart for this kind of fluff.”
____
Once the cryosphere (i.e. specifically the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, but also now methane hydrates) begin to melt, which they are,, it tells you the ocean buffering has been overwhelmed by the forcing. There is a very high thermal inertia and high heat capacity in both the ocean and cryosphere, and so it takes a big forcing to change those. A small change in GH forcing would simply be absorbed by the ocean with barely a ripple in the ocean heat content, and not noticeable in the cryosphere, but the large change caused by the HCV is something quite different. The melting of Greenland and Antarctica, while dramatic, is probably less concerning than the destabilization of methane hydrates.
Nice bedtime tail. But not science. C’mon, admit it, we just don’t know what the climate is going to do next, what will trigger the next ice age, etc.
“C’mon, admit it, we just don’t know what the climate is going to do next, what will trigger the next ice age, etc.”
____
True, the HCV has thrown the future into an area of the unknown, given that it has been tens of million of years since this much carbon has been dumped into the atmosphere over such a short period of time. Prior to the HCV though, we have learned a great deal about the causes of the comings and goings of ice ages.
Ah, so without the HCV you KNOW when the next ice age would have started. Please enlighten us all with the date and your proof.
Cat got your tongue Gates? Or did you perhaps realize that the future is unknown, with or without the HCV?
Umm…..dump laymen question follows.
What on earth is HCV? I googled HCV and all I come up with Hep C Virus.
“BruceC | June 2, 2014 at 12:25 am |
Umm…..dump laymen question follows.
What on earth is HCV? I googled HCV and all I come up with Hep C Virus.”
—-
HCV is a quick acronym for Human Carbon Volcano, representing the massive transfer of carbon from lithosphere to atmosphere that human activity (mainly fossil fuel burning) has created, not unlike what a natural volcano does, only the HCV had been erupting much longer (centuries) and the eruption has grown more intense with each passing decade.
In RG’s topsy-turvy world there are no longer such concepts as summer and winter – summer when huge quantities of ice melts and winter when huge quantities of water freezes.
Now we get just one long, continuous melt.
Thanks RG…..SIOW, it’s more BS being spread by the BSA’s to try and get us MM’s (mere mortals) in on the impacts of S-C (so-called) AGW/ACC/CD/CW (all of which have yet to be scientifically proven in the proper scientific method), and if we keep on going they way we are we’re all FUBAR’ed. OK got it now, I will KTFFR (keep this for future references).
BTW, RG…..AFAIK, Carbon is a solid. Shouldn’t I be seeing this massive transfer FMBD (from my back door)?
SNAFU.
It was all “global warming” until nature proved uncooperative with the hysterical meme…. so then “climate change” came into vogue because almost any event, cold or hot, stormy or calm, etc. could be recklessly lumped under “climate change”…. a category so broad and so consistent with all of the natural record that it proved itself… except that more and more of the public isn’t buying it as the basis for hysteria.
Oh, and let’s not forget “global weirding” — a pathetic attempt to capitalize on every extreme event for propaganda purposes.
Alas, most of the public is not sufficiently alarmed, so it’s back to the old standby “global warming” as the more effective instrument of fear and hysteria.
How about “global apocalypse” — see if more people can get worked up over that one….
Seems like a marketing question to me, “What label elicits the desired consumer response most effectively?” My thought would be, Why are scientists doing marketing? The answer of course is that they need consumers to generate cash-flow to fund operations. Unfortunately, they don’t have a product, so they look to government as a vector for collections. Government folks, always looking for a problem that can be addressed by the universal solution of redistribution of wealth via government, keeping only a smidge for themselves, wink wink, have a product they can use, panic. Panic is irrational, and once rolling, doesn’t need supporting data to sustain itself. So government types, citing the scientists who would initially at best benefit from the redistribution, promote the notion that unless the public gives it the assets, so they can pay scientists to solve the problem, climate change will cause enormous hardship, sometime in the future.
Yup, when scientist resort to marketing it’s ’cause what they are pushing ain’t selling.
It’s not the scientists, Bob in Texas. It’s not even the politicians.
You have large marketing operations in the environmental lobbyist organizations, of course. But associations representing the interests of renewable energy, nuclear power and large builders of hyrdroelectric power are involved as well.
When you consider that those names include General Electric, Bechtel, Fluor Daniels, as well as almost every large utility in the country, you realize that it is hugely misleading to think this is just green organizations versus Big Oil.
“Images Americans Associate with the Terms “Global Warming” & “Climate Change.”
Query: “When you think of (global warming/climate change), what is the first word or phrase that comes to your mind?”
To the right end of the bar graph is: Global warming coming in at @ 2% and Climate Change at @ 12%.
Let’s see if I can parse this out. What is the first word you think of? and the answer is GW or CC. More people thought of CC than of GW. That is CC is a first thought than GW. Now, Did I get that right?
Let’s see what TIME says about the population queried: Democrats, Liberals, and Independents. And, for the small minority party of Republicans there were…? in the survey? And since there has been polarization along political lines because of the manner in which our President has gone about imposing by decree regulations through the EPA, it would seem that the political nature of the topic would be a focus of the survey and not and “Oh, By The Way.”
Yale, with graduates the likes of which: George Bush our 43rd President, does a study in which I can’t follow the logic. I guess all politics is name recognition.
Mr. Chris Turney of an Antarctic fame (recently rewarded for that achievement) is a Professor of Climate Change. Do we have Professors of Global Warming somewhere?
What we are seeing is global indifference to climate alarmism, by whatever name they try to sell it.
The change from the phrase global warming to climate change was a loss of focus. When a candidate says, Jobs, jobs, jobs, that’s a focused approach. When they start talking about a grab bag of issues interest may waiver.
When a company gets into financial trouble the question might be, what is that we used to do well? Are we still doing that? Why did we expand into those other areas we didn’t have experience with?
A business does not have to be all things to all people to be successful. Maybe it’s time to retract and focus on the things we think we know how to do well.
“When exactly did the temperatures ‘start to fall’?”
I’ve been tracking temps at AZ stations with long records. Outside of high-density population areas (particularly Phoenix), average annual temp has been trending down for over a decade.
Interesting that a big difference in Phoenix, besides concrete, asphalt, and steel, is groundwater depletion. Inflows have been diverted, groundwater levels have dropped 300-500 feet, and some areas have subsided as much as 18 feet.
Right in the middle of the Phoenix valley is Tempe, where temps are more moderate than the record-breakers at the nearby airport. The Tempe station is on the watered grounds of Arizona State University, a short distance from the man-made Tempe Town Lake.
Data please.
Also, please include data on the relationship between Arizona temperatures and ENSO, as it would be most likely quite high.
Tempe also has a large amount of grass and trees, put in by transplanted Easterners.
Climb up South Mountain — the Tempe difference is very obvious.
Thanks for that David. When someone begins to talk about the weather out their back door or very regional stuff, so many other factors come into play that they can almost make any point they want depending on the kind of cherry they want to pick.
Yes, there is variation which was nutso’s argument.
Because you seem so well versed David and Gates, will you please tell me what the global mean temperature yesterday at 12:00 Greenwich mean time?
see grimmond and Oke on transfers of water between rural and urban areas and the effect on the urban/rural differential. fascinating topic
But it has nothing to do with the question we are discussing
I think the head discussion misses much of the point, which ‘Bob in Texas’ is closer to. The whole point about either the terms Global Warming or Climate Change is that they *both* achieved prominence because their narrative success trumped any veracity they might convey. Although (many) conscious minds contributed to their introduction, over so very many minds the process is not itself conscious. But the terms were never meant to contain any truth, if I can put it that way. The very fact that folks can consider reintroducing a term simply because it evokes (via emotion) more action, and the satirical piece in fact rightly points this out, demonstrates the point. Until the wave of alarmist memes within this social phenonemon (which I still call CAGW) burns itself out (and real science returns), neither can folks on any side of the debate actually choose a term anyhow. Unless it achieves better narrative success than the previous terms, a new term won’t take hold in any case, no matter how hard one tries. The fact that Climate Change has (more or less) beaten out GW, suggests its narrative success is greater, but it’s also the case that both terms survive in parallel, and to some extent *feed off each other*, which memes frequently do, complicating any simple analysis.
Yes.
Climate misanthropy
@ Andywest2012
In all the hoopla over Global Warming vs Climate Change, don’t forget, increasing Global Temperature is ALWAYS cited as the threat to be addressed. We never see breathless reports of ice on the Great Lakes confining Memorial Day beach-goers to the actual beach (except for the photo-op babes on the icebergs: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641861/Ice-weather-Sunbathers-flock-banks-Lake-Superior-despite-FROZEN.html ) being cited as clear evidence of Catastrophic Climate Change.
BoB L, we have seen examples of snow, or cold, or floods or storms or whatever, being used as ‘evidence’ of the threat. While the implied dependence of these events on temp rise still exists, this is fuzzy in the public’s mind I think, and CC contributes to that fuzziness. But in any case, both terms prosper (or not) depending on their narrative success, not on their level or truth, or lack thereof.
This is kind of interesting. “Climate Change” was coined by Frank Luntz during the Bush administration in 2003. The phrase was specifically designed to lower people’s reactions to the concept of global warming. [0]
Luntz is a communications consultant, and that was one of many language switch-a-roos that he is famous for.
The most interesting thing in this study to me is that his strategy seems to have worked.
The language here is fascinating. What starts as a Republican attempt to reset the tenor of the conversation becomes the war cry of the AGW crew, and now people are concerned that it isn’t alarming enough–when the term was specifically designed to not be alarming.
If I wrote about things like this in a place that people read I’d use the headline: Science and Politics having cunning-but-unexpected linguistic fun in bed with each other.
Lucky for everyone, I do not write such things.
[0]:http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange
“This is kind of interesting. “Climate Change” was coined by Frank Luntz during the Bush administration in 2003.”
Yeah…uh…no.
First, the IPCC was formed in 1988. Please notice that it was not formed as the IPGW. (If you don;t know what the CC in IPCC stands for, you’re hopeless, so read no further.)
Not to mention:
“To Halt Climate Change, Scientists Try Trees”
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/18/science/to-halt-climate-change-scientists-try-trees.html
But hey, it sounded great! A Republican conspiracy to confuse the public. I would mention the term projection, but why bother?
It is the consensus that chose to switch to using the term “climate change” in response to the “pause” and the ever growing divergence between the GCMs and the reported temps.
Google “nasa global warning” and what do you get?
http://climate.nasa.gov/
“Global Climate Change”
Google “epa global warning” and what do you get?
http://climate.nasa.gov/
“Climate Change”
“Global Climate Change”
it’s absolutely hilarious when default progressives fall for the propaganda of their own leaders.
Busted!
“default progressives” – Now there’s an apt term
Yes, GaryM, “climate change” was a term that existed before Luntz. That proves without a doubt that Luntz did not suggest a neologism. From Andrew’s own link:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange
Luntz was very perceptive regarding the “environmentalist” word. More than ten years later, the Denizens’ upper lip still lifts up a bit when saying the term.
Call it fry and die. That way people won’t know if you are talking about climate or fat and you would be twice as likely to get supportive poll results.
I said that Luntz coined the phrase, but that’s clearly not correct. It had been used before that. What I meant was that he took the word and the Bush administration put together a concerted marketing effort to change the language that we use to talk about this topic with the explicit intent to lower people’s reaction to the concept.
It was so successful as a marketing campaign that the very people it was aimed against completely bought into it, and now there is a study showing that it worked.
This is fascinating to me as a market researcher because we so rarely get to see follow-up results of efforts like this.
Andrew
I regularly come across references to ‘climate change’ when researching British weather observations back to 1000AD .
Back in roman times Tacitus mentioned it in one document i saw referenced once, as the climate improved and wine could be grown.
This account demonstrates the change to much colder wetter conditions in the 5th century which some say helped to cause the decline of the western roman empire.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/saxonadvent/climate.html
Tonyb
Yeah, this is no better.
The issue has never been what conservatives called CAGW. The issue has been the manipulation of the language by progressive politicians, media and “scientists.”
THEY started adopting the term “climate change” as a defense to the “pause” and divergence of the GCMs from reality. I know progressives love historical revisionism, but the well known Democrat PR firm of NYTimesWashPostCNNNBCABCCBSMSNBCTimeNewsweek used the term “global warming” consistently, in support of the cause, until the climate glitterati decided it was becoming too difficult to scare people with “global warming” when their own estimated, krigged, interpolated reports of global surface temperature based on proxies of proxies of proxies was getting embarrassing.
It is no coincidence that at the same time, the same bright lights of the CAGW movement started quibbling about how poor a proxy global surface temps were for globalclimatewarmingchange. It’s all about heat content dontchaknow? Conveniently forgetting their last 20+ years of press releases.
Andrew has nailed it. Climate change worked its way into mainstream use because of a concerted marketing strategy. These latest results show the denialist strategy was effective. GaryM, is there anything that can’t be denied?
> THEY started adopting the term “climate change” as a defense to the “pause” and divergence of the GCMs from reality.
The “THEY” looks like a pointing finger.
Too bad Luntz did not notice that the expression “global warming” was being deprecated, and that no effort was to be made to change to “climate change.”
If the case for human-induced climate change/global warming were strong, there would be no need to quibble about the terminology used to describe the phenomenon. We should be simply saying: ‘we simply don’t know’ however we coin it.
The UNFCCC has never been the UNFCGW, nor the IPCC the IPGW.
Rebranding occurs when there is a change in the ‘mission’ of the brand. When you want to globalize, Kentucky Fried Chicken becomes KFC. When you want to assert power over a variety of popular brands, Chivas Regal becomes part of Pernod.
There was an organized shift in terminology away from global warming. Public acceptance, already high, didn’t change much. But neither did political behavior.
What we are seeing is a shift in the conversation away from G2C (government to consumer) to B2GwB (business to government and back).
Other messaging will of course continue as before. But now that public opinion on the phenomenon is stable (most agree it is happening) but don’t really care very much about it, it’s time for negotiating to begin at the supplier and government level.
“Rebranding occurs when there is a change in the ‘mission’ of the brand.”
What is the change in the CAGW mission?
When did Obama or his progressive colleagues in the US and Europe decide to forgo decarbonization?
They haven’t.
A rebranding does not necessarily represent a change in mission. It is most commonly a change in tactics.
Don’t ask me, ask the progs at Politico.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74263.html
KFC may have expanded its market (it had been doing so for a long time before the name change), but its mission is still to sell as much fired chicken to as many people as possible. Ditto CAGWers.
They still want to control the energy market, and their willingness to obtain the help of crony corporatists is also nothing new.
The methods section reports that surveys were done in late November to January. Perhaps they might get a different answer if they do it again in July.
‘Climate change is a much more palatable message than growth. If we accept climate change as the priority problem for the planet, then the solution becomes radical expansion of nuclear energy and its sunshine units, or “carbon credits”which appears to be just another name for commodifying our waste streams for lack of anything else to sell, or biofuels as a delusion for the mathematically challenged, or solar photovoltaics for those who think we can one-up Mother Nature. Opting to worry about climate change instead of limits to growth allows us to believe that we can keep what we’ve got while also finding solutions for the problem through technology and markets, our two favorite religions. The problem of growth is much bigger and all encompassing than the problem of climate change. If we think that we can avoid or delay worrying about the limits to growth by worrying about climate instead, then our civilization is going to do a . . .“controlled flight into terrain.” if you haven’t heard it–pilots in Alaska are fond of the term.’
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-10-01/climate-change-euphemism-growth
Climate Change as a euphemism for Growth.
Opting to worry about climate change instead of limits to growth…
It’s not one or the other — you have to worry about both, as well as their impacts on each other.
Few politicians can be against growth. The author I thought was making the point that Climate Change is a function of Growth.
If elected, I promise to increase economic Growth and reduce Climate Change or Global Warming whichever term is most likely to cause you to vote for me.
David Appell | June 1, 2014 at 4:16 pm |
The author Mary Wood Odum is probably as biased as I am. I thought she had an interesting take on things.
Judith, no mention of the infamous Frank Luntz memo on this very topic?
The use of the term “climate change” is a truncation of what its true believers mean which is “human-induced catastrophic climate change.”
When you shorten it like that, the term becomes so general as to be meaningless. Any weather related event can become “climate change” when science in the service of ideology is at work.
What “climate change” has meant in the past is the general change or evolution in climate that occurs over centuries, milleniums, or longer. That has now been shoved aside in the service of the “noble cause.”
When you are in the climate politics business, the first thing you do is re-arrange the language to suit your purposes. You also reserve the right to change terminology in mid-stream which is what happened to the term “global warming”– a phrase that was too specific and also had the added problem of being a phenomenon that paused at a very inopportune time in the history of climate activism. That history commenced in the 1970s and sprang miraculously out of thin air shortly after the theory of a “coming Ice age” went south on those who understand spreading alarm is a most useful tactic in gettting people’s attention.
What “climate change” has meant in the past is the general change or evolution in climate that occurs over centuries, milleniums, or longer.
Not true — consider the Younger Dryas, Dansgaard–Oeschger events, etc.
I’ve said this before and will again. The message of global warming was succinct, understandable and the message was simple. I first remember the change of message with an article in the NYTs by Thomas Friedman responding to some bad weather declaring it should now be called global weirding. H went on wit David Rose continuing his message for rebranding. I guess Obama sees it as a message problem as well as he said the long cold Chicago winter made selling the message harder.
As I said before I believe this is a huge tactical error on their part. In effect they have thrown themselves into the lions den with the skeptics. This blog and the survey seems to bear this out. You need a simple message for the public and need to stick with it. Now they are spending all their time debating and denigrating the skeptics and it has thrown them off message and making themselves look petty and stupid with all the name calling. In the meantime the skeptics were begging brer fox, “please don’t throw me in the brier patch.” Now the Fox is full of briers and no dinner to show for it.
They are now arguing every position from uncertainty to ocean heat and from carbon tax and mitigation to adaptation. The skeptics don’t even have to win those arguments as the public discourse is forever convoluted. Their best message was CO2 manmade greenhouse gas global warming and they won that debate. Now they spin out of control with climate change confusing the public with all it’s nuances and losing credibility along the way.
Ordvic, there are different stakeholders and different approaches are appropriate for each group. They have already ‘won’ public opinion. But that hasn’t translated into acceptance for their preferred policy options. Time to target more precisely…
Tom, It sounds like you agree with Judy. It does get confusing when terms are used loosely, but twisted thoughts are Joshua’s specialty.
“They are now arguing every position from uncertainty to ocean heat and from carbon tax and mitigation to adaptation.”
The question is not why skeptics are arguing about uncertainty, OHC and mitigation policies.
The real question is why the “consensus” had a consensus on all of the above, and more from the beginning, Why was there never a debate, from 1988 on? On any of these issues?
I could explain it to you, but then I would have to read another lecture from R.Gates criticizing me for having the audacity to view political activity through a political lens. Here’s a hint anyway – it was political.
Gary, haning read a lot of both you and Gates I believe I already do understand. Even without such I’ve always understood the consensus wants a one sided arguement. They have made no bones about it and is the whole purpose of their moniker.
I suggest “Climate Fugetaboutit”. I think everyone could use the term in different contexts with different meanings.
[clip from ‘Donnie Brasco’]
Climate change is any climate change, it doesn’t have to be global (regional climate change for example) or even temporal – you can experience climate change in just a few hours by fying to another climate zone.
With global warming (just like with global cooling), like JC said, you need some reference time scale, and some amplitude of change to consider. Multimillenially the Earth is cooling (since the Holocene peak), multicentennially warming (since the LIA).
The subject of the hysteria is AGW, to be precise ACO2GW (anthropogenic part of the warming since ~1950, caused mostly by ACO2). Conflating global warming or climate change with it, is Orwellian and a linguistic hockey stick
I’m guessing that some folks at the EPA think the “anthro” in AGW stands for “anthracite”.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry! Mobilizing “action”?
Well tomorrow Obama and his puppets at the EPA are going to try to act with no regard for science or the good of our economy. There is the mistaken belief that they will set an example for the rest of the world to follow…………….Global Idiocy.
I hope they fall on their asses and we vote them out this November.
Me thinks “climate change” is an excellent choice because it suggests immediately we are talking nonsense.
“Well, I am not going to play the propaganda game here; I don’t care which phrase is more effective at mobilizing ‘action.’ What concerns me is accuracy.”
But the propaganda game is the only one that matters. No offense, but in the final analysis, with respect to the CAGW policy debate, what matters is how voters vote. Which is why the progressive propagandists work so hard at scaring them.
If the consensus cared about accuracy, then people like Mann, Gleick, Schneider and more would be denounced rather than held in high esteem.
This is why I like the term globalclimatewarmingchange. It is as ambiguous as either, and makes the point of the Orwellian bent of the CAGW consensus.
Note, the cosensus fought long and hard to get rid of the term CAGW, because it highlights both the “anthropogenic” and “catastrophic” aspects of their dogma.
GW is the least accurate term for the issue under debate.
AGW is slightly less inaccurate, but not by much.
CAGW is the only term that accurately describes the policy consensus.
Both terms are intended to invoke fear and guilt, and, at bottom, neither work. Climate change is inevitable and natural, and warming is good.
====================
What does deep mean? I hate that term.
The warming of the abyssal oceans is not likely to come back to haunt us. That is not what Trenberth was talking about.
Warming from below the SST layer does come back. It comes back during ENSO events. ENSO events move the global mean temperature around like a rag doll.
• North [India] grapples with searing heat wave
• Japan heatwave kills two, hundreds taken to hospital
• Record May Heat Wave in Northeast China, Koreas
• California heat wave shatters records
Story leads like “The temperature in Allahabad [India] soared to 46.7 degrees Celsius [116 degrees Fahrenheit]” kinda brings “global warming” home to ordinary folks, eh Climate Etc readers?
Conclusion Younger scientists, along with hundreds of millions of ordinary citizen-voters around the world, appreciate the practical implications of wet-bulb temperatures that approach “lethal-when-sustained.”
It makes no-never-you-mind whether the scientific reason is called ‘Global warming’ versus ‘climate change’, eh Climate Etc readers?
Fan, please tell us a year in which no human dies from anything related to climate- hot, cold, wet, dry, huricanes, tornadoes, etc.
Then we will all know the idyllic climate épée are aiming for.
Thanks in advance.
Ever-increasing ocean temperatures that every surfer and fisherman in the world can see are creating a political climate that every surfer and fisherman in the world understands
And the surfer-comments represent citizen-science at its best!
Conclusion Now that folks around the world can plainly see the earth getting hotter, it makes no-never-you-mind whether the scientific reason is called ‘Global warming’ versus ‘climate change’, eh Climate Etc readers?
The illogic of these statements is the implication that weather didn’t happen before human CO2.Since these things have always happened, it points out the vacuity of the hysterics arguments.
46.7 in Allahabad? 45C is a normal summer temperature there and nowhere near the city record of 48C, or the record for Uttar Pradesh of 50C.
Denialist bafflegab by “Real-But-Exaggerated”, weighty statistical evidence and rational scientific analysis by FOMD.
Folks who work outdoors, military service folks, and young scientists all three appreciate the implications of increasing wet-bulb temperatures, eh Climate Etc readers?
Fan
Fish are an even better proxy for changing sea temperatures than surfers
Our nearest large fishing port is Plymouth where the pilgrim fathers sailed from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Plymouth
They have records over the last 1000 years of the changing fish species as the oceans warmed and cooled over the centuries. I have seen them as I was intending to bring them into one of my articles. You need to look further back than a few decades to keep things in context
Tonyb
Global beats local TonyB! And for sure, there’s getting to be an awful lot of hot water out there.
Fan
So you think we have a good record of global ocean temperatures going back to when precisely?
Tonyb
NOAA’s record starts in 1955:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/basin_data.html
Like all data, it has error bars. Such is life.
David
Precisely. We need to look at a much broader historic context than a few decades
Tonyb
“David
Precisely. We need to look at a much broader historic context than a few decades
Tonyb”
_____
Please Tony, go down that road…far down that road, and look at ocean heat content. You may not like what you find, but if you are open minded, some things will fall into place for you.
There were two 19th-century expeditions that took measurements. Recently two papers duplicated them. Same answer.
Always the same answer.
United States Navy – same answer.
Rgates
We have discussed this many times. If you remember we debated as to how warming was suddenly confined to just the oceans rather than the oceans and the land.
I thought we also concluded that the temperature change in the oceans was trivial and could not in any meaningful way come back out to cause us problems.
Tonyb
R.Gates,
“Please Tony, go down that road…far down that road, and look at ocean heat content.”
I’d love to go down that road. If only it existed.
As bad as records of surface land temperatures are, with respect to coverage, accuracy, and length of record, they are a hundred times better than the current records of deep sea temps. let alone the non-existent records for more than 30 years ago,
You may be comfortable speaking of the “reconstructions” by proxies of proxies of proxies of proxies as if they give us known OHC records for any period of time at all. But that doesn’t turn your hopes and beliefs into facts.
ARGO has been around what, about 14-15 years. Is now up to approximately 4000 to cover all the oceans. And does not measure below depths of 2000 meters, while the average depth I think is around 4000m.
So tell us again how you know what the current OHC is today; what it was one year ago; 10 years ago; 100 years ago; 1,000 years ago?
The funny thing is, if we ever do get actual measurements of OHC, and they don’t match the predictions of delayed thermageddon, the CAGW consensus will just switch to some other metric.
Jch
I am well aware of challenger as I wrote about the expedition. Interesting and innovative as it was They sampled a trivial amount of the ocean.
However, we are not talking of a period when ohc was likely to be warmer , we know that the 19th century was generally cool. No one is disputing that temperatures have Been generally rising since the end of the lia.however this misses out the warmer periods prior to that
Tonyb
” GaryM | June 1, 2014 at 6:46 pm |
R.Gates,
“Please Tony, go down that road…far down that road, and look at ocean heat content.”
I’d love to go down that road. If only it existed”
____
Gary, if you could just for a day or a week even, pull yourself away from seeing the world in purely political terms, you might get a peek at something different. Maybe begin here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6158/617.abstract
And stay away from the political spin from both sides on this. .
Tony said:
“I thought we also concluded that the temperature change in the oceans was trivial and could not in any meaningful way come back out to cause us problems.”
___
Uh, you Tony, seem to come to that conclusion, but it is not the opinion of those who study the ocean-atmosphere in great detail.. It is also a common fake-skeptic argument– “oceans are warming, who cares, it can’t come back to harm us.”. You’re are smarter than that Tony– I know it.
R.Gates,
I looked at the link you posted.
“We used high-resolution proxy records from sediment cores to extend these observations in the Pacific 10,000 years beyond the instrumental record.”
I notice they claim they can reconstruct temperatures, (apparently at all depths?) to within 0.4°C.
Which answers my question regarding the coverage and accuracy of such proxies (which are in fact proxies of proxies of….), not at all.
Tony
“Fan
So you think we have a good record of global ocean temperatures going back to when precisely”
Now you see the key. The reasons why OHC was not promoted
1. we dont live in the Ocean and OHC doesnt mean anything to us.
2. The records go back to the mid 50s… that means we cannot make arguments about the changes being unprecedented.
air temps suck as a metric. haha and I spend all my time on them.
But they are one of the few long range metrics we have, so you use it.
on the merits OHC is god.. but much shorter record and its hard to connect it to the rest of the story we need to tell.. ie the hockey stick
Rgates
But we discussed this also. Assuming the deep oceans are warming, and that it is unique, which is by no means proven, how in any practical way is that going to affect us to any significant degree?
You will remember I asked this very question of Thomas stocker at the Exeter climate conference and he said we did not have the technology to measure the deep oceans accurately.
You are placing way to much certainty on highly uncertain data.
Tonyb
Mosh
I agree. Surface temperatures seem like a highly accurate and reliable set of data compared to the short sparse records of the ohc which epitomises rumsfelds known unknowns etc
Tonyb
What does deep mean? I hate that term.
The warming of the abyssal oceans is not likely to come back to haunt us. That is not what Trenberth was talking about.
Warming from below the SST layer does come back. It comes back during ENSO events. ENSO events move the global mean temperature around like a rag doll.
Heh, evidence of adaptation to the ludicrousness of the catastrophists. See, we’ll make it.
=========
“Warming from below the SST layer does come back.”
Whatever heat is released during an El Nino is just that, released. It can cause havoc on the surface for a while, but much of the heat is radiated out to space. Which could not happen if it remained in the ocean.
I still wonder if the “pause” isn’t a direct result of the 1998 super El Nino. And if ENSO isn’t a thermal “governor” if you will that keeps heat from accumulating beyond a certain point.
I am sure warmists will scream that some of the hear released warms other aspects of the climate, and I am sure that is true, but I don’t think there is any way to actually measure how much is radiated out, and how much is retained.
Maybe Trenberth’s missing heat isn’t missing at all. Maybe it’s gone.
Oh no, what terrible news that would be!
Gates
I asked you last week what the OHC trend was before 1950. You either can’t or refuse to answer since having data only since 1950 proves nothing. Nada. Zilch. The entire debate is about whether anything we are experiencing is unprecedented. When you start doing some real science and find out what has happened for the last millennium and thus show we are in uncharted waters then you may have something. Until then you are spinning your wheels.
R. Gates, I think I read a rebuttal to that paper you linked but I can’t say for sure. I must admit I am suprised you are linking it. When I read the abstract I get the impression that modern warming is mild and perfectly within the bounds of natural variability. Perhaps you can point out something in the abstract that would change my opinion?
“Observed increases in ocean heat content (OHC) and temperature are robust indicators of global warming during the past several decades. We used high-resolution proxy records from sediment cores to extend these observations in the Pacific 10,000 years beyond the instrumental record. We show that water masses linked to North Pacific and Antarctic intermediate waters were warmer by 2.1 ± 0.4°C and 1.5 ± 0.4°C, respectively, during the middle Holocene Thermal Maximum than over the past century. Both water masses were ~0.9°C warmer during the Medieval Warm period than during the Little Ice Age and ~0.65° warmer than in recent decades. Although documented changes in global surface temperatures during the Holocene and Common era are relatively small, the concomitant changes in OHC are large.”
fan,
Keep posting idiotic stuff like this. It helps people recognize the paucity of facts and science supporting the catastrophe meme. You can’t tell the difference between weather and climate. But then there is a lot you can’t do.
JC: “This time scale is nominally taken to be 30 years. Is there a scientific justification for this period? I don’t think there is,”
It might be useful for a lot of people to increase it. Then the hiatus becomes less significant. Would a 60-100 year time scale show warming that a 30 year time scale doesnt?
Well, actually a 60 year cycle with a 30 year phase. Years ago I was amused at the 30 year business. With the right timing, it guaranteed that you would be wrong for the next 30 years.
=========
Why not call it what it is:
Change in some synthetic excuse for a global mean temperature that’s computed by taking the average of Tmin and Tmax at very poorly sited and equally poorly geographically dispersed instruments then massaging them statistically to pretend to fill in data that’s missing…
Yep, that out to do it. The acronym might be a bit long though.
CISSEFAGMTTCBYTAOTATAVPSAEPGDITMTSTPTFIDTM…
Good try, but if you start to pronounce it, you might run foul of the PC monitors.
I’m on board with ‘Global Warming’ because it’s probably more honest – forcing -should- cause warming.
The ‘Climate Change’ thing probably always was bogus – Temperature shows up in the primitive equations only in the equation of state.
Not much indication that warming causes any of the subsequent changes in climate.
Agree. Which is it, temperature or climate, that we should be worried about?
Really? So there’s been no change in climate in the last 20,000 years, as average global temperature has changed by about +8 C?
Dave,
Temperature is a part of climate, but just one aspect.
It is not global average temperature that determines where jet streams form nor cold fronts pass.
Real,
If you accept for a moment that the majority of the energy being accumulated in the climate system has gone into the ocean, do you also know that the oceans dictate the majority of the global climate patterns?
No deep understanding of the climate effects of the energy imbalance caused by GH gas increases can be had without starting with the ocean. Trying to do so will lead to false conclusions and a very myopic viewpoint. But sadly, this seems to be exactly what some want.
Gates –
Atmospheric motion is not determined by temperature.
Examine the ‘Primitive Equations’ :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_equations
and you will find temperature in the Equation of State but derivatives of elsewhere.
So an earth that was warmer but the same temperature everywhere would not have jet streams or storms.
There might be some aspects ( increase in global precipitation ) but on the whole, the actual climatic variations have been grossly exaggerated.
That is why ‘Global Warming’ is apt, but Climate Change is not.
From Luntz’s “Words that Work:”
“”Climate change” is less frightening than “global warming”. As one focus group participant noted, climate change ‘sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.’ While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.”
“Frank Luntz, “Straight Talk”: The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America” – memo to Bush Administration on communicating environmental issues, circa 2002
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001330.php
Yup, I think the warmistas need to find something even scarier than cobalt warming, don’t you?
Or maybe they should make up their minds which it is we all need to be scared of: climate? Weather? Temperature?
All they have to do is show is that cooling follows from the physics. C’mon, now, it’s basic science. Where are the deniers, and what can we do about them?
==================
You must be ecstatic to have George Bush on your side.
I hope they do go back to “global warming”. I think they’ll be totally stuffed if they do.
Faster and faster they move the shells, but fewer and fewer are betting on the pea.
===========
Denialist bafflegab by kim, “The Old Shell Game“ by Harry Anderson/FOMD!
Fixed links (hopefully) by FOMD!
Third time’s the charm, by FOMD!
Wow, blue shells!
============
Hi Judy – Here is what I have recommended for these two terms: http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/definitions-of-global-warming-and-climate-change/
****************
As discussed often in my posts; e.g.
What is Climate? Why Does it Matter How We Define Climate? http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2005/07/11/what-is-climate-why-does-it-matter-how-we-define-climate/
What is Climate Change? http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2005/07/29/what-is-climate-change/
Is Global Warming the Same as Climate Change? http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2005/10/20/is-global-warming-the-same-as-climate-change/
there is lack of clarity in how these terms are defined. In today’s post, I offer the following short definitions:
Global Warming is an increase in the global annual average heat content measured in Joules.
Climate Change is any multi-decadal or longer alteration in one or more physical, chemical and/or biological components of the climate system.
Thus climate change includes, for example, changes in fauna and flora, snow cover, etc which persists for decades and longer. Climate variability can then be defined as changes which occur on shorter time periods.
Global warming involves the accumulation of heat in Joules within these components of the climate system, which is predominently the oceans, as shown in Table 1 in Levitis et al 2001. The current use of the global average annual surface temperature trend to diagnose global warming involves only the two dimensional land, cryosphere and ocean surface.
Best Regards
Roger Sr.
==> “Global warming involves the accumulation of heat in Joules within these components of the climate system, which is predominently the oceans, as shown in Table 1 in Levitis et al 2001. The current use of the global average annual surface temperature trend to diagnose global warming involves only the two dimensional land, cryosphere and ocean surface.”
So, RPsr agrees, unless I interpret him incorrectly, that the “pause in global warming” terminology is less than precise.
So, I wonder why Judith quotes David Rose:
and doesn’t note the inconsistency with what RPsr. says.
I wonder why Judith is quoted by David Rose, as saying:
Does Judith disagree with RPsr.? Or, is Judith using terminology with less than desirable precision, and in ways that will, predictably, lead to some being mislead?
“Global warming involves the accumulation of heat in Joules within these components of the climate system, which is predominently the oceans, as shown in Table 1 in Levitis et al 2001. The current use of the global average annual surface temperature trend to diagnose global warming involves only the two dimensional land, cryosphere and ocean surface”
____
Thank you for that Roger Sr. Outstanding..
“Does Judith disagree with RPsr.? Or, is Judith using terminology with less than desirable precision, and in ways that will, predictably, lead to some being mislead?”
you are confusing several things.
For quite some time Roger senior has been making his argument that we should not use landsea temps.
He has argued for using OHC, exclusively.
However, the convsersation has been dominated by those of us who study the land/sea temperature.
we got the headlines.
Consequently the vague term ‘global warming’ has come to mean.. change in land sea temps.
Recently as global warming ( land sea temps) have paused.. people are switching over to roger Srs view..
forgetting of course that we know almost nothing about the history of OHC.
R.Gates,
“Thank you for that Roger Sr. Outstanding.”
Yes. But it was not outstanding enough for the progressive CAGW movement, including R.Gates, to make that distinction until the “pause” in reported “global average temperature.”
Skeptics denied for decades that the reported “global average temperature” was an accurate measure of globalclimatewarmingchange. For which they were labelled deniers.
It was the consensus that for decades published scary graphs of reported global surface air and sea surface temperatures as “Global Average Temperature,” even thought what they were reporting was not global, was not average, and temperature wasn’t really the issue. It was only when their dishonesty began to work against them, with the “pause” and the laughable failure of the GCMs, that they suddenly began objecting to those darn skeptics always talking about GAT.
It’s like the hilarious comment above about how a Republican pollster conned the western world by coining the term “climate change.”
Sometimes I wonder if they actually believe all the bilge they spew.
And GaryM weighs in with his “adult’ response – “They did it first.”
Joshua, you must be having a reading problem, because Gary did NOT say “they did it first”. What he said was the hypocrites denied a certain characterization put forward by skeptics until it was necessary for them to adopt it. Hypocrisy is the point, not whom did or said what first.
Skeptics denied for decades that the reported “global average temperature” was an accurate measure of globalclimatewarmingchange.
They did not — they claimed that the surface station record was inaccurate.
But then it became accurate enough for them to hawk the pause. At some point it will surely go back to being inaccurate.
Gary said:
“Yes. But it was not outstanding enough for the progressive CAGW movement, including R.Gates, to make that distinction until the “pause” in reported “global average temperature.”
____
Once more, you seem confused Gary. I’ve been a fan of Roger Sr. for quite some time and have been arguing for a broader proxy for the measurement of accumulation of energy in the Earth system for many years– really since reading Budyko back in the 1980’s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Budyko
Your fervent desire to blast “progressives” at all costs, and to try to lump everyone in some convenient category based on your highly political view of the world prevents you from intellectual growth Gary…just sayin’.
scott,
Little joshie has a handful of standard charges that he tosses about, sometimes seemingly at random. Such as you have just seen. The others are, big boy pants, motivated reasoning, tribalism, selective whatever, and accusing Judith of hypocrisy and/or misrepresentation every time utters a word. Creepy little dude.
R.Gates,
I have asked you, and any number of other CAGW advocates here to link to comments or anything pre-pause that showed you rejected global surface temperatures as an adequate proxy for globalclimatewarmingchange.
When did you speak out against the IPCC, Real Climate, any mainstream media outlet publishing scary global surface graphs labelled as “global warming?”
Can you cite to any such objection, by any warmist, ever before the “pause?”
Shouldn’t there be at least one comment on Real Climate to that effect?
“They did not — they claimed that the surface station record was inaccurate.”
They/we did both. And still do.
But the “decades” was an exaggeration on my part. The consensus was pushing global surface temps as “global warming” for decades, But the conservative/libertarian/skeptic response didn’t really gel until later.
Conservatives were still receptive to arguments about dangerous global warming until roughly Kyoto. When it became obvious what the supposed objective ‘scientific” authorities were arguing for as policy – decarbonization. We started looking at the origins of the movement. Then we started paying more attention to the “science.” And the IPCC. And the involvement of reborn 60s socialists as “green” activists.
It quickly became clear that the fact that “decarbonization” was a euphemism for centrally planning the energy economy. And the CAGW movement was founded by people who had been arguing for central planning their entire adult lives.
Then skeptics decided to try to have the debate the consensus never had, never wanted, and still resists.
“Obviously, a compilation of global temperature variations must include ocean temperatures.”
— IPCC AR1 (1990), section 7.4.1.2, p. 209
“Does Judith disagree with RPsr.? Or, is Judith using terminology with less than desirable precision, and in ways that will, predictably, lead to some being mislead?”
Real global warming is related ocean temperature. Or our interglacial period is period of warming ocean temperatures. There is variation of the ocean warming during our interglacial period, in terms of globally and regional ocean regions.
Climate scientists which controlled and involved to government[s] have decided instead to focus on the atmosphere and ignore [more or less] the ocean. Basically because understanding the ocean is too hard or not accessible.
This climate science is similar to the drunk looking under the street lamp for keys despite knowing the keys aren’t there. They know it’s all about the ocean but they have data from weather reporting.
So we live on a planet mostly covered by water- obviously global climate is largely to do with ocean, but just as we have CET for long period of time and it’s fairly accurate, one use it as substitute for actual global air temperature. And global air temperature can substitute for actual global temperature.
So our global climate is ice box climate. The average global ocean temperature is about 3 C. If our average global ocean temperature was 5 C
we would still be in ice box climate. We not going to leave this ice box climate for at least a 1000 years. The interglacial before our current period
is thought to have had an ocean of couple degrees warmer than our present ocean. And which obviously cooled during the glacial period which followed it.
If Earth’s ocean average temperature were 10 C, then one have some reason to assume we might be leaving our ice box climate. That not going to happen soon, but if the ocean were 10 C warmer, our world would have a dramatically different climate.
So ocean of less than 0 C, could be a snowball earth. About 2 C ocean is earth during glacial period, about 3 to 5 C is interglacial, and above say 8 C has temperature of ocean for most of the last billion years- a world without “permanent” polar ice caps [one can still have snow and ice in winter in some locations].
“Global-mean temperature alone is an inadequate indicator of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change.”
– IPCC AR1 (1990), Chapter 8, Executive Summary, p. 244
Hey Gary,
How about you read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-life-International-Geophysics-Budyko/dp/0121394506
It will put the myopic focus on sensible tropospheric heat as a proxy for “global” warming into sharp contrast..
Do people think ARGO came off a shelf at Home Depot? They asked for it because they needed it. They needed it because?
scott –
If someone says that a group you belong to is making a misleading argument, I can think of at least 3 ways to respond:
1) I don’t think that the argument we’re making is misleading, and here’s why….
2) You’re right, and we should stop making that argument..or…
3) Well, other groups used that argument before we started using that argument.
GaryM’s response was neither 1 nor 2.
This is not an issue of “they did it first”
This is simply an issue of what the term “global warming” CAME TO MEAN over the course of years of discussion and debate. Years of press, years of charts, years of debate. It came to mean land sea temperatures. It was used as the standard bearer of the message. full stop its silly to deny the recent history.
One skeptic, Pielke Sr. argued that this metric was inadequate. He argued for using OHC, EXCLUSIVELY. This argument dovetailed nicely with other skeptical arguments that the record was unreliable.
1. they argued it was unreliable
2. using Pielke they could argue that even IF it was reliable, that it was
not important. That OHC was more important.
3. OHC was criticized by the rest of us as being too short a record.
4. One could say the skeptics like OHC because its record was short and uncertain.
for example, Lets face it OHC doesnt play into the hockey stick.
OHC is a short record.
OHC has no viseral meaning to us. 40C air temps DO.
so we played the air temp card. Nobody went around correcting us when we said global warming and posted a graph of air temps. ( well pielke would ) we wrote global warming, we showed graphs of air temps. what the hell do you think the public came to understand? EXACTLY what we wanted them to understand. that increasing air temps were a sign. a sign of global warming. We never argued that OHC was lower in the MWP. we argued that air temps were lower. When we argued that the panet had never been warmer in the past 1000 years, we were talking about air temps and nothing but that.
So technically in the science of course we care about OHC. but to make a case to the public we focus on those metrics that “make sense” to people. metrics that connect with their lived experience. “air temps”
Now air temps are not cooperating. Global warming has stopped, but the planet continues to accumulate excess energy. Now the story is not so neat.
that sucks.
Hey don –
Like they say, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
You forgot same ol’ same ol.
Anyway, as always, thanks for reading and paying attention. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
Oh, I guess you forgot that one also, eh?
RPsr. says:
==> “Global warming involves the accumulation of heat in Joules within these components of the climate system, which is predominently the oceans, as shown in Table 1 in Levitis et al 2001.”
Mosher says:
==> “Global warming has stopped, ”
RPsr. says:
==> “Global Warming is an increase in the global annual average heat content measured in Joules.”
Judith says:
==> “The data confirms the existence of a ‘pause’ in the warming.”
Same ol, same ol.
Ocean Heat content.
“There remain substantial issues over balancing the global energy budget: achieving closure (Kevin Trenberth)”
“We cannot draw any conclusions about “missing energy” in the system on the basis of differences between interannual variations in satellite net radiation and upper ocean heating rates from the current record. This is predominantly due to large uncertainties remaining, in both observing systems, and which needs to be understood, and reduced.”
Clivar/ESA Scientific Consultation Workshop July 3-4, 2013
Norman Loeb, Richard Allen, Gregory Johnson, Karina von Schuckmann,
Anny Cazenave, Josh Willis, Kevin Trenberth, Magdalena Balmaseda,
John Lyman
Having to do with Ocean Heat Content.
http://www.clivar.org/sites/default/files/GSOP/resops/DISCUSSION_II_LOEB.pdf
David Appell,
I feel sorry for you, having to go back the the first AR top find anythng approaching honesty coming out of the IPCC.
But neither of those comments take away from the history of the IPCC and the CAGW consensus in general arguing that global surface temps were a proxy for “global warming.” There is no mention of OHC, just adding sea surface temps to the land surface air temps.
But neither section as far as I read indicated that the GAT the IPCC was reporting was an unrepresentaive proxy of “global warming” because it left out OHC.
I wonder why the hokey stick was so prominent in the TAR if the IPCC knew that land based surface air temperatures were such a poor proxy for globalclimatewarmingchange.
Is it that they didn’t know that was the case, or that they didn’t care?
My best is with the latter.
April 2014 may have been the warmest April on record but people like Steven Mosher are claiming global warming has stopped. Should we listen to the data or those claiming warming has stopped?
Eric, you’re even funnier than when moshe poses as an alarmist.
==========
gbaikie | June 1, 2014 at 6:35 pm |
This climate science is similar to the drunk looking under the street lamp for keys despite knowing the keys aren’t there. They know it’s all about the ocean but they have data from weather reporting.
Good. Sea Surface Temperatures are part way to where we should be. However we have our situation as it is.
I don’t understand why the oceans cold reserves doesn’t get much traction. How far can the atmosphere stray from the ocean’s leash?
GaryM: You asked for an indication that people knew global mean surface temperature wasn’t a complete indicator of AGW, and that the ocean had to be included as well.
You got it.
You seem to think science is born complete from the very beginning. It never is. Global warming was easy to spot in the 1980s and 1990s, when the surface was changing fast. When surface warming slowed down, it was necessary to keep testing the greenhouse hypothesis by looking where else the energy imbalance might be going — by looking at the data, and making them better.
It’s been found in the ocean. The greenhouse hypothesis lives, and in this way has been strengthened.
And, as RP Sr wrote, it’s lately been realized that ocean heat content is, in fact, the best indicator of a global energy imbalance.
That’s exactly how all science progress — by analyzing ideas in light of observations, and honing both.
GaryM wrote:
But neither section as far as I read indicated that the GAT the IPCC was reporting was an unrepresentaive proxy of “global warming” because it left out OHC.
It didn’t say “unrepresentative” — it said “inadequate.” Here’s the excerpt again:
“Global-mean temperature alone is an inadequate indicator of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change.”
– IPCC AR1 (1990), Chapter 8, Executive Summary, p. 244
GaryM wrote:
I wonder why the hokey stick was so prominent in the TAR if the IPCC knew that land based surface air temperatures were such a poor proxy for globalclimatewarmingchange.
It didn’t say “poor,” it said “inadequate.” Here, yet again, is the quote:
“Global-mean temperature alone is an inadequate indicator of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change.”
– IPCC AR1 (1990), Chapter 8, Executive Summary, p. 244
David Appell,
“You asked for an indication that people knew global mean surface temperature wasn’t a complete indicator of AGW, and that the ocean had to be included as well.”
No I didn’t. Here is what I actually asked.
“I have asked you, and any number of other CAGW advocates here to link to comments or anything pre-pause that showed you rejected global surface temperatures as an adequate proxy for globalclimatewarmingchange.
When did you speak out against the IPCC, Real Climate, any mainstream media outlet publishing scary global surface graphs labelled as “global warming?””
See, “rejected global surface temperatures as an adequate proxy” and objections to the portrayal of GSTs as “global warming.”
You still haven’t given a single example. It should be easy. Just find one cite in any mainstream consensus publication or blog, objecting, prior to the pause, of the ubiquitous use by the consensus of GSTs as a reliable proxy for GAT.
Not that they weren’t complete. Not that more data wouldn’t provide a fuller picture. But that GSTs should not be relied upon by the public deciding the policy issues because GSTs were not an adequate proxy.
There was simply no objection by anyone in the self-defined consensus of GST’s being presented as “global warming”: until the pause.
Jeez, DA, he said TAR and you come back with AR1. But thanks for illustrating that they were still a little bit honest a quarter of a century ago.
===============
David Appell,
From the FAR:
“Has man already begun to change the global climate?”
Their answer is in figure 11. Guess what temps are used in fig. 1? And guess what caveat does not appear in the caption?
Page xxix and xxx of the SPM.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_spm.pdf
You should read the whole section. Again, not a mention of ocean heat content. Nor any caveat that the very graph they were citing should be ignored for policy purposes.
And again, the hokey stick was not in the FAR, it was in the much more politicized TAR. And it was used relentlessly thereafter, and defended even today, as strong evidence of “global warming.”
GaryM, are you for real? Inadequate means not adequate. It is obvious you were wrong and the answer provided by David Apell to your question shows you were wrong.
Fifth Assessment Report
Summary for Policymakers
Figures a) and b), the first ones seen if read in order are surface temperature maps.
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf
Dance with the girl you came with as we used to say. Don’t change horses in midstream. Can we think of more?
Yes, OHC is the way to go. We’ll kind of move in that direction as a happy band of concerned people. GAT will be the older sister. we’ll buy it a shirt that says so, and the oceans will be the newborn child.
GaryM wrote:
“I have asked you, and any number of other CAGW advocates here to link to comments or anything pre-pause that showed you rejected global surface temperatures as an adequate proxy for globalclimatewarmingchange.
But no one rejects it.
It’s been recognized as an inadeqate indicator of the type of global energy imbalance caused by greenhouse gases.
As understanding and observations have gotten better, it’s now recognized that only a tiny percentage of this extra energy goes into warming the sliver that is the surface, and the vast majority goes into heating the ocean. And that the former has much more noise than the latter.
This is how science progresses — by analyzing ideas in the light of data, looking for inconsistencies, and modifying the ideas in the face of any.
I know you know all this, but are just trying to hold onto your mistaken belief that AGW has stopped. Today’s science shows it has not.
Eric
“April 2014 may have been the warmest April on record but people like Steven Mosher are claiming global warming has stopped. Should we listen to the data or those claiming warming has stopped?”
“global warming” has become a short hand term, unfortunately, to refer to land sea temps. Has it stopped? well, you can called it paused, you can call it moderated, you can call it hiatus, you can switch and change the definition to OHC.. you can do a lot of things.
here is what you cant do.
you cant look at the last 10 years and say
“assuming a linear trend in the data, we find that it is positive”
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2004/to:2014/every/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2004/to:2014/trend
Now, you can argue that 10 years is too short, we could have that discussion. we could look at 15 years or 30 or whatever.
None of that would change the simple meaning of what I wrote.
When we say global warming we normally mean land sea temps.
THAT is unfortunate but that is what the term has come to mean.
We can of course change that by being more precise. And in a science paper we would be more precise.
And when we say the warming has stopped, we mean that depending on the statistical test we do and the period we test that recently the rate we see is
not distinguishable from zero.
Thats the simple meaning. Of course skeptics are free to misunderstand this. They are free to think this statement has anything to do with the truth of the theory. It doesnt.
So ya global warming ( land sea temperatures ) have over the past decade or so, slowed to a point where some simple statistical tests make the trend indistinguishable from zero. This is a great time for science as folks get to refine the theory ( as in pointing to OHC) to explain why this phenomena is not a real challenge to the theory.
Steven Mosher says, “So ya global warming ( land sea temperatures ) have over the past decade or so, slowed to a point where some simple statistical tests make the trend indistinguishable from zero. ”
This is not the same as saying it has stopped. We start with a term which has been defined inadequately (GaryM, this means not adequate) and then use inadequate means to measure the inadequate term and some draw strong conclusions from this such as stating that greenhouse warming has stopped. Not a big deal until all of these inadequacies are used to influence Congress and policy.
Joshua.
Roger and I agree completely.
1. Global warming ( land sea temps… as judith and I use the term in its
historical meaning ) has stopped.
2. Roger. “Global Warming is an increase in the global annual average heat content measured in Joules.
Yes, Roger is technically correct. As one who agreed with him years ago on this subject I have no issue with HIS definition. Unfortunately he didnt dominate the discourse. His definition lost. The term global warming has been used repeatedly to refer to land sea temps. Period. thats just linguistic history.
Now that global warming ( land sea temps) have stalled, moderated, slowed, paused, stopped, taken a rest, sputtered, Roger’s definition may get more traction. We will see. That’s a good thing since his definition is much better ( thats been my position for 7 years ).
Using his definition, we can say that the planet continues to accumulate energy. The global temps may have stalled, abated, slowed, paused, taken a rest, but the energy is still accumulating. A better term might be
Global Heat accumulation. thats catchy now isnt it.
If you want to agree with rogers definition then I would expect you to start correcting a bunch of people at the end of this year when 2014 becomes the warmest year ever. When, at the end of this year, we point to land sea temps and say “global warming is back” I would expect you to correct us and complain that we should use Rogers definition.
For my part even though I like rogers definition better, Im betting that a record hot 2014 will mean that I can keep using the term as I have in the past. or not.. we will see. Eventually though the temps will go back up and while its a bit uncomfortable to explain the situation, I have little doubt that within a short period of time the whole “global warming has stopped” wont be a relevant debate. Ya, its stopped. not a big deal. not even relevant to policy. by rogers definition of course it hasnt stopped. again, not a big deal.
Eric | June 1, 2014 at 9:22 pm |
Not a big deal until all of these inadequacies are used to influence Congress and policy.
___________________
Yep, exactly what Gary M was saying, the IPCC et al were using an inadequate data set to influence Congress all the way until,that data set stopped showing the trend that fit their narrative. Glad you’ve finally seen the light.
Own goal.
Eric
“This is not the same as saying it has stopped. ”
Of course it means the same thing.. If you ask me what I mean by the short hand phrase
“the warming has stopped” I will tell you exactly what I mean. You might object to how other people interprete that phrase. Sorry, take it up with them.
“We start with a term which has been defined inadequately (GaryM, this means not adequate) and then use inadequate means to measure the inadequate term and some draw strong conclusions from this such as stating that greenhouse warming has stopped. Not a big deal until all of these inadequacies are used to influence Congress and policy.”
Look nobody in congress should be reading comments in blogs to make their decisions. If you or they or skeptics are confused by a shorthand description, on a blog, then dont read blogs. Referring to the land sea record as “global warming” was just fine when the temps were going up.
You never saw Gore testify that “global warming” means increase in OHC.
Never. when the air temps were going up that short hand definition worked just fine.
live by the sword, die by it
–Ragnaar | June 1, 2014 at 8:23 pm |
gbaikie | June 1, 2014 at 6:35 pm |
This climate science is similar to the drunk looking under the street lamp for keys despite knowing the keys aren’t there. They know it’s all about the ocean but they have data from weather reporting.
Good. Sea Surface Temperatures are part way to where we should be. However we have our situation as it is.
I don’t understand why the oceans cold reserves doesn’t get much traction. How far can the atmosphere stray from the ocean’s leash?–
Not far in terms of over 70% of Earth surface.
But if looking at idea of average air temperature of latitudes higher than 30 degree north or south, It is ocean heat which is kept whereas the surface of land can cool rapidly- so oceans will keep it above freezing.
If you want a warm world you have have warm ocean. Unlike land surfaces at depth, ocean water mixes, so if interested in warm climate [as compared to warm weather] the entire ocean must become warmer. In other words if want Oregon to be tropical- you need average ocean temperature which is higher. Though if simply need one mild winter in Oregon, that does not necessarily require the entire Ocean to be warm.
Quite simply an ocean can warm and can stay warm. There are consequences of having a warm ocean- you will get more rainfall [or snowfall]. A warmer ocean could lead to a build up of glaciers- and runaway effect in terms of temperate ice caps could be a result of warmed ocean during the interglacial period of our ice box climate.
But I generally assume our oceans not near to being this warm.
In terms of surface of ocean as compare entire ocean, it’s about 100 meters of warmed water of tropics which determines amount heat transported poleward. Or why Europe has milder climate.
So it’s the warmed tropical water and rate and pattern this heated water is distributed which is dominate factor of climate patterns of our interglacial period [present warmed period, LIA, Medieval warm period, etc].
I would say that in terms of interglacial periods, oceans are control land temperature and global temperature, whereas in comparison during glacial periods, land areas are a of more controlling factor and have bigger effect upon global temperature. Or say it this way, during our interglacial periods it is recognized that Antarctica is a significant factor in terms of global climate- and if it wasn’t a massive ice cap, it would have considerably less global effect. And with continental ice caps in temperate zones, they will have greater effect than a polar ice cap.
Or land cools the globe [or same thing as oceans are warming the land and lands does not warm oceans]], during glacial periods, land cools the world to a greater extent.
Eric
“April 2014 may have been the warmest April on record but people like Steven Mosher are claiming global warming has stopped. Should we listen to the data or those claiming warming has stopped?”
——
Allow for an evolution of the science, or more specifically, a refinement in the public understanding of it. Earth, as a system has not stopped accumulating energy, and trying to educate the public as to why provides a chance for them to gain a greater insight into climate dynamics. The motivations so those who would not like to take advantage of this chance for giving deeper understanding are also interesting.
Simply repeating “the Earth is cooling” or “global warming has stopped” only spreads ignorance.
Steven Mosher,
So words mean what you mean they mean, nothing more, nothing less. I will say global warming has increased and, based on your criteria, this is correct. You can interpret this as you want.
R. Gates says, “The motivations so those who would not like to take advantage of this chance for giving deeper understanding are also interesting.”
Yes, it is interesting and goes back to one of Joshua’s points; why was Dr. Curry not more clear in her Congressional testimony? I will also add why are people such as Steven Mosher not more clear in public comments made?
gbaikie | June 1, 2014 at 9:55 pm |
“A warmer ocean could lead to a build up of glaciers- and runaway effect in terms of temperate ice caps could be a result of warmed ocean during the interglacial period of our ice box climate.”
Here: http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/images/climate/climate_change/global_co2_temp.png
The gradual lowering temps coincide with ice build up starting from the warmest time in my opinion. Sounds like Pope who has made me think. I think the glacial interglacial question is important to whole picture.
“…why was Dr. Curry not more clear in her Congressional testimony? ”
—-
Exactly enough, but no more. She was not invited there because she was going to agree with Dr. Lacis. It’s the way they like to play the game called “D.C. Politics”.
–The gradual lowering temps coincide with ice build up starting from the warmest time in my opinion. Sounds like Pope who has made me think. I think the glacial interglacial question is important to whole picture.–
Pope’ theory is related arctic polar ice melting.
Or I think we could see what Pope is talking about within century.
Or seems possible before 2100 to have an ice free arctic in the summer.
Perhaps Pope theory depends upon how soon in the season the arctic polar ice has melted. Or two months of ice free could bigger difference than 2 weeks ice free.
And/or it could influenced by weather/climate pattern occurring with ice free arctic polar ice- with duration of it being less unimportant.
Anyways, the result is regional cooling in northern part of northern hemisphere [and more polar sea ice or some other variable].
But what I was talking about is standard way glacial periods are thought to start. And I think it requires a warmer ocean, and therefore will no occur within centuries.
Ragnaar, thanks for bringing that once more everyone’s attention. The first line in the conclusion:
“Combined Satellite (CERES) and in-situ (Argo) observa/ons during the past 13 years (Mar00-Feb13) shows that Earth has been steadily accumula/ng energy at the rate 0.6 ± 0.26 Wm–2 (1σ conf).”
Gosh, I hope Chief Skippy Ellison knows this before he makes a complete fool of himself with his “Earth is cooling” pseudo science.
gbaikie | June 2, 2014 at 12:07 am |
…is standard way glacial periods are thought to start. And I think it requires a warmer ocean, and therefore will no occur within centuries.
Agreed. Warmer oceans mean more snow. Ellison said words to the effect of a sped up hydrological cycle with more evaporation. This could be in the future the start of the glacial. Ice and snow stacking. Water can only get so cold. Move it to the land, you can cool it more.
Warmer oceans mean more snow in winter, but glacial advance occurs when the snow sticks around through summer, and that has not been happening:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=6
Eric it is simple.
We are having a discussion. If you want to know what I mean just ask.
If this were a formal piece of writing I would take
Great care to minimize the probability of misunderstanding. But im here just ask
R. Gates Wrote:
Warmer oceans mean more snow in winter, but glacial advance occurs when the snow sticks around through summer, and that has not been happening:
Glaciers do not advance with snow sticking around through summer.
Glaciers advance after many years of more snow falling on top and making them heavy so they will advance faster than they retreat. It gets colder as the glaciers advance.
Cold turns snowfall off and that does not cause glaciers advance.
I brought up the problems with the appellation “climate change” on arstechnica.com (which has a pro-AGW bent in general, and has been frequently posting related articles), and received a derisive response.
I suggest that some of the more articulate and knowledgeable skeptics here create Ars Technica accounts and provide some balance to the prevailing groupthink.
The Hockey Stick, wasn’t that about surface temperatures?
What is “Climate Communications” (CC)
Is is the same as CP*?
*Climate Propaganda
John Cook, propriator of SkepticalScience – a well known ‘climate propoganda’ specialist – is trained in “communications” That’s his training and expertise.
Yes.
No mention of Repblicans nor of rationalists. Why would that be? Does it suggest that, perhaps, the survey was politicised, partisan, biased?
Were Republications excluded from the survey, or just from the results or from the spin, propaganda (i.e. the “Communications”)?
I believe they included them as a partisan sub group. Maybe they are considered to be a subspecies.
Probably true. A clear demonstration of the partisan motivated reasoning of the researchers, eh?
Well they obviously didn’t think it mattered what the Rs thought or at least marginalized them.
That reveals the researcher’s motivated reasoning and yours too. it shows that they are not objective and not rational. They are using propaganda techniques to try to push their socialist/Left agendas. It shows you are one of them. The purpose is to try to marginalise those who do not accept your beliefs and agenda or cannot be converted to your faith. But from rationalist’s perspective, your ilk are dangerous. They cause untold harm to humanity.
Well obviously you haven’t read many of my posts as I have never pointed in that direction and I was basically agreeing with you. Be that as it may, I’ll leave you to your motivated reasoning regarding me.
My apologies. I misunderstood.
No problemo, sorry as well for the retort.
All good. I’m enjoying reading your comments.
Thanks
Conclusion uhhhh … just maybe … you’re *BOTH* right?
Hey, I’m the leftist here. You want to yell at Leftists, I’m the guy. (Don’t think I’m the only, one, but I may be one of the few who advertise…)
Republicans either weren’t asked or their (low) opinion didn’t change with the terminology. I’d bet the latter.
Tom Fuller,
Yes. You are probably right that their opinion didn’t change. Some possible reasosn for that:
1. they understand that whatever term you use for propaganda purposes makes no difference to the substantive issue.
The substantive issue is the CAGW, by whatever name, is a Leftist’s doomsday scenario to try to scare the population into accepting their Leftist agendas on society: Big taxing, big regulating, big government.
The rationalists understand the issues of CAGW, AGW, human-caused climate change, etc. They can see it is proper perspective with all other issues facing humanity. The Left cannot. They are single issue people.
The rationalists recognise that the policies the Left advovate to control the climate won’t make the slightest difference to the climate. The policies the Left advocate will cost humanity dearly and deliver no benefits – i.e. no climate damages avoided.
That’s why the Left Are called the ‘Loony Left and the Right are called “rationalists’. They can also be thought of as being the people with wisdom.
Hope that helps.
FOMD, write that down! :)
AGW. And I thought it meant Australian Global Warming.
catastrophic , really .
That such a little island, with only 22 million people can so dominate the global warming scene from Skeptical Science to Prof Turney, from Lewindowsky ( hope I’m getting good at spelling that) to Gergis or whatever.
I am proud, proud I say, that so much has been done by so few to halt the AGT (Anthropogenic Gravy Train).
You can have your Mann’s and Hansen’s, Australia rules the roost, just like we will do at the World Cup Soccer in 2 weeks.
Angech,
Ozzie! Ozzie! Ozzie! Oi! Oi! Oi!
A country –
” . . . Of droughts and flooding rains . . . ” from the poem “My Country” – Dorothea Mackellar 1908.
Nothing seems to have changed.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
After all these years we are down to ridiculous comparisons of propaganda usage; “Warming vs. Change”? It’s pathetic and the trickle down at this level of ignorance is plain to see;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RLrd_c6wdrw
The blithering propagandist and left-wing activist Michael Mann gets his book plugged on national tv. David Rennie is especially appalling in the clip claims dissent against to consensus is a “conspiracy theory” per the usual trolls like Joshua and Fanboy found here. Pat Buchanan scores some logic points but still lacks the topic depth to link the “science” consensus to greenshirt activism, culture not science has driven AGW for decades. Culture is real, not a “conspiracy theory”.
So, they’re busy at Yale……on the public dime as Yale gets huge climate grant money (government based, stolen from tax-payers and future generations through deficit finance and currency debasement no less) that is quickly coined into propaganda research and pro-regulatory activism……figuring out the correct distortion of the common language for the task at hand, controlling the Proletariat with best Ivy league efforts possible. Warming or change? Res Ipsa Loquitu.
So the limited skeptical participation of talking about the climate agenda as if there really is a remotely uncorrupted “science” support backing that agenda stares the world in the face again. Scientists, overwhelming left-wing in nature should be exposed exactly for what they are and have been. David Rennie should have been stomped and crushed on his conspiracy gruel as should the hacks at Yale on this thread for perhaps as lame a talking point discussion as you can ever ask for. You’re looking at the inner working of “MiniTrue” and in a general way people are too worn out to be appalled by what it actual represents here on this blog. As the debate gets mainstreamed in the heat of Obama demagoguery and the short-term regulatory gains he is pressing for it exposes both the public ignorance regarding the AGW debate but also the stunted and limited range of the discussion found in skeptical communities such as Climate Etc. So by willfully participating in equivocating technical debates while ignoring the broader politicized agenda that AGW advocacy represents, certainly confirmed by Yale’s woeful “warm vs. change” talking point analysis the public is harmed yet again. They should be skewered as the political hacks that they indeed are and more broadly the entire AGW advocate agenda. It’s been a pretty poor showing on this thread as well. These aren’t hard dots to connect at all. If your skepticism preserves the legitimacy of the science consensus at the same time then you really haven’t figured out much along the way. They aren’t just wrong, they’re corrupt and illegitimate on average as a group. If you think it privately you should say it out loud and repetitively.
==> “These aren’t hard dots to connect at all.”
See if you can team up with kim. Between the dot-connecting prowess of the two of you, there’s no telling what you might be able to achieve.
Glad you brought that up, Joshua, the picture is clarifying.
===============
Quit it, kim. I’m getting pimples. What is that, a voodoo doll? Are you sticking pins again? Ouch!
cwon14 | June 1, 2014 at 7:05 pm | Reply
‘culture not science has driven AGW for decades. Culture is real, not a “conspiracy theory”. ‘
Very neat encapsulation, and very true. And a lot is already known about how such cultural trajectories work. But… while many are starting to make comparisons of CAGW with religion, and more still describe CAGW in ‘worldview’ terms, and folks doing this come from across the spectra of belief positions, the leap to understanding that CAGW is a culture in and of itself, is still not made.
Another term that needs to go away is carbon pollution when talking about GHGs.
Generally I’m not too into ad hominem arguments, but I feel safe dismissing anything said by someone using that term.
As a carbon-based life form, I take offense to calling anything carbon pollution.
Me too!
Bah, it’s language pollution.
============
Illogical.
Exactly Mike, lack of logic, common sense, and likely dishonesty. Why bother, the signal to noise is too low.
Seems people are smart enough to understand that there is a lot of ‘climate change’ going on all the time, but a consistent upward trend in temperatures, if large, could present a problem. The ‘Climate change’ name was adopted to allow any conceivable bad weather to be claimed to be caused by increasing GHG’s. It was dishonest from the start; they should just call it what it is: global warming.
May seem that way but many people are not that smart. There is this guy, Tony Watts, whose entire blog is dedicated to claiming the climate has not changed recently.
Gad, Eric, you read with such precision, comprehension, and understanding. Oops, forgot to mention your accuracy.
================
Kim, from what I have read you too claim the climate has not changed recently.
Eric, you don’t know it, but I have written everything ever written. Well, at least I’ve stolen from it.
==========
Since history shows that the global temperature can be up or down in different periods, I prefer ‘climate change’ as an unbiased descriptor. Yes, ‘global warming’ has been an apt descriptor at certain periods of our planet’s history and the overall trend in the 20th and 21st centuries has been up, but science does not wish to imply that further change will necessarily be up. We just don’t know. The mathematical models sponsored by the IPCC all say up, even though this contradicts the evidence which must be the final arbiter..
No. “Climate change” is being used currently as a description of supposedly ill effects from CO2 concentration. It is by NO MEANS UNBIASED.
Thank you for paying attention.
These people should say whatever they mean and leave common English terms to mean what they have always meant. Of course, they won’t. Manipulators start with the language, every time. As for the titles they give themselves: “Yale Project on Climate Communications”…how pompously creepy can you get.
Ridicule the climatariat into well-deserved oblivion. Make no distinction between snobby old guard and the new guard of “communicators”. None of them know much about the earth or what lies beyond the earth because they haven’t even bothered to look. Lucky if they even look out the window. No wonder Turney got stuck in the ice. Ridicule these people right out of our lives.
“And be these juggling fiends no more believed
That palter with us in a double sense.”
What concerns me is accuracy.
Maybe you are reaching for something impossible. The data, analysis and evolving narrative, …. all point to a fundamental undecidable inconclusive quality to ‘climate’
The mission creep is interesting. It reveals confusion regarding the purpose of the exercise
As usual Judith, the responses to this thread are so many that you probably won’t even get to read my response, however…
~70% of Earth’s surface is ‘ocean surface’, which only returns ‘latent’ thermal energy back to the atmosphere ‘at altitude’, and may well be the mediator of ‘back radiation’, but the remaining ‘land surface’ also carries a significant ‘latent signature’ which suppresses ‘surface temperature’ to increase temperatures at higher altitudes (thus the ‘environmental lapse rate’ is ‘observed’ from the [expected] ‘adiabatic lapse rate’).
How can ‘Global Surface Warming’ have any ‘coherence’ when surface temperatures are suppressed by the presence of ‘water’ via the Clausius Clapeyron relationship?
Climate isn’t just ‘warming’. It covers many more parameters than temperature alone, thus, I conclude that ‘Global Warming’ is a ‘misnomer’ and the public should be advised on ‘climate’ per se!
Best regards, Ray.
Global warming doesn’t sell in Minnesota. Ending Winter a week earlier, we can get behind that. Climate Change would work better. Fires, loss of rain, tornados, more Canadian Geese, that’s something to worry about. The Climate Change phrase is a chameleon, a jack of all trades, a shade of gray.
John Holdren in his own (radical) words
“De-develop” the U.S. & “reduce” its population?
http://www.cfact.org/2014/05/31/john-holdren-in-his-own-radical-words/
Holdren is a person I do not trust. He is radical of no doubt, but I am also suspicious of his intentions. Does he have the best intentions for America?
Why not “radiative imbalance” if we’re going for accuracy?
Because ““radiative imbalance”” doesn’t include ‘latent heat’!
Best regards, Ray.
Energy imbalance is the most accurate.
How about ‘climatic impact of radiative imbalance’?
I think too many people wouldn’t have a clue what it meant.
I just today saw the following:
What is the correct answer to the following equation
7+7 / 2 + 7 x 7 – 7 = ?
It was multiple choice, with 4 answers provided. Suppossedly 92% of people responding with an answer got it wrong.
Got the equation wrong
supposed to be 7+ 7 / 2 + 2 x 7 – 7 = ?
I make it 17.5
I would prefer “global heating”. Heating is a transitive verb, meaning we are doing it. It implies anthropogenic, plus it sounds better for getting action to stop doing it so much. “Warming” is usually considered to just be the effect of heating, although it can be used transitively too, like in “warming something on the stove”. Either are far more descriptive than the bland “climate change” that does not even imply a trend.
The sun cannot heat?
rls,
Perhaps he meant Global Radiator.
Things can heat without warming. It is the cause rather than the effect.
Subtle difference, lost on some.
Jim D — What about using the term “Greenhouse Heating”? followed by a very straight question: “Is it a bad idea to follow a trajectory to 800 to 1,000 ppm?”
Wouldn’t it be very constructive if scientists could connect/explain using every-day applications of “established science” that Dr. Molina talks about (and Steven Mosher touches on all the time) in this article?: http://theenergycollective.com/davidhone/60610/back-basics-climate-science
Of course natural variability plays a critical role in climate. Of course there are feedback loops (positive and negative) on increased CO2. But we don’t have enough “established science” on these issues right now.
By trying to relate just to the “established science” that Dr. Molina talks about, we would focus on things we do know in asking a fundamental question on ppm trajectory.
If find listening to Dr. Molina interesting — where (if I understand him correctly) he talks about also never being able to “model” CFCs very well which is a whole lot less complex than Climate.
Stephen, I have asked that question here several times. We can control whether we want a 500 ppm or 1000 ppm climate now, and we have that choice to make with policy decisions, but when you ask here what skeptics would choose, they say with a straight face that we don’t know enough to even suggest which one is a better target. Unbelievable. Also the basic physics argument doesn’t wash with them. It has been tried. They prefer to plead ignorance.
Why abuse the language? Heating only implies anthropogenic in Orwellian.
It’s anthropogenic global warming or AGW (caused mostly by anthropogenic CO2 emissions). Warmists allegedly want to reduce these emissions.
If you want to make it simple, maybe carbon dioxide warming?
“If you want to make it simple, maybe carbon dioxide warming?”
—-
Methane and N2O are also issues, especially methane with increasing use of fracking.
R. Gates, so human methane and nitrogen volcanoes too? We’re doomed. We need methane and nitrogen trading ASAP. The rich are not rich enough.
“R. Gates, so human methane and nitrogen volcanoes too? We’re doomed. We need methane and nitrogen trading ASAP. The rich are not rich enough.
——
Well, methane is covered under the HCV as it is carbon at the core, but nitrogen would require a new term, maybe HNV, as human activity, mainly agricultural practices are a big source. See:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/n2o.html
R.Gates, nothing is covered, except more profiteering for the already rich and the bureaucrats, and making the poor poorer. Ironically, it increases the CO2 emissions too, not that it matters otherwise.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/29/us-spain-energy-idUSKBN0E91JA20140529
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/energie/article128575756/Spaniens-Energiewende-wird-unbezahlbar.html
The translation:
http://www.thegwpf.org/spanish-lesson-for-obama-green-energy-transition-unaffordable-may-crash-soon/
Jim D,
You state that “we can control whether we want a 500 ppm or 1000 ppm climate”. This is based on what evidence? And who is the we? Also, how do we know what the difference will be between the two?
Simple arithmatic tells us that even a reduction of CO2 emissions to zero by the US and Western Europe will not prevent the world from sailing right past the 500 ppm level. But assuming it would, are you of the opinion that a goal of zero emissions is achieveable? Do you have any knowledge on the potential impacts of pursuing that objective? Or how they compare to the impacts of a 1000 ppm concentration?
Judith Curry said: ” This time scale is nominally taken to be 30 years. Is there a scientific justification for this period? I don’t think there is,”
Judith, please, read my pdf in:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4r_7eooq1u2TWRnRVhwSnNLc0k/
in there you have “In general, values from all climatic parameters (e.g.: precipitation, wind, a radiative forcing, climate sensitivity, a climate feedback, …) must be obtained through statistical estimations. That is why WMO set those 30 years (see §1.1) for averaging variables: because, by statistical convention, a minimum of 30 samples is required to apply the central limit theorem and to accurately obtain the statistical inference: meaning that inferences from less samples might be inaccurate.”
Now I understand why you, Judith Curry, did not want to publicite my pdf: because you had not read it.
I concur on the 30 yr point, as this is ~the ‘half wavelength’ for PDO and AMO, but this time-scale may overlook/ignore other intrinsic cycles. A longer time-scale that incorporates ‘cyclic’ events may well be more adaptive.
Best regards, Ray.
Ray, as I wrote in my refuting: any “climate change” should be studied within the minimum timescale of 30·30 = 900 years.
If Judith Curry decides to publicite my pdf, scietific community will be able to notice about this deep paradigm shift. (If JC publicites this idea, she could cite myself as “Antonio Sesé”).
Steven Mosher says:
1. Global warming ( land sea temps… as judith and I use the term in its historical meaning ) has stopped.
2. Global Warming is an increase in the global annual average heat content measured in Joules.
This says that … A) estimates of timescale and heat distribution have failed completely … B) Carbon dioxide is a GHG
The salient issue is of time scales, temprature distributions and such … Specifally as to converging to a runaway GW catastrophe.
Estimates of timescales juxtaposed against future human populations, carbon emissions and technological abilities are crucial here.
Indications ate that convergence to a runaway catastrophe will not occur.
More than 300 comments and no one to mention where “climate change” comes from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz
But yeah, from a scientific perspective, the phrase ‘climate change’ has very little meaning, just like most sentences void of quantifiers.
Science doesn’t do well with timely arguments and circumstances. It favors and aspires toward timeless accurate perfectly described certitude
Error by Raving, correction by FOMD.
From the beginnings of science, right up to the present era, the greatest scientists (and historians too) have *COMMONLY* been rabble-rousing policy-altering troublemakers.
That’s obvious to *EVERYONE*, eh Climate Etc readers?
Actually David Appell did mention it about 2/3s of the way down. He mentioned it twice the second more extensively.
Thanks, ordvic. Here it is:
> Judith, no mention of the infamous Frank Luntz memo on this very topic?
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/01/global-warming-versus-climate-change/#comment-579430
The discussion that followed between David and Judy was very interesting.
Several here have disputed Luntz as the source.
The GCM seems to be overkill. Be it appropriate or misconstrued I feel apprehensive about the model fitting the facts. In particular there is the triple mechanism positive feedback leading to snowball earth or greenhouse broiler.
Difficult to understand how the climate maintained a tolerable intermediary over its paleohistory.
Joshua,
I was referring to you parsing every word or phrase Judith utters. Now while I agree with you that the pause is somewhat of a ruse it is the generally accepted term. Putting it in stock market term you could call it a correction within a general trend. As with the market it could also be at a turning point resulting in a reversal or a crash. This usually happens when there is economic stagnation or unstainable low volume. In the case of climate perhaps a solar minimum would suffice. Survival permitted we shall see. When Judy is expressing her message using those terms seems perfectly reasonable to me.
As for Gates, I have no problem with his analysis. I don’t know enough about to qualify or disqualify his remarks. If you mean Judy should be cognizant of that and stop harping on the pause well there is probably more to it. Since the general story has been about surface temps and being that is what the public generally understands why shouldn’t convey in those terms. Is she suppose to read Gates and your minds before every post? It dosen’t make sense. As far as I know she knows a little about oceans and conveys those topics when it’s on her agenda. It just doesn’t make sense to me all the harassment. Why don’t you just relax and make your own case.
Ordvic –
IMO, Judith and “skeptics” have it right when they criticize inaccurate or imprecise language. They are right that it was not appropriately scientifically, to conflate “global warming” with tropospheric temps.
Of course Judith knows what’s she’s talking about when she speaks of oceans and global warming more generally. All the more reason she shouldn’t use imprecise terminology when it is very likely to be misinterpreted.
As with the David Rose article I referred to, the “pause in global warming,” or saying that “global warming has stopped,” is used to serve tribal agendas. IMO, Judith should rise above the tribalism, not participate in it.
Criticizing her reasoning and/or her rhetoric, by commenting on her blog, is not “harassing” her.
==> “Since the general story has been about surface temps and being that is what the public generally understands why shouldn’t convey in those terms.”
Because it is imprecise and misleading. Read mosher’s justification:
So the reasoning is that the term is misleading and imprecise, but because it has been used in a misleading and imprecise way, we should continue to use it in such a way, although, of course, when we are making a scientific argument, we should be clearer and more precise.
Sorry, but IMO, that’s laughable.
So in a scientific paper, Judith should be accurate and precise, but when testifying before Congress, she shouldn’t be?
Look, advocacy is fine in my book. It’s part of what makes this country what it is. But advocacy should not be based in knowingly using terms that will mislead in predictable ways. Justifying such rhetoric with an explanation that “they did it first” just doesn’t cut it in my book.
It’s really not that hard to say something on the order of “A relatively short-term slow down in the longer-term significant trend of rising tropospheric temps, where we don’t know with much precision the impact of an increasing energy balance on other potential metrics.” Nonsense like a “stop in global warning,” is not only not necessary, it isn’t justifiable, IMO. If one’s goal is to increase the precision and clarity, and to reduce the tribalistic rhetoric, it seems to me that the choice should be clear.
Well you made your case, but I simply see it as tribalism on your part as well. As for the preciseness of her words I thingk she does OK and is not deliberately trying to deceive anyone. I can see how you see it that way but since I’m not partisan I don’t.
ordvic –
==>”I thingk she does OK and is not deliberately trying to deceive anyone. I can see how you see it that way but since I’m not partisan I don’t.”
I don’t know her, and I’m not really in a position to judge, but I don’t think that Judith is deliberately trying to deceive anyone. That isn’t what I’m saying.
Judith says that she is concerned about accuracy, and the original post from her was about how it’s better to not use misleading rhetoric.
I’m saying that, IMO, she should be more precise when a lack of imprecision will mislead in predictable ways. I’d be happy to read any explanation for why her language isn’t imprecise, or likely to mislead. As I said, mosher’s is laughable, IMO.
Yeah, I get that. Since Mosher is thinking somewhat along the same lines as I am it looks like an apples oranges argument ocean surface argument. There is pause on the surface but the oceans tell another story or so it’s argued. Since the ocean thing is more complicated perhaps she doesn’t see it Gates’s way, especially if she posts Ellison’s stuff as they seem to generally disagree. Not knowing enough, I just take what she says on face value. I don’t blindly agree with all she says but I do respect her knowledge and experience.
err…obviously, …”lack of precision will mislead in predictable ways…”
> Well you made your case, […]
Now please cease and desist.
Or at least you resist
Joshua
“So the reasoning is that the term is misleading and imprecise, but because it has been used in a misleading and imprecise way, we should continue to use it in such a way, although, of course, when we are making a scientific argument, we should be clearer and more precise.”
That is not what I argued
“THAT is unfortunate but that is what the term has come to mean.
We can of course change that by being more precise. And in a science paper we would be more precise.”
observe; science paper versus scientific argument.
The choice of words and level of precision is a function of the rhetorical situation.
When people are space constrained or time constrained and where an audience is present to ask questions and seek clarification I would expect and tolerate more imprecision. If you made a scientific argument here ( like when hell freezes over) I would not expect you to be as precise as a scientific paper. Im here to question you, to ask for clarification, to get your response. I expect you to say half formed things or use simple terms, popular conceptions, loose language. we are in a dialog. I expect you to revise and extend. For example, you wont find me correcting your grammar or spelling. many time I wont even ask for cites because this is not a science paper. this is a blog. It is a rhetorical situation and in that situation the norms of discourse are different than the norms of a scientific paper.
A scientific argument made in a blog comment is different than a scientific argument made in a paper submitted to a journal. We may wish that everyone would aspire to journal level prose in blog comments. If that were the case you would have to shut up since that is well beyond your skills. So, I make allowances. Dont expect the scientific arguments here to be terribly precise. Dont expect them to be the considered judgment of those making them. They are writing off the cuff. If you want clarifications ask. think of it as peer review.
The level of precision required is a function of the rhetorical situation. journal prose should be dense and precise. the reviewers work to ensure this. Watch Phil jones go to town on a paper. The comments range from the stylistic to the substantive. Also note that no language is inherently precise.
All signs are potentially. misleading
Going down the chain I would expect congressional testimony to be less precise. Consider the audience. Also, if the audience wants more precision they are there to ask questions. to pin things down if they have time.
deciding how much precision is not solvable via any canonical set of rules. This means I can always criticize someone for being misleading. always.
That makes it a throw away criticism in my mind, but its fun to do. It doesnt advance our understanding. it its fun.
Further down the chain would be a blog post. Again, it would be nice if they aspired to journal level precision, but dont expect it and dont be disappointed when its missing. Of course you can ask for clarifications. This is best done in the form of a question rather than an accusation. And again its fun to quibble away about the details. There are two ways to do this: one is to personalize the issue ( what you do) the other is to focus on the issue.
that would be the academic approach.
at the bottom of the chain are blog comments. Given the rhetorical situation I expect almost no precision. It is FUN however to read a blog comment as if it were a journal article. in that case we can make all sorts of funny comments to our fellows. we can demand cites, we can poke fun at their spelling, at their latex mistakes.. and their contraditions bewtween comment X and comment Y from years ago.. It is good sport and nothing much more.
Josh,
Why try to make it something it is not? Mosher explained it in simple terms. The climate community has used a certain metric in defining global warming. And by that metric it is reasonable to discuss the “pause”. One can do so without reference to OHC. It has nothing to do with hypocracy or being dishonest. The only one at risk of being dishonest is you by trying to make an argument out of smoke and mirrors.
Skimming through, going back to sleep seems to be the best option, though I did notice a good post from Steve Postrel.
“Climate science needs to start thinking out of the box on this,” stated Secretary of Climate Kerry. “Now Senator Reid, he suggested ‘Climate Koch Brothers’… I think he’s on the right track but I’m not sure it’s quite what we need at this crucial hour in earth’s history.”
Many in the movement are pushing the idea of using a phrase instead of a single word.
“The problem has gotten much too big for just one word,” said a state-approved media climate expert. “We’ve got to go bigger, something like ‘Climate Totally Bad F*cking Sh*tstorm’… that would get the deniers’ attention.”
But there are problems with that approach as well. “It wouldn’t fit on a bumper sticker” said one activist. “At least, not if you drive a Chevy Volt.”
http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/shortage-of-frightening-new-euphemisms-latest-climate-crisis-t13985.html
That’s clearly freakin’ obvious to every freakin’ Climate etc denizen – eh?
R. Gates | June 2, 2014 at 12:16 am |
Ragnaar, thanks for bringing that once more everyone’s attention. The first line in the conclusion:
“Combined Satellite (CERES) and in-situ (Argo) observa/ons during the past 13 years (Mar00-Feb13) shows that Earth has been steadily accumula/ng energy at the rate 0.6 ± 0.26 Wm–2 (1σ conf).”
Gosh, I hope Chief Skippy Ellison knows this before he makes a complete fool of himself with his “Earth is cooling” pseudo science.
Comparisons of global steric height trends based on different gridded fields of Argo in situ measurements show a range of 0–1mm/yr which can be lead back to data handling and climatology uncertainties. Our results show that GOIs derived from the Argo measurements are ideally suitable to monitor the state of the global ocean, especially after November 2007, i.e. when Argo
sampling was 100% complete. They also show that there is significant interannual global variability at global scale, especially for global OFC. Before the end of 2007, error bars are too large to deliver robust short-term trends of GOIs and thus an interpretation in terms of long-term climate signals are still questionable, especially since uncertainties due to interannual fluctuations are not included in our error estimation.’ von Schuckman and Le Troan, 2011
Ragnaar,
I assume we are talking Loeb et al 2012 – Observed changes in top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and upper-ocean heating consistent within uncertainty
But back to Argo.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckannandLeTroan_zps45e82e5b.png.html?sort=3&o=23
So which one would you choose and why? I would choose the one that agrees with the highly accurate CERES anomalies.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=214
Unfortunately what it shows is the less cloud caused all of the warming last decade.
One of the latest ocean heat analysis I’ve seen says is that steric sea level rise was 0.2mm +/- 0.8mm/yr.
That’s certainly consistent with CERES which when extended to more recent times is showing bugger all trend.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/HadCRUT4vCERES_zpse5107cfd.png.html?sort=3&o=65
Randal seems typical of a certain type – a human headline machine with not a clue about the paper he waves about like some talisman of a warmist religion.
Amazing that actual quoted scientific conclusions don’t dissuade you Skippy Ellison.
Well, I did try.
Here’s the steric sea level – from NOAA.
‘Steric (Argo) 0.2 ± 0.8’
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ARGOGRACE__zps9386d419.png.html?sort=3&o=11
Here is Argo – graphed in the Global Marine Atlas using the Roemmich, D. and J. Gilson, 2009 Argo climatology updated by the Scripts Institute.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/OceanHeat_zpsb71f0636.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1
Here is the salinity data.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/OceanSalinity_zps1ac25cd9.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/30/the-astonishing-math-of-michael-ghils-climate-sensitivity/#comment-578072
This is argument Z – because I am not doing it again. I am tired of dancing with rabid gerbils on some ideological treadmill. Goodbye Randy-Andy.
1st Two points of the Summary:
Combined Satellite (CERES) and in-situ (Argo) observations during the past 13 years (Mar00-Feb13) shows that Earth has been steadily accumulating energy at the rate 0.6 ± 0.26 Wm–2 (1σ conf).
Combined satellite and in-situ data show no trend in TOA net radiation
imbalance for 1993 – 2013.
http://www.clivar.org/sites/default/files/GSOP/resops/DISCUSSION_II_LOEB.pdf
The 2nd point is not in agreement with the 1st one. I think TOA is the gatekeeper. On page 13, I see a flat CERES Net graph.
The 1st point is to one standard deviation. I think that’s abot 68%. At times the 2nd standard deviation is going to be double the 1st one, though I don’t know what their’s would have been.
We see their report in different ways with our biases. I see uncertainty in their report. I see a possible answer is flat OHC or no detectable change.
I see just how much more money we need to spend on ARGO and TOA monitoring.
Robert I Ellison | June 2, 2014 at 1:49 am |
I post that link sometimes when people are saying it’s in the oceans. If I see a neutral TOA and a neutral GAT, that implies a neutral OHC. It’s quick and leaves some things out I suppose, but it is the big 3. In ways it’s a pretty good accounting system. Simple and elegant. But we need better data and more satellites. I’d like to see at congressional testimonies, each Climate Scientist say, we need more satellites.
That’s an excellent link Ragnaar. I have copied it to my elibrary. Your progress continues to astound me.
Cheers
Robert I Ellison | June 2, 2014 at 5:03 pm |
Except for those posts I’d like to pull back.
I’d like to see more like what they put together.
For Andrew, Willard, Eric, and anyone else who may be traumatized by the worry that Frank Luntz had the power to transform public discussion of “global warming” … er … “climate change” in the past decade, fear not! Luntz certainly did not “coin the phrase” and the idea that one obscure Bush advisor could control the new public narrative of hostile (to Luntz, Bush, et al.) activists, scientists, media types, international bureaucrats and pols etc. is so freakin’ preposterous that your keyboards should melt for trying to imply or insinuate such a thing. The so-called “infamous Luntz memo” has zero relevance to the vast re-branding that the CAGW movement underwent with blissful disregard for what the Bush White House might say about anything.
Anyway, the usage for “climate change” in these debates goes back many years before the obscure Luntz memo (which certainly was not guiding the talking points for all those hostile to the Bush admin.). For instance, the item at NASA.gov posted in 2008 dates it to a Broeker article in “Science” (1975) and the “Charney Report” (1979) of the National Academy of Science. Then let’s not forget the very institutional names of “UNFCClimateChange” and “IPClimateChange.”
What’s in a Name? Global Warming vs. Climate Change. 12.05.08. [from Nasa.gov]
2008 pub. from the alarmist Climate Institute, utilizing “climate change” in their title (it seems that Frank Luntz is pulling the strings all over the place — C.I. was instrumental in organizing early alarm workshops and conferences from the late 1980s:
“Sudden and Disruptive Climate Change”
http://www.imagineindore.org/resource/29.pdf
p.s. I see that Judith Curry had an article in this 2008 pub. from the Climate Institute, but they may not be too pleased with her post-2009 positions…. for C.I. definitely seems to emphasize urgent alarm.
Fall 1988 conference sponsored by Sir Crispin Ticknell’s Climate Institute:
“Preparing for Climate Change”
http://www.climate.org/publications/Climate%20Alerts/1988/CIALERTVOL1-3FALL1988.pdf
The very title of the SAR?
“Climate Change 1995”
but activists and media folk needed Frank Luntz to tell them it was ok to use term “climate change” ??
IIPCC SAR SYR (1996), Climate Change 1995: A report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-1995/ipcc-2nd-assessment/2nd-assessment-en.pdf
> Anyway, the usage for “climate change” in these debates goes back many years before the obscure Luntz memo […]
Yeah, like I was suggesting that Luntz “invented” the term.
Citing the NASA does not disprove the use of the euphemism by the contrarian framing machine. The quote makes clear why we should use “climate change” to downplay the “global warming” part.
So thanks for the NASA reference.
Also, I don’t think I need to show that the Luntz memo has an impact in the media. While this could be done, my own point was rather to point out that Denizens should have the INTEGRITY ™ to mention Luntz. To that effect, all I need to assume is that Luntz’ memo was not the product of conservative monkeys jumping on typewriters.
***
In any case, Denizens might be interested in the graphs published there:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=326
Incidentally, the number of “climate change” increased a bit more than “global warming” in the 2000s. As Junior would say: “Coincidence? You be the judge!”
***
Some may argue that all this is not unlike raising concerns regarding “natural variability.”
This is really a silly discussion. Are we going to have 600 comments on this BS? And willy is the silliest. Who gives a flying F%$^ about Frank Luntz? The consensus clowns switched to calling it climate change so they could any bad weather event to CO2. Anybody who says it’s because of Frank Luntz is a liar and/or a dunce.
…attribute any bad weather event to CO2…
> Who gives a flying F%$^ about Frank Luntz?
W.
Next.
Willard,
(1) please, there is not the slightest “integrity” issue about your concocted need to cite Luntz, for any of us who did not know or care about the “infamous Luntz memo” — or who were not influenced by it in any way, even indirectly. This is one of the sillier talking points ever pushed by the SkS crowd and allies. He SkS graph of Google word counts shows usage of “climate change” soaring BEFORE the Luntz memo. Further, for all of us neither influenced by nor interested in Luntz, the PR emphasis upon “climate change” seemed to come far more from proponents than critics of climate alarmism. Without looking into the history of the two terms, I had long assumed that all the media usage of “climate change” did arise as the term “global warming” became an embarrassment to The Cause. So, no integrity issue here.
(2) For the “Luntz memo” to be relevant to this discussion you would need to show not only that it directed the usage for the entire Bush admin. (no evidence has been provided), but that such Bush admin. emphasis was effective in re-shaping the public discussions. Nothing I have seen suggests that the Bush admin. had any influence, never mind control, over the media narratives, NGOs, scientists speaking out, etc. in reference to “climate change”… Unless you can show some enormous public influence attained by the Luntz memo, it is indeed irrelevant to this discussion.
Attempting to insert it here is simply a propaganda move, as in “blame the nasty Bush admin.” for everything that has gone wrong with climate scare “messaging” in the past 10 (15?? 20??) years.
Don’t feel bad, nit your fault, downtrodden scaremongers, a Bush pollster ruined it all….. Frank Luntz, Puppetmaster!
Have it your way, wile e. Luntz, the Koch bros. and Carl Rove rule the world! Oh, and it’s Bush’s fault. What did you used to do when you had a real life, willy? I bet you used to be somebody.
Yes, willard –
Our friends make an excellent point. Why would you consider it relevant that a prominent political advisor would recommend the use of the term “climate change” because of its rhetorical advantages over the term “global warming” (by virtue of being less alarmist)?
What lame-brained insanity could lead you to think that Luntz’s advice could be relevant to the assertions, by my much beloved denizens, made over and over, that the term “climate change” was a ploy promoted by “realists” because it provides the rhetorical advantage of promoting “alarmism?”
Skiphil,
That the word “climate change” is used a bit more than “global warming” at the beginning of 2000s does not show that the Luntz memo caused it. In fact, it might even show what Luntz discovered with his panels. It’s just an interesting correlation.
That reality conspired to prove Luntz right is enough for me. To show that there was a change in the party lines regarding the usage of “climate change” or “global warming”, we’d need to look at the party lines. The same applies to anyone who’d assert that the libtards started it.
***
Here’s the Ngram for “climate change” FYEO:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=climate+change&year_start=1800&year_end=2014&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0
The first hit for “climate change” seems to be 1801.
I predict it’s a progressive.
We’ll see later.
I want to be careful here, because I don’t want to shock my much beloved “skeptics” to the point where their health is threatened, but I want to throw out the crazy possibility that some people may have felt that the term “climate change” was more precise than the term “global warming,” because the effects of ACO2 might entail more than just a straight-forward increase in temperatures.
Just crazy, right? I mean I realize that the more obvious conclusion is that it was all part of a massive conspiracy to promote a one-world government, but as unlikely as it is, I just thought an alternative explanation should be considered so it could be so thoroughly debunked so as to remove any doubt!
“some people may have felt that the term “climate change” was more precise than the term “global warming”
Joshua,
It’s less precise because it includes more possibilities.
You’re going backwards.
See if you can find some friends to play kickball with today.
Andrew
The alarmist clowns found it increasingly difficult to keep a straight face while blaming every bad weather event on global warming, particularly bitter cold winters and blizzards, so they switched to the catch-all climate change. End of story. But you alarmist monkeys can carry on blaming “skeptics”/Bush/Luntz for forcing you little malleable simians to go with climate change, if it makes you happy. Here’s another banana.
Joshua
there is a problem with both words
‘climate change’ does not put over the intended adverse input by man, in as much climate always changes and few would deny it.
‘global warming’ is imprecise because all the globe is not warming. it is warming in parts, cooling in others and static in others.
AGW is ok in as much it introduces the notion that man is a cause but few sceptics would disagree that man does have some impact, albeit it is greatly exaggerated.
So all phrases have some problems.
Climate weirding is a good scary one as is CAGW. but as scientific terms they don’t really measure up as neither is true.
tonyb
Joshua,
The fundamental expected effect of rising GHG’s is warming of the surface. Sure, their will be other indirect effects (increases in precipitation, changes in cloudiness, sea level rise, etc.) but many of these are less certain, and often dependent on the specific location in question. ‘Global warming’ does nicely suggest, well, general warming, which is what is actually expected.
By comparison, ‘Climate change’, is nebulous and does not even convey the basic effect of warming. The too often hysterical attribution of all kinds of extreme weather events to rising GHG levels, even when these make little or no sense (GHG’s cause exceptionally cold winter temperatures!), is facilitated when the moniker is ‘Climate change’ rather than the more physically descriptive ‘Global warming’. Using ‘Climate change’ just confuses instead of clarifies the fundamental issue. Since you seem to like precision in language, I am surprised you appear to prefer ‘Climate change’ over ‘Global warming’.
But if ‘Climate change’ is preferable to ‘Global warming’, then maybe we could find an even better name. How about ‘Global climate catastrophe’. While I admit that name is pure hyperbole, I think it is likely to get more public attention than either of the other names; and as the late Stephen Schneider noted, getting the public’s attention through fear and exaggeration is the most important communication issue for climate science.
tony –
Yes, all these terms are problematic. In fact, I’d say it’s unrealistic to think that there could be any terms that wouldn’t be problematic – because people are invested in making them so. What lies at the root of the problem is not the terms themselves, but that people aren’t invested in good faith exchange based on establishing clear and agreed upon definitions for whatever terms they’re using. Terms like “skeptic” and “realist” and “alarmist” and “denier” and “global warming” and “pause” and “climate change” and “acidification” are defined in alternate ways by opposing camps because it enhances the identity protective and identity aggressive agendas.
I have to say though, that it is particularly amusing that Luntz, a famous Republican strategist, advocated using “climate change” because it is less alarmist and yet, my much beloved denizens are telling me that “realists,” dishonestly injected the term “cliamate change” because it would further “alarmism.” Same ol. same ol.
My point is that by being more precise and detailed, we can limit the ambiguity in the terminology, and thus lessen the degree to which the terminology can mislead or be used to advance partisan agendas.
steve –
==> “‘Global warming’ does nicely suggest, well, general warming, which is what is actually expected. ”
This is a case in point to what I was describing to tonyb. “Global warming,” as in “global warming has stopped” as we found in the David Rose article endorsed by Judith, is misleading because it ignores an important uncertainty.
This is not complicated. One can make a point about the importance of a relatively short-term flattening out of a long term trend of significant increase in tropospheric temps without leaving out important uncertainties.
“Climate change” can be used in misleading ways, but it also adds an important component that is not necessarily indicated by the term “global warming.”
My point is that either term can be sufficient or insufficient, or clear or misleading, depending on how they are used. The problem is not with the terms themselves, but with how they are used. Specificity and precision are the cure, along with good faith exchange of views that starts with agreeing upon the meaning of various terminology. Just look at how “skeptics” are arguing about the relative value of the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in ways that are in stark contrast to a renown Republican strategist. My objection is to the “convenience” of reasoning about terminology that ignores obvious counterarguments, and that in the end only serves to confirm biases and tribalism.
==> “Since you seem to like precision in language, I am surprised you appear to prefer ‘Climate change’ over ‘Global warming’. ”
I guess I wasn’t precise enough with my language, because that’s not what I was trying to communicate. I don’t think that either term is particularly preferable, as a stand-alone term, to the other.
My god – why do people gravitate to such a binary mode of thinking about these issues?
Joshua
“My god – why do people gravitate to such a binary mode of thinking about these issues?”
1. because all thought happens in a system of signs.
2. because the system of signs is binary or can be reduced to a binary system.
The real question is what would non binary thinking look like
> Yes, all these terms are problematic.
Well, of course they are.
“Global warming” promotes an alarmist agenda.
“Climate change” hides an alarmist agenda.
That’s not complicated.
So we are limited by the laws of nature to thinking that either one term or the other is “better” as opposed to that both terms can be clear or misleading depending on how they are used?
It also struck me just now as amusing that while the study Judith posted about found, empirically, that the term “global warming” is more aligned with “alarmism,” my much beloved “skeptics” are convinced that the term “climate change” has been dishonestly leveraged by “warmists” for the specific purpose of promoting “alarmism.”
Same ol same ol.
Joshua
“This is a case in point to what I was describing to tonyb. “Global warming,” as in “global warming has stopped” as we found in the David Rose article endorsed by Judith, is misleading because it ignores an important uncertainty.”
One could believe this is your belief if you ALSO had made the following argument.
When folks posted charts of land and sea temps and said this was global warming, if you had popped up to argue.. “hey wait, this ignores OHC which is the better metric, but an uncertain record ” then we could have seen your dedication to clarity.
But we find no such dedication to clarity and precision. what we find instead is a selective dedication to precision and clarity.
Lets take an example that Anthony Watts loves. The coloring schemes of charts. Yes, he argues that they can be misleading. I don’t see you cheerleading him.
Lets take any one of the examples of misleading charts in Ar4 or misleading spagetti graphs. Funny I find you absent from the discussions. Funny there you seem to be silent on the issue of precision. i find it odd that you demand more precision from blog posts than you do from AR4?
Or lets take a recent example from the press misrepresenting the “collapse” of antarctica. Funny, I dont find Joshua waving the flag of precision.
It is fine of course to wave the flag of precision. But when you dod so inconsistently expect people to take note and wonder why.
If you had some principles.. say you expect more precision in journal articles than in blog posts.. then that would be understandable.
but the principles that guide your concerns seem grounded in something else. personalizing
Of course, your analysis of little joshie’s deficiencies is correct. But all your lecturing will change little joshie’s despicable and banal behavior not one iota. He is a little smarmy energizer troll with a hard shell. Impervious to scorn and unable to feel shame. Even the comedy is wearing thin.
I hear that Frank Luntz is going to put out a memo changing the meme branding from ‘climate change’ to ‘climate hoax’. It won’t take long for the little simian alarmists to fall in line behind their Pied Piper. Frank is a genius. He has been setting this up for a long time. Bang! The pause and Frank Luntz are killing the cause.
Joshua,
Sorry, I must respectfully disagree. If warming is the primary effect, then including the word “warming” in the name of the process seems to me pretty obvious. Otherwise we get names which mean nothing…. as with ‘climate change’ (the next ice age, or something else?) actually meaning global warming.
You can of course argue that ‘people of good faith’ would add all the needed explanations/clarifications to make any name, even “unicorn driven disruption”, actually mean the influence of infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere, but my experience is that there are relatively few people of such good faith, especially among those involved in discussions of global warming caused by GHG’s. Simpler, more clear, more accurate, and most of all, less misleading, is ‘Global warming’. ‘Climate change’ is, IMO, nothing but a bodge that confuses people. Whether creating confusion is intentional or not is a different subject.
steve –
I’ll give it one more shot and then just respectfully agree to disagree:
==> “Sorry, I must respectfully disagree. If warming is the primary effect, then including the word “warming” in the name of the process seems to me pretty obvious. Otherwise we get names which mean nothing…. as with ‘climate change’ (the next ice age, or something else?) actually meaning global warming. ”
I don’t believe that there needs to be a choice of one term to the exclusion of another. Yes, the notion of warming is obviously important – but so is the notion of ACO2 emissions causing other climatic changes. I can understand why someone might, very reasonably, feel that the term “global warming” is misleading in that it fails to address other effects fro ACO2.
==> “You can of course argue that ‘people of good faith’ would add all the needed explanations/clarifications to make any name, even “unicorn driven disruption”, actually mean the influence of infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere, but my experience is that there are relatively few people of such good faith, especially among those involved in discussions of global warming caused by GHG’s. Simpler, more clear, more accurate, and most of all, less misleading, is ‘Global warming’. ‘Climate change’ is, IMO, nothing but a bodge that confuses people. Whether creating confusion is intentional or not is a different subject.”
Moving past that your invocation of unicorns doesn’t seem particularly consistent with respectful disagreement, I agree that good faith is hard to come by in discussions about climate change. However, I think that bodge is too broad a characterization (thanks for that new word, btw). I’m not sure how to measure how much “confusion” is created by the term “climate change,” in contrast to the possibility that the term helps people to understand that the potential affects of ACO2 reach beyond, simply, increasing tropospheric temps.
I can certainly understand why it would appear, with certainty, to “skeptical” partisans that the term “climate change” was a lame CYA attempt to address a lack of materialized tropospheric warming, and so I appreciate that in contrast to the average “skeptical” denizen, you aren’t overly confident so as to pronounce certain conclusions about intent – but I would still suggest that: (1) to conclude about which term creates more confusion, it would be good to have some reliable data and, (2) again, both terms can create confusion (whether deliberately or not) and there is no reason that I can think of to waste much time on deciding which is more confusing – better to focus on being clear and precise, IMO, rather than be satisfied with choosing the lesser of two confusions.
Joshua,
You said: “(1) to conclude about which term creates more confusion, it would be good to have some reliable data”
Ummm… did you read Judith’s post before starting to comment? The part right at the top where she quotes the results of a study by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication:
“We found that the term “global warming” is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement, and support for personal and national action than the term “climate change.”
Does that not count as data?
steve –
So your argument is that the following:
indicate less confusion?
I think it’s complicated. For example, yes, using “global warming” would lead to a result of less confusion as to whether “human activities were the primary driver of warming.”
But would it lead to a greater understanding that assuming a GHE from ACO2 (of a significant magnitude), we should also expect climatic effects in addition to warmer tropospheric temps?
From “the Carbon Brief”:
Look – I wouldn’t go so far as to agree 100% with that statement, but I think that it touches on a valid point.
Judith responds with the following:
If you assume that the only intent is to “get around the inconvenient truth of the hiatus….” then I get the perspective. But like you, I am not so inclined to be so cavalier about ascribing intent. While what Judith speaks to may apply to some degree, it seems unlikely to me to be valid when applied across the board. Just consider the basic logical problem of her assertion in that the use of the term predates the onset of the “hiatus.”
And btw – as a shout out to my fans like mosher, Don, Al, and Tim, I want to acknowledge this statement from Judith:
While I am critical of her larger point, I do want to point out that she may have changed her terminology – and used “hiatus in global surface temperature increase” instead of “hiatus in warming” or “hiatus in global warming.”
That’s what I have been asking her to do (I’m not so naive as to think it’s causation as opposed to correlation), so I applaud. I hope that she’ll use that terminology the next time she testifies for Congress.
Maybe Judith finally noticed the yawning chasm between of “what concerns me is accuracy” and “hiatus in global warming”.
Let’s wonder how the expression “global warming” has any scientific merit without a specific frame of reference. Even “warming” may be dubious. And what about “global”!
We all know that the universe may very well be cooling down to a halt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
O, nothing beats the joy of watching a semantic argument between armchair linguists in the morning, with a good cup of coffee. Nothing represents inertia so well, not even Waiting for Godot.
Life is indeed an analogy.
==> “Maybe Judith finally noticed the yawning chasm between of “what concerns me is accuracy” and “hiatus in global warming”.”
So I can see you’re a glass full kind of guy.
Ooooh, my, the Obama White House was subverted by the mind-control of the “infamous Luntz memo” and they have not yet received the new Yale memo to revert back to global warming:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/climate-change
This post is about government policy and presentation. I came across today something I wrote for public servants in a policy course in 2010. Here’s a hopefully relevant extract with only light editing as I’m expecting a builder any moment:
… We therefore need to consider the issue of government failure – can government intervention be successful? What would that require? Even if government might in principle be able to improve on markets, what has occurred in practice?
Nobel-Prize-winning economist Gary Becker recently commented on why, when capitalism has produced the highest living standards in history and markets are demonstrably superior to governments, people place more faith in the latter. Becker notes that pro-market economists face an anti-market bias all the time: “Markets are hard to appreciate. People tend to impute good motives to government. And if you assume that government officials are well meaning, then you also tend to assume that government officials always act on behalf of the greater good. People understand that entrepreneurs and investors by contrast just try to make money, not act on behalf of the greater good. And they have trouble seeing how this pursuit of profits can lift the general standard of living. The idea is too counterintuitive. So we’re always up against a kind of in-built suspicion of markets. There’s always a temptation to believe that markets succeed by looting the unfortunate.” (Interviewed by Peter Robinson for the Wall Street Journal, 26/3/2010.)
So people are concerned about the relative incentives facing government and the private sector.
What are the incentives facing government? I’ve met many politicians over the last 50 years in England and Australia. Some of them have been well-motivated, with a genuine, strong, regard for the welfare of the community; but I think that this is decreasingly the case, as more and more of our elected representatives are life-long party-workers and apparatchiks. In almost all cases, there is, inevitably, a desire to achieve and retain power, and the incentives to win elections often outrank those for good public policy.
Bob Hawke had a huge ego, but was a very good Prime Minister who ran a genuinely reformist government, with several very good ministers. In 1985 I worked on a Ministerial Taskforce on Longer-Term Economic Growth, chaired by Senator Button. At the first meeting of the Taskforce, Button told the economists that we should forget ALP and ACTU policy, the government wanted to know what was best for the welfare of all Australians. By and large, the Hawke government followed that approach, and took a longer-term view – it was a great place for a public-spirited economist to work.
By contrast, for some hours on election night in Queensland in 1998, Peter Beattie would say only “jobs, jobs, jobs, that’s what I’m about; jobs, jobs, jobs.” “What’s this,” I thought, “government by mantra?” I found Beattie and his government to be totally ad hoc and reactive, with no long-term or holistic perspective, concerned solely with short-term political advantage and maintaining office, including by pandering to vested interests and looking after Labor mates.
As for “Jobs, jobs, jobs,” many of the Cabinet submissions which crossed my desk, including back-to-the-‘50s industrial relations laws, were job-destroying. Jobs grew in spite of the Beattie government, not because of it, and there was no recognition that growing wealth and employment ultimately depends on private sector initiative.
This ad hoc approach continued even after Beattie won by a landslide in 2001. The government had no principles, no framework, by which to pursue the community interest. Sadly, [then Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd, whom I worked for in the Office of Cabinet from 1991-93 and who is my local member, is in the Beattie mould.
By contrast, the economist’s tool-kit includes clear principles and frameworks with which to approach policy issues. This is a great help in developing policy options and assessing the merits of alternatives, both within a department and across portfolios. … As public servants involved in policy development and implementation, this aspect of economics is one of the most important for your work.
Incentives for public servants are also an issue. You all, I hope, joined the public service not solely to advance your own interests, but because you felt that you could improve the well-being of your fellow-Queenslanders. Unfortunately, pursuing a concern for the public interest is not always career-enhancing, particularly at the State Government level. I found the insider-outsider approach prevalent in the QPS. The insiders were those who pandered to ministers rather than giving them frank and fearless advice, and supported each others’ proposals, however misguided, because this was mutually beneficial in terms of more rapid promotion and an easier life. Anyone who did not subscribe to this cosy, self-serving ethic was by definition a threat, an outsider, and was to be treated as such. I’ve seen many examples of excellent officers who suffered from their side-lining and exclusion by the entrenched clique. In my own case, I was told by a highly-placed supporter that I was seen as a threat by senior management in Treasury and elsewhere because of my “honesty, integrity, intellect and analytical rigour” – the very qualities which had been highly regarded by other employers and colleagues.
It’s hard to see that in such circumstances, the incentives for public servants will produce better outcomes than those resulting from the “invisible hand” of free markets.
“People understand that entrepreneurs and investors by contrast just try to make money, not act on behalf of the greater good. And they have trouble seeing how this pursuit of profits can lift the general standard of living.”
They have trouble seeing that because free markets are simply not taught in western academe any more. Students are instead fed a diet of revisionist history and progressive/socialist economics.
And that is no accident. Progressive activists throughout the world thought their time was coming n the 60s, and it reached a peak in 1968 with student riots in the US and Europe.. But the revolution they hoped for never came. Whereupon they decided to take the long view, and do through education and political organization that which they could not accomplish by agitation.
The west is peopled with default progressives who know virtually nothing about their real history, or economics as a result.
Faustino
I think the internet has allowed us to turn over stones that previously were hidden to us.
Unfortunately, with greater transparency, we have found out many things about our politicians.
The first is that many (but of course not all) are not very smart.
The second is that they do not think long term.
The third is that often they are career politicians with little knowledge of the wider world.
Fourth, many do not have basic common sense.
Fifth, many seem to be motivated by greed-either for money or power or both.
Sixth, once elected they seem to develop a deaf ear and ignore what people want
You put that potent mix together and stir in ideology -which often over rides any virtues they might have- and you will see why over the last few years I have become President (and only member) of ‘ A plague on all your parties’ party.
Until we attract better and more worldly people who are more selfless (some of the 19th British politicians might fit into this mould) I see things only getting worse.
Personally, I would like to see on the ballot paper a tick box for ‘none of the above’. Just spoiling a paper does not put over voter dissatisfaction.
tonyb
Faustino,
I’ve been trying to think how I can score this comment high enough. I can’t so I have to use words.
What I can say is I’ve circulated it widely.
BTW, I seem to remember you mentioning in a comment a year or so ago that you also advised on of the UK prime Ministers. Can you tell me which one, or if my memory is wrong on that (very likely) straighten me out on what role you had and who you were advising in the UK government.
Peter, to be precise, I worked in the Economics Division of the National Economic Development Office, which advised the NED Council, chaired by Harold Wilson then Edward Heath. Unlike at EPAC, I didn’t get to meetings with the PM, althought he Council did meet in our offices. I did have the privilege (!) of sitting next to Tony Benn at a meeting, and ran across Michael Foot – a self-serving opportunistic Leftie and a highly-principled Leftie respectively. NEDO also had industry divisions, and I got to deal with heads of industry.
Excellent post. Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with presenting “clear principles and frameworks…”. One is it takes real work and thinking – traits not commonly found in contemporary politics. Another is that presenting clear principles and frameworks don’t fit well into 30 second sound bites, whereas “Jobs, jobs, jobs” does. Lastly, clearly defining your principles enables opponents to twist them into into someting you would not recognize – this practice is done by both sides, but is done much more successfully by the left with the aid of the MSM influencing the no/low information voters. Politicians like Harry Reid cans say pretty much anything about Romney not paying taxes, or Koch brothers being evildoers, and the MSM simpy reports what Harrry says and in many cases, reinforces the statements. Outlandish statements by GOP leadership more often are, rghtly, ridiculed by the MSM, and the MSM uses such statements as examples of racism, war on women, or someother trumped up charge offered by the left.
As a leftist who I hope is rational, I can only remind you that governments can succeed where markets fail. We all hope that governments remember the limits to what they can achieve, but the fact is that markets don’t always work, they need regulation to be most effective and markets don’t cover the entire spectrum of human experience.
Yes, let’s have government cover the entire spectrum of human experience. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
==========
Tom Fuller,
By far the opposite is the case. In the overall context, the statement is not supported by the evidence. Governments, bureaucrats, politicians and special interests groups are worse not better, overall, than appropriately lightly regulated markets.
A hope and a prayer. Not want actually happens in the real world. Wishful thinking. Idealistic. Naive.
Nothing “always works” best. But for the vast majority of the time freeish lightly-regulated markets work much better than centrally controlled, big government, command and control economies.
Some regulation is required. Few would disagree. But there is a massive difference between the regulation the level of the Left advocate and appropriate, minimalist, light regulation the economic rationalists advocate.
“A simple rule for governments to follow is to make it as easy as possible for businesses to produce things that other businesses or people will be prepared to pay their hard-earned cash to buy. All economic policies should be measured against this “good economics” benchmark.”
Peter Smith, Quadrant
Rationality by Peter Lang, supporting data by FOMD!
The reason is simple common sense: societies that invest for the long-term, in the education and health of their citizens, and in the integrity and health of their ecosystems, prosper relative to short-sighted market-ideology nations.
Conclusion Optimal levels of market regulation are associated to public-private hybrid economies exemplified by nations like Denmark, Holland, Norway, and Sweden.
Thank you for sharing your evidence-based economic insights with Climate Etc readers, Peter Lang!
Fan
I think there is good case for Governments to act as an active pump primer in some instances, as the prime provider in others and keep their noses out in others.
As an example of the former, personally I would favour a CERN type project supported by western Government and generously funded for 5 years. Its object being to find new commercially viable sources of cheap energy, improve on existing energy technologies and work on improving battery storage capabilities. This should be with the intention of standing aside and letting the free market develop them in due course.
I can not see the free market doing this themselves at the scale required as the return is not obvious.
tonyb
Tony, think: who is more likely to find “new commercially viable sources of cheap energy”? Entrepreneurs who thrive or fail on their capacity to innovate and assess the risks and returns, or government-funded bodies with no skin in the game? Robert Ellison suggests that if government wants to give this field a kick-along, then it offers a billion-dollar prize and steps back. If there is a role for government here (I’m not admitting it), then it is better that it remove impediments/increase incentives for commercial operators. Government intervention in such fields tends to distort relative prices and misdirect resources. Think ethanol, failed solar ventures etc.
I suggested in The Australian recently that governments need to be “nimble” in the modern world. But they aren’t, they have tremendous inertia, and they and their minions will keep pursuing blind alleys long after they should give up; they don’t have the incentives to stop that commercial operators do, indeed, they have incentives to continue.
Leftist Tom, I’m neither a leftist nor a rightist. I was a long-term UK Labour then ALP supporter, they both lost their way, pursue policies which IMHO are not in their community’s interest and govern badly. I argue for policies which seem to me to better serve the broad welfare of the community, which to me includes policies which allow people to develop as individuals and make their own decisions as to what is best for their welfare. The larger and more intrusive the government, the greater the level of dependency. I think that’s unhealthy. Economically, Australia is moving to a position where almost all job growth is government-dependent, and is not wealth-creating. Whatever anyone’s views on re-distribution, if you constantly act against wealth-creating sectors, everyone will end up poorer than they could be, the resources to deal with problems of whatever kind will be reduced.
Oh,now kim, be nice. That was not a fair inversion–more like a perversion, don’t you think? And you need to give me blank verse for my blank mind, remember?
Remember kim, I wrote “markets don’t cover the entire spectrum of human experience.” Mind the gap.
Except that government is never really held accountable for failures, and in fact, government failures frequently perpetuate more government involvement leading to even more failure. In other words, the government identifies a problem, decides to fix it by intervening, and makes the problem worse. The worse the problem gets, the more government intervenes unitl we simply enter into a death spiral – which is, unfortunately, where we seem to be.
In the UK at least, I think government was deceived into thinking that new and better energy sources were “just round the corner” in an economic sense.
This led, IMO, to the thinking that if they just made traditional energy sources more expensive with taxes, and incentivised the expected benefits with subsidies then we would be set on the golden path. Industry would fix the problem. Government could then sit back, let the private sector invent new technology, and receive everlasting gratitude from the electorate.
Of course what they get is depressed economic growth, an inability to continue funding other things they would like to, and increasingly impoverished angry voters.
‘Renewables’ companies and consultants simply pocketed the profits from subsidies.
And the new technology hasn’t arrived yet because it is not that easy to wish inventions out of thin air. People have been unsuccessfully trying to improve some of these technologies for over a century. The lead-acid battery was invented in 1859.
I am all in favor of trying to find improvements, and even spending taxpayer’s power where appropriate to do so. But making technical policy and laws based on instructions from Greenpeace is foolishness.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I have come to the conclusion that most rules and regulations are the result of the 20% or less of actors who for whatever reason cannot or will not consider the impacts of their actions on others. In other words, the few screw it up for the rest of us. Markets are not always good at self regulating this behavior. Don’t believe it? Try arguing that the CAA and the CWA were unnecessary when enacted. The problem, in my opinion, is that once given the power to regulate, government is not prone to stopping. That this is accurate can be clearly seen in our Constitution and its many limits on government, the most powerful being the 2nd Admendment.
Thx Faustino fer the benefits of yr experience regarding government interventionism.
On modern states, in ‘Antifragile,’ Nassim Taleb argues that much
of our modern structured world has been harming us with top down policies, subject to what he calls ‘Soviet-Harvard ‘delusions, that is,
an over estimation of the scientific knowledge of a phenomenon.
Say, we can’t even predict the stock market a few hours out.(
bts
Words are the keystrokes with which we programme our minds. They represent in large part our connection with the universe. They are therefore crucially important. The promoters of both “climate change” (weasel words) and “global warming” (limp) have clearly been advised by communications experts on this, and the latter have perhaps got it wrong.
May I suggest that a more cogent phrase would be “catastrophic planetary overheating” ? All that would then be requisite would be to find proof of evidence of it, don’t you think?
The scientists and historians who were chartered by this guy were foresighted to frame ‘stabilization’ against ‘disruption’ as the primary objective of climate-policy, eh Judith Curry?
Because Pope Francis’ framing of ‘stabilization against disruption’ is well-suited to young scientists *AND* young family-starting voters *AND* policy makers, isn’t that right?
Moreover, Pope Francis’ framing adroitly evades denialist shibboleths such as “We don’t know the optimum climate state”, and “No policy action can be taken until absolute scientific certainty is achieved”, and “Risks more than a few decades in the future can be discounted entirely”, and the utterly moronic (thanks kim!) “to the extent that man can cause change, it can only be to net benefit“.
Good on `yah for a rational, foresighted, morally grounded, and economically practical framing of climate-change science and policy, Pope Francis!
Ah yes, the difference between science and religion. I am talking about global warming as science, not religion.
To the degree that science informs policy, science informs morality too. And conversely, to the degree that morality informs policy, morality informs science too (regarding which there is ample scientific precedent).
The Pontifical Academies acknowledge this inseparability, as do the hundreds of scientists who attend the Pontifical Academies’ well-respected workshops, eh Judith Curry?
Young scientists (especially), and young family-starting voters, alike celebrate and rejoice in this well-functioning trans-discipline inter-faith partnership!
At one point the church viewed it as ‘immoral’ to discuss the Earth orbiting the Sun.
LOL … Yes, over many centuries the Church of Peter has learned (the hard way) to respect science: first in matters of astronomy and navigation, then in matters of disease and public health, nowadays in matters of ecology and climate-change. The result is that nowadays the Church consults eminent scientists in every aspect of its missions.
Good on `yah for slow-yet-sure learning, Church of Peter!
Question How long before Ayn Rand’s Church of Willfully Ignorant Market Fundamentalism learns the same science-respecting lessons?
The world wonders! Young researchers especially!
‘stabilization’ against ‘disruption’ … The rhythm method for AGW birth control
Now, now Judy. FAN has proven that today’s young people are Quaker papists (or is that Paper Quakists? I get confused by his comments, I confess).
The funny thing is that the United States (and Obama implicitly in today’s directive from the throne) are “doing something”- the same thing they mocked Sarah Palin for: drill, baby, drill.
The “C” in AGW was supposed to be an argument for doing something other than transitioning to gas and nuclear (which are not opposed by Republicans). It is something that today we no longer even consider the “C” and are debating the “GW”. With or without any of the letters, we will transition to gas and nuclear- it’s inevitable IMO. We’re only waiting on the warmists to stop their denial.
“At one point the church viewed it as ‘immoral’ to discuss the Earth orbiting the Sun.”
Someone needs to learn a little real history, rather than the revisionism she was taught along with the “consensus climate science” she learned and accepted for so long.
When one realizes she was conned by her progressive teachers and professors in one area, shouldn’t it lead to just a little more critical analysis of the other dogma they taught?
Copernicus was a monk for one thing. And both he and Galileo learned at universities founded by the Catholic Church. You might note that Coperincus, who died just before Galileo was born, never faced any prosecution for his theory.
Galileo got in trouble when he started lecturing, not about science, but about Biblical interpretation. He was in fact right about that as well, but that was the core of his problems. Heliocentrism was long “talked about” among scientists and clergy alike, before and after Galileo.
The scientists and historians who were chartered by this guy were foresighted to frame ‘stabilization’ against ‘disruption’ as the primary objective of climate-policy, eh Judith Curry?
Because Pope Francis’ framing of ‘stabilization against disruption’ is well-suited to young scientists *AND* young family-starting voters *AND* policy makers, isn’t that right?
Moreover, Pope Francis’ framing adroitly evades shibboleths such as “We don’t know the optimum climate state” … and … “no policy action can be taken until absolute scientific certainty is achieved” … and … “risks more than a few decades in the future can be discounted entirely” … and the stupifying (thanks kim!) “to the extent that man can cause change, it can only be to net benefit“.
Good on `yah for a rational, foresighted, morally grounded, and economically practical framing of climate-change science and policy, Pope Francis!
Science as religion, FOMD.
Notice how Hawking’s flip flop on black holes is brought about by his fsith in the ‘certainty’ of quantified ‘information’.
http://www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawking-there-are-no-black-holes-1.14583
I have to say that you have exposed a rich comic vein with your character’s unearned condescension. Just not sure if being laughed at is what you are after.
I don’t mind declaring my ignorance of all things climatic, even though I have an interest, but then who doesn’t. (My professional interest is information and systems thinking.)
A couple of things grabbed my interest recently
1.Global warming a boon for Greenland farmers – it’s an ill wind that blows no good.
“Known for its massive ice sheets, Greenland is feeling the effects of global warming as rising temperatures have expanded the island’s growing season and crops are flourishing. For the first time in hundreds of years, it has become possible to raise cattle and start dairy farms.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/arctic-harvest-global-warming-a-boon-for-greenland-s-farmers-a-434356.html
2.Norse Settlement and the Decline of Greenland
“The beginning and end of the Norse settlements of Greenland are tied to climate change. Warmer temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period, beginning around 950 AD, resulted in opening of Northern passages and allowing sea travel along present-day Iceland, Greenland, and the Canadian Archipelago. Beginning in 985, settlers on Greenland set up farms and traded iron for ivory with the nearby Inuit. However, the colonies collapsed by the fourteenth century, due to a multiplicity of factors, including environmental degradation resulting from agriculture, the cooler climate of the Little Ice Age, which closed the boat channels, cutting off contact with Norway, and competition and conflict over dwindling resources with the Inuit.”
http://www1.american.edu/ted/ICE/norse.html
And thats one of the things that perks my interest. Why all this interest in Greenland’s Ice sheets. Haven’t we been here before? We had Greenland’s ice sheets retreating in the early 10th cent sufficient for agriculture to be conducted by Vikings. Then something happened to get the ice sheets back and now they are going again. Why is this not the normal cycle of events?
Commendable modesty by R. Gresty, Big Carbon’s allies-in-ignorance by FOMD!
Young scientists and young family-starting voters appreciate that you have plenty of company, R. Gresty!
Ah! If only I was young once more. When all the problems of the world were so clear and easy to solve and I was eager to solve them. Now towards the end of my professional life I have come to realise it’s not the solutions that are so very difficult, it’s the questions, they are the real difficulty. For unless you ask the right questions it is impossible to get the right answers.
R, “Now towards the end of my professional life I have come to realise it’s not the solutions that are so very difficult, it’s the questions, they are the real difficulty.”
now that is friggin’ profound:)
+1,000 captdallas
Why not change your handle to the more appropriate one of “Fan of More Snark” as your “discourse” shtick played out yonks ago, and now snark is where you are at.
It’s really time for the technocrats who know the AGW agenda to get off their hands and high horse as if the debate is simply abstract and academic;
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/30/report-epa-climate-rule-will-cripple-coal-industry-cost-224000-jobs/
We’re (The U.S.) on the edge as a new Soviet state backed by junk science, witchcraft social values and a one party banana republic structure all on the same dreary topic. Academics have followed their cultural bias, EPA and military have installed ideologues to pursue the agenda. The media is a one party structure in bulk.
Congress should immediately move to defund much of the partisan use of that agency and the alleged “science” community should side both with the democracy and reason in backing such curtailment.
Dr. Curry’s benevolent equivocation of the topic is appalling given the events. She should denounce the greenshirt climate agenda that distorts the “science” communities utility (which they largely control) in the matter at once. She observes the culture but only speaks indirectly in relation to the current policy being pursued politically. It’s woefully inadequate to the stakes and abuse observed.
Yet on the other hand, cwon14, perhaps the TeaParty’s willful ignorance of science and post-Randian economics may slowly be improving?
Younger conservative-minded scientists (in particular) surely hope so!
Only looking at one side of an issue is a recipe for either deep depression or unsupported optimism.
One of the great things about our system in the US is that it has withstood poor leadership a number of times. And when it is particularly bad, people usually see past the ideology and vote for the “other” guy. Assuming the new EPA emissions rules stand, they are unlikely to be implemented immediately due to challenges in court. A lot could happen before they do get implemented. And if critics are correct on the issue of increased costs for energy or FERC’s concern about impact to reliability of the electrical grid, they can be overturned almost as easily as they were implemented.
The US will weather this storm, in large part due to its ability to change course.
Do we need more proof that Western academia has turn English into a liars language?
Lessons,
Steve Mosher admits the pause in surface temperatures although he fails /refuses to see there can be two reasons (or more for this) .
Judith acknowledges a pause.
Hansen acknowledges a pause.
Mann’s hockey stick is all about a pause being impossible yet here it is .
IPCC supported models deny a pause but it is present. R Pielke in good company with Mosher and R Gates (how the two former must cringe) suggest that OHC is the bees knees as, if it exists, it will be the holy grail. Now 40 years of rising temps has turned and it has gone down the drain.
Now as any fool knows, if the oceans are heating up on the surface, and it is icy cold below, the heat is not going to go very far down for very long. Hot air and hot water rises. Hot water will stay on top or rise up again quickly not slowly . Talk about hot ocean currents is not about 5 degree hotter water down below. It is about 0.01 degrees of difference, it is all cold.
Is there more heat in the oceans. No one knows. No one can measure R Pielkes OHC with any degree of accuracy without huge error discrepancies.
Sea level rise implies some extra heat but again the measurements are so minute as to be outweighed by the error bars and adjusted measurement shenanigans.
While Roger and Mosher are technically right the indisputable fact that OHC is so reproducibly inaccurate means anyone can twist it whichever way they want as shown by many a HCV above.
If one looks beyond the US, it is interesting to see different terms being used as the most common. I co-authored a study which looked at full text newspaper archives (our corpus contains ca 100m words). We analyzed articles in the French, German, UK and US press. The most frequent term in France is effet de serre (greenhouse effect); in Germany it is Klimaschutz (climate protection), in the UK it is climate change and in the US it is global warming. Only after 2008 did climate change become more prominent in the US (not after 2003, see the references to Luntz and Bush above). See p.224 for the graph in our paper.
There may be reasons from a climatologist’s view to prefer some terms over others but the fact is that the public discourse does not care, that meanings of terminology may be shifting, and that there are significant national differences.
A potential suspect:
Let’s close that blockquote before
> The CAGW enviro-activist militia who corrupted the scientific discourse with meaningless words has a long tradition.
(H/T Hulme.)
willard –
I absolutely love the term “CAGW enviro-activist militia..” I looked in your link and Googled for the source, but came up empty. Could you provide it?
It’s a paraphrase, Joshua, or if you prefer a digest:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fjudithcurry.com+CAGW+enviro-activist+militia
I dedicate it to Wagathon, to whom I express my sincere admiration.
How about we make a break loose from the Eurocommies? Our Amerocommies should immediately begin a new fear campaign: AGD — Anthropogenic Global Drought!
Instead of thermometers, Western science must embark on a program to determine average global rainfall on the Earth. It may already be too late.
Very good article from CarbonBrief
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/06/qa-obama’s-plan-to-cut-coal-and-gas-emissions/
I thought the Forbes article was relatively fair and balanced from a Republican perspective: http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/06/02/obama-epa-issues-coal-killing-rules-to-cut-carbon-emissions-30-percent/
The good news is that we are already half way there.
Stephen Segrest and Judith Curry
Both articles are good.
The “first half” was easy in the USA.
As the articles point out, whether the USA reach the “second half” or not will depend on how quickly it can get the regulatory hurdles to nuclear power generation lifted and (in the interim) how it can get new coal capacity replaced by natural gas (including permits for fracking, etc.).
Both will require action – and not just words – from the administration.
And certainly not misguided solar or wind adventures that achieve nothing.
Or (least of all) a direct or indirect carbon tax.
So let’s see if this administration is ready to do what is needed to achieve the goals it has set for itself or if this is all just oratory.
Max
The wheel is essentially responsible for 100 percent of the country’s total gas emissions. The time has come for President Obama to launch a new bold initiative and tackle US greenhouse gas emissions problem beginning with weaning the US off its reliance on the wheel.
While doing a search of the Pielke-Holdren debate came across the blog “Climate Progress”. Can’t believe the outright lies. They described Pielke’s background as Political Scientist and one the comments was, roughly, “How can a political scientist criticize a scientist (Holdren) of such high standing?”
I guess an exception is made for Leftist political scientists like, Al Gore…
Sounds good to me. But do air-cushion vehicles really get better mileage? Permit me some skepticism…
The wheel, many incorrectly assumed, increased efficiency; but, at what cost? The real cost of wheel-use has been hidden… until now. We have reached a tipping point due to runaway wheel use and the future of the Earth is stake.
The aztecs knew the danger!
Perhaps barges and boats were their undoing.
I prefer the full description: The Theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW).
Going from back to front:
We’re talking about Global Warming here. Nobody seems to give a rats patootie about cooling (but they should).
We’re talking about anthropogenic warming. I.E. warming caused by man. Nobody gives a cow-pattie about natural warming.
We’re talking about catastrophic stuff here. Nobody can spare the time of day about moderate or luke-warm global warming. If it’s not catastrophic: Meh. Let’s worry about something else. Spend scarce resources elsewhere. How about cancer!?
Lastly, we’re talking about a Theory here. CAGW has not been proven. Heck, there’s even some doubt about AGW, but I’ll grant the catastrophists a little credit and say: ok, maybe some small amount of the recent warming is us. However, the science is not “settled.” True Science is NEVER settled. Hence: it’s a theory.
@ Walt Allensworth
“Lastly, we’re talking about a Theory here. ”
Actually Walt, it SHOULD be a theory; it is not. Climate Science treats it as an axiom:
“An axiom, or postulate, is a premise or starting point of reasoning. As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy.”
In all other sciences, theory is adjusted to fit data.
Climate Science routinely ‘adjusts’ data to confirm the axiom.
We’ve lost our fear of hellfire, but put climate change in its place
“Billions will die,” says Lovelock, who tells us that he is not normally a gloomy type. Human civilisation will be reduced to a “broken rabble ruled by brutal warlords”, and the plague-ridden remainder of the species will flee the cracked and broken earth to the Arctic, the last temperate spot, where a few breeding couples will survive.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3622794/Weve-lost-our-fear-of-hellfire-but-put-climate-change-in-its-place.html
Monday 16 January 2006
James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years
We are in a fool’s climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/james-lovelock-the-earth-is-about-to-catch-a-morbid-fever-that-may-last-as-long-as-100000-years-523161.html
James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change
One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change
Hardtalk – James Lovelock – Population reduction (max 1 billion)
http://tinyurl.com/ph2tmlw
Matt Briggs ably deconstructs the Prophet Lovelock
Since it is Lovelock’s comment about human ignorance that is our subject today, it is well to point out that Lovelock himself lacks the mental capacity to see the inconsistencies in his theory, despite being given plenty of time to notice them, and being given the able assistance of many critics.
Take the statement “humans are too stupid to take care of themselves.” This implies that Lovelock has somehow discovered a way to become non-human. By which I mean, he has found a way to circumvent his humanity, to rise above it. He has found Enlightenment! He is Earth’s Prophet!
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2156
His Divine Holiness the Former Religious Head of the UK
(Chief Scientism-ist), the Right-Reverend Sir David King.
Why Antarctica will soon be the only place to live – literally
Sunday 02 May 2004
Antarctica is likely to be the world’s only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked, the Government’s chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said last week.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/why-antarctica-will-soon-be-the-ionlyi-place-to-live–literally-58574.html
His Divine Holiness, Sir David King, ably deconstructed by Steve Mc : )
David King: Hot Girls and Cold Continents
http://climateaudit.org/2008/07/22/david-king-hot-girls-and-cold-continents/
In religious terms, the Polar Regions are in effect the New Jerusalem for those of the Scientism/Gaian/CAGW Religion. The recent episode commonly referred to as the “Ship of Fools” would really have been better characterized as a pilgrimage.
However I may have a certain detail wrong. Perhaps rather than the New Jerusalem, Mecca may be more appropriate. It would be easier to ascertain if the pilgrimage had not been interrupted. I understand the stoning of the Deniers normally would take place at the end of the pilgrimage!
We can be sure of the profound fundamental “scientific” importance of this endeavor by essential practices such as Yoga. :) Presumably in the spirit of “sustainability” they were testing something more robust and substantial than the sheer see through Yoga pants that were such the rage recently!
Also apparently, they practiced knot tying; no doubt of the Gordian variety, with ne’er a Denier in sight to cut it for them!
To keep spirits up, singsongs were apparently in vogue, probably the Gaian version of Kumbaya whatever that would be. : )
Richard Tol I believe noted that few of the PHD students areas of interest had to do with Antarctica.
What then was really the purpose of the pilgrimage of PHD students and tourists ?.
To those true Scientism/Gaian/CAGW believers, currently in denial and despair, there is hope for the future : )
Why not sign up for the next Antarctic pilgrimage?
We know of course that the curse of humanity has doomed the planet. The Prophet Lovelock has told us so! Also humans are too stupid to understand climate change. The Prophet Lovelock has told us this as well ! What hope can we therefore entertain for the post human planet?
Clearly, in the words of the Prophet Lovelock, the only hope for the planet is for a few “breeding pairs” of PHD students and select tourists to populate the post human planet : )
cheers
brent
@ brent
Well, you gotta admit that Lovelock got at least THIS right: “Human civilisation will be reduced to a “broken rabble ruled by brutal warlords”, “.
At least if the progressives and the Obamunists have their way, since they are apparently hell-bent on becoming the warlords in question, after they have ensured that the energy required to sustain civilization is regulated out of existence.
Look at the edges of ice sheets and at the tails of glaciers. None of the ice you find there fell as new snow that fell there and lasted through the summer. All the ice at the edges of ice sheets and at the tails of glaciers, fell years before, on top of ice that fell on top, during the year before. Look at ice core data. More snow falls in the warm years and less in the cold years. This is the ice that causes ice extent to increase.
Ice advances after years of more snowfall in warm years.
Ice retreats after years of less snowfall in cold years.
So each year it is warm increases the odds the next year will be cold and vice versa? How do you get long trends when each year makes continuing in the same direction less likely? Or have I missed something here?
There is year to year ups and downs. When Arctic Oceans are more open, it snows following that and the next few years will be less open. But Oceans are warm and we will have many years of more snow before we get enough to put us in the next Little Ice Age.
Conventional Consensus Climate Wisdom is really lame.
They use orbit and tilt and solar cycles to make earth cold. That turns off the snowfall and then they use cold, frozen, oceans and the less snowfall to build ice volume. That does not work.
You must have warm, wet oceans to build ice volume.
Give this some thought and look at actual data.
Earth is taking water from the oceans and building ice volume, now and for the next hundred years or more. The advance of the ice extent will come later, after the ice on top of old ice gets heavy enough.
Consensus Climate People do not understand the Polar Ice Cycles. That is why their Models are Always Wrong. They are still taking away ice volume and reducing ice extent. Mother Earth has stopped reducing ice extent and is rebuilding the ice volume. Watch the data as this plays out.
“Earth is taking water from the oceans and building ice volume.”
____
This is just not happening. You are either radically confused or intentionally making things up. Net global glacial ice has been in decline for some time.
Look at leap second data. Higher oceans slow down the spin rate of earth. Spin rate has been increasing over the past 40 years. That means the oceans are really dropping and ice is being placed closer to the spin axis.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html
They get the rising oceans with adjustments, not with measurements.
Just thinkin’. If back a hundred or so years ago they had worried as much about whether to use ‘quantum mechanics’, ‘quantum theory’, or ‘quantum physics’ we wouldn’t be wasting time on the internet now…. I had never known language is so restricting. I mean, one could use whatever term one wants and then clarify its use. That’s not a bad idea in this climate–er, in current circumstances–anyway.
Ms. Curry, thanks much for Climate Etc.. As a non-scientist and political agnostic, my ears pricked up when I started hearing the term “climate change denier” and decided I should educate myself about the issue. (I totally believe in Transubstanciation by the way.) Happily I found you. The “warmist” sites seem to have a low level of discourse. The censoring of skeptics astounds me. Your “30-1” post was an eye opener. The road of history is littered with the burning, stinking wreckage of “settled science.” That’s the way it should be. Thanks for your courage.
John Smith
Well said.
tonyb
You have a lot of fellow travelers on this road. Dr. Curry personifies quality science.
Alarmism, ca 1895:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_47/July_1895/Climate_and_Health
This is not exactly the same usage as the one as we are discussing, but that’s a start.
We don’t have evidence of Dr. Taylor’s political affiliation, although sources tell us that his grandson had some sense of humour, which may indicate he was a Republican:
http://www.oocities.org/hfsbook/hoff/ch16a.htm
Notice also the title of that book: Heralds of Freedom
The plot thickens.
Alarmism? Not
Here is alarmism
This change is coming, if we dont do X, then Y horrible thing will happen.
you need to be more precise in your use of alarmism.
noting potential concerns is not alarmism.
When you sound an alarm that is a call to action.
write that down.
an integral component of alarmism is a call to action. ring the alarm
Atonic, depressing, and injurious.
Moshpit’s comment may have the same effect as climate change.
“Moshpit’s comment may have the same effect as climate change.
if you suggested that Judith take immediate action. that would be alarmist.
as it stands you’ve only made an assessment.. err an assertion.
and one that doesnt address the argument WRT what constitutes
alarmism.. you know the first word in your post before you provided an example..
which was not, as I pointed out, an example of alarmism.
This is alarmist:
“Moshpit’s comment may have the same effect as climate change, do something before something horrible happens”
This
Moshpit’s comment may have the same effect as climate change.
is mere assertion with no call to action.
An alarmist typically uses coercion or intimidation.. not debate to force an action. Often they overstate the case or focus n the worst outcomes.
Intimidation: cross that green line and I wont be your co author
Coercion: remove that editor or else
saying the debate is over is a form of intimidation IF it is followed up by
characterizing your opponents as psychologically ill.
lets see more examples of alarmism.. it will help elucidate the common meaning
RE Mosher’s comments having the same effect as climate change
If by that you mean no decernable effect, you might be correct.
But probably not. Mosher often interjects informative points to consider. He has an effect on my opinions from time to time. As yet I haven’t seen anyone here produce evidence for decernable effects from climate change.
An interesting instance of the “alarm” concept:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/11/denial/
There you go: enlightenment alarmism.
Using the D-word is tyranny at its worst. Way better to say “this is not in my radar” to signal that people ought to think by themselves.
No one expects the end of the enlightenment.
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. McCarthy is just around every corner.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken
“Imaginary hobgoblins” by cwon14, links by FOMD!
Few (if any) young scientists are buying the Koch/cwon14/Heartland/WUWT brand of “hobgoblin denialism”, isn’t that right Judith Curry?
> But from a scientific perspective, I’m not sure that the phrase ‘climate change’ has any meaning at all.
This may explain why H. H. Lambs prefers to talk about changes of climate, vintage 1972:
For the rest of the definition, v. Climate: Present, Past, and Future, Volume 1, p. 5.
again playing stupid.
Climate change as a noun to used to discuss what we may experience from increased C02 is losing meaning from a scientific perspective as Judith notes. The argument is simple. The more we attribute any change any phenomena to ‘climate change’ in other words the broader and more inclusive that term becomes, the more it loses its scientific meaning.
A good description in science rules things out. A good description picks things out that have relatively unchanging referents.
In Lambs work you see he is working from the opposite direction from some specified types of changes to a umbrella term for them.
In one case we start with an umbrella term that is used to capture more and more. Changes in mental health– ah climate change.. changes in insect colors– ah climate change.. willards playing stupid.. its connected to climate change. Lamb thinks the other way. in the way a historian thinks
> Climate change as a noun to used to discuss what we may experience from increased C02 is losing meaning from a scientific perspective as Judith notes.
This is not what Judy says, but it’s always a pleasure to see Moshpit whiteknight. Here’s what Judy says:
(J1) ‘climate change’ helps you get around the inconvenient truth of the hiatus in global surface temperature increase.
(J2) ‘climate change’ implies that any change, or weather you don’t like, is caused by humans.
(J3) ‘climate change’ has no meaning at all from a scientific perspective.
As the Lamb quote shows, it may be quite easy to disprove (J3). Unless of course we claim that words and expressions get their meaning in discourses, in which case (J3) is trivial, as it can be said of any word and expression whatsoever.
As the Luntz memo shows, it may be quite easy to disprove (J1). And in fact, if you think about the results of the Yale report, this is just wrong. And to make matters really worse, it comes right after:
Words should fail Denizens here. Neither (J2) nor (J3) are related to accuracy. Some evidence of (J2) would also be nice. Either Judy does not care for effective words, or she does. In either case, hiding under “I’m only in it for accuracy” simply does not work.
Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog and commented:
Is it worse than we thought? Turns out to be a matter of phrasing.
The average age of all humanity is increasing and as we live longer we have found in the West that things we humans can learn to fear virtually limitless.
Yes, Global Warming ”OR” Climate Change?
Those are two different things – climate is in constant change – ‘’global’’ warmings are a con. Obviously the leading Warmist know that; reason they don’t call themselves: ‘’Intergovernmental Panel for Global Warming’’ because they obviously know that isn’t any GLOBAL warming!
Wet/sunny weather – good/bad weather = that’s weather; for few days.
Summer climate – winter climate – sea-level climate – high altitude climate – tropical climate – temperate climate – desert climate – rainforest climate – wet climate – dry climate; BUT, sometimes wet climate gets dry / dry climate gets wet / rains. On the other hand, ‘’GLOBAL’’ warming, or global cooling overall doesn’t exist – that’s what the NORMAL laws of physics say! Some places gets hotter days than previous years – other places instantly / simultaneously gets colder days (but warmer nights) than previous years – otherwise the winds would have stopped; the planet is a big place! Concentrating on a small place difference in temp and referring it as ‘’GLOBAL’’ was the basic climatologist lie since Darwin published his book= when they started playing god…? climatologist didn’t start lying in the 80’s, lying was always their bread and butter: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/global-warming-or-climate-change/
The agenda;
The problem may be the very term “climate”. Properly used, it references an ongoing set of conditions in a region. Global climate change implies the conditions and interactions themselves are altering. Not only dubious, almost meaningless, since describing the interactions would be a huge achievement, so far unattained.
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