by Judith Curry
The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand. We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society. And in a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction. – John Kerry
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave a lengthy speech on climate change last week while visiting Indonesia [link to full text]. I wasn’t paying much attention to this until this quote appeared on Twitter:
“We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,” Kerry told the audience at a U.S. Embassy-run American Center in a shopping mall.
Then I read the whole speech. I decided to respond to this speech, and excerpted the points from his speech that I felt were incorrect or unjustified. Then the realities of this week’s schedule sunk in, and I decided just to highlight these excerpts as points of discussion for a blog post.
Excerpts from Kerry’s speech:
The science of climate change is leaping out at us like a scene from a 3D movie. It’s warning us; it’s compelling us to act. And let there be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the science is absolutely certain.
So when thousands of the world’s leading scientists and five reports over a long period of time with thousands of scientists contributing to those reports – when they tell us over and over again that our climate is changing, that it is happening faster than they ever predicted, ever in recorded history, and when they tell us that we humans are the significant cause, let me tell you something: We need to listen.
When 97 percent of scientists agree on anything, we need to listen, and we need to respond.
These scientists agree on the causes of these changes and they agree on the potential effects.
They agree that the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide contributes heavily to climate change.
And they agree that, if we continue to go down the same path that we are going down today, the world as we know it will change – and it will change dramatically for the worse.
And the results of our human activity are clear. If you ranked all the years in recorded history by average temperature, you’d see that 8 of the 10 hottest years have all happened within the last 10 years. Think about it this way: all 10 of the hottest years on record have actually happened since Google went online in 1998.
Now, that’s how fast this change is happening. And because the earth is getting hotter at such an alarming speed, glaciers in places like the Arctic are melting into the sea faster than we expected. And the sea is rising – slowly, but rising – and will rise to dangerous levels. Scientists now predict that by the end of the century, the sea could rise by a full meter.
Now, climate change also tragically means the end of some species. The changing sea temperature and the increasing amount of acidity – the acidity comes from coal-fired power plants and from the pollution, and when the rain falls the rain spills the acidity into the ocean. And it means that certain species of fish like cod or sardines can no longer live where they once lived.
Climate change also means water shortages. And if you have these enormous water shortages, then you have a change in the weather – because of the weather patterns, you’re going to wind up with droughts, the lack of water. And the droughts can become longer and more intense. In fact, this isn’t something around the corner – this is happening now.
We are seeing record droughts right now, and they’re already putting a strain on water resources around the world. We’ve already seen in various parts of the world – in Africa, for instance – people fighting each other over water, and we’ve seen more conflicts shaping up now over the limits of water. Back in the United States, President Obama just the other day visited California, where millions of people are now experiencing the 13th month of the worst drought the state has seen in 500 years. And no relief is in sight. What used to be a 100-year or a 500-year event is now repeating itself within 10 years.
Furthermore, climate change means fundamental transformations in agriculture worldwide. Scientists predict that, in some places, heat waves and water shortages will make it much more difficult for farmers to be able to grow the regular things we grow, like wheat or corn or rice. And obviously, it’s not only farmers who will suffer here – it’s the millions of people who depend on those crops that the farmers grow. For example, the British government research showed that climate change may have contributed to the famine that killed as many as 100,000 people in Somalia just back in 2010 and 2011.
And scientists further predict that climate change also means longer, more unpredictable monsoon seasons and more extreme weather events.
Ladies and gentlemen, I saw with my own eyes what the Philippines experienced in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan and I will tell you it would be absolutely devastating if that kind of storm were to become the normal thing that happens every single year in many places.
On top of the unspeakable humanitarian toll, the economic cost that follows a storm like that is absolutely massive. I don’t mean just the billions that it costs to rebuild. So it’s not just about agriculture – it’s also about technology. It’s about our global economy. It’s about potentially catastrophic effects on the global supply chain.
Now, despite all of these realities – despite these facts – much of the world still doesn’t see or want to see the need to pursue a significant response to this threat. As recently as 2011, a survey of city officials here in Asia found that more than 80 percent of the population said they did not anticipate climate change hurting their cities’ economies.
And despite more than 25 years of scientific warning after scientific warning after scientific warning – despite all that, the call to arms that we heard back in Rio back in 1992 – despite that, we still haven’t globally summoned the urgency necessary to get the job done. And as a result of this complacency, last year the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere reached the highest point in human history – despite all the warnings.
Now, I know that these are some dramatic scientific facts – statistics. But think of it this way: If the worst-case scenario about climate change, all the worst predictions, if they never materialize, what will be the harm that is done from having made the decision to respond to it? We would actually leave our air cleaner. We would leave our water cleaner. We would actually make our food supply more secure. Our populations would be healthier because of fewer particulates of pollution in the air – less cost to health care. Those are the things that would happen if we happen to be wrong and we responded. But imagine if the 97 percent of those scientists are correct and the people who say no are wrong. Then the people who say no will have presented us with one of the most catastrophic, grave threats in the history of human life. That’s the choice here.
Notwithstanding the stark choices that we face, here’s the good thing: there is still time. The window of time is still open for us to be able to manage this threat. But the window is closing. And so I wanted to come to Jakarta to talk to you because we need people all over the world to raise their voices and to be heard. There is still time for us to significantly cut greenhouse emissions and prevent the very worst consequences of climate change from ever happening at all. But we need to move on this, and we need to move together now. We just don’t have time to let a few loud interests groups hijack the climate conversation. And when I say that, you know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about big companies that like it the way it is that don’t want to change, and spend a lot of money to keep you and me and everybody from doing what we know we need to do.
First and foremost, we should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact. Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits. There are people who say, “Oh, it’s too expensive, we can’t do this.” No. No, folks. We certainly should not allow more time to be wasted by those who want to sit around debating whose responsibility it is to deal with this threat, while we come closer and closer to the point of no return.
I have to tell you, this is really not a normal kind of difference of opinion between people. Sometimes you can have a reasonable argument and a reasonable disagreement over an opinion you may have. This is not opinion. This is about facts. This is about science. The science is unequivocal. And those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand.
Now, President and I – Obama and I believe very deeply that we do not have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.
Finally, if we truly want to prevent the worst consequences of climate change from happening, we do not have time to have a debate about whose responsibility this is. The answer is pretty simple: It’s everyone’s responsibility. But, ultimately, every nation on Earth has a responsibility to do its part if we have any hope of leaving our future generations the safe and healthy planet that they deserve.
The bottom line is this: it is the same thing with climate change. And in a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.
The fact is that climate change, if left unchecked, will wipe out many more communities from the face of the earth. And that is unacceptable under any circumstances – but is even more unacceptable because we know what we can do and need to do in order to deal with this challenge.
The Chinese see firsthand every single day how dangerous pollution can be. And the devastating human toll pollution, it takes comes with a very hefty price tag: Air pollution already costs China as much as 8 percent of its GDP because two things happen as a result of the pollution: healthcare spending goes up and agricultural output goes down.
The solution to climate change is energy policy. The solution to climate change is as clear as the problem. The solution is making the right choices on energy policy. It’s as simple as that. [G]overnments will find that the cost of pursuing clean energy now is far cheaper than paying for the consequences of climate change later.
JC comments: Well clearly, Secretary Kerry does not read Climate Etc. or testimony from relevant Congressional hearings. And he has also over interpreted the confidence of the IPCC findings. There is one statement I agree with:
The solution to climate change is as clear as the problem.
The climate change problem is not at all clear, especially with regards to impacts, and the solutions are even less clear.
“Then I read the whole speech. I decided to respond to this speech, and excerpted the points from his speech that I felt were incorrect or unjustified.”
I’ll leave it to others to point out Kerry’s egregious mistakes. Just want to say that this would be an excellent opportunity for someone of your professional and intellectual heft to write a dissenting column. I know it’s not your style, but I do hope someone credible steps up and responds to some of this nonsense.
I think all people who profess to be “climate scientists” should say whether they agree with the “Climate Change is a weapon of mass destruction meme.”
My own view is that Kerry was almost right. In truth.
The POLICIES of Climate Change is a potent weapon of mass destruction. I can think of nothing more powerful to destroy liberty and treasure of billions of people.
John Kerry – isn’t he the guy who married all the Heinz money? The guy who couldn’t win a presidential election against the most unpopular president since Harry Truman? The guy who lied about his military service in Vietnam and like a little bitch threw his medals away afterward? The guy who got the job of secretary of state as a second choice to a cuckold housewife who let our embassy get attacked and ambassador get killed like a dog and dragged through the streets on film?
Do I have the right scumbag in mind?
Newt Gingrich tweets:
Does kerry really believe global warming more dangerous than north Korean and iranian nukes? More than Russian and Chinese nukes? Really? ?
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
Every American who cares about national security must.demand Kerry’s resignation.A delusional secretary of state is dangerous to our safety
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014
“Terroists laughing their asses off at US Secretary of State”
Holy Crap Batman – you have to listen to this whole stupid schpiel.
If you think some of the bits and pieces were BS you’ll be flabberghasted by the whole thing.
Fercrisakes this stupid goon almost got elected frickin’ president of the frickin’ United States. Barry looks pretty good in comparison.
Bozo says at 20 minutes 40 seconds
“first and foremost we should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact… nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits”
Think about the US Secretary of State addressing the most Islamic country on the planet calling on them to not allow people like Curry to speak against the climate change consensus. Or people like Nat Wilcox to say the cost/benefit analysis doesn ‘t support spending on mitigation. Are you phucking schittting me? Why doesn’t he just invite them to fly a plane into Curry’s office, or Lindzen’s, or any of a large number of others.
Gingrich is right. Kerry needs to be fired. This guy is incompetent, uninformed, and a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.
Bozo says at 24 minutes 0 seconds
“some countries including United States contribute more to the problem and therefore we an obligation to contribute more to the solution”
Unphuckingbelievable. With friends like John Kerry who needs enemies?
I have never been so embarrassed by what my state department is telling the world on my behalf. I feel ridiculous. Mortified. Shocked and horrified. Kerry is instructing all US embassies to make climate change their top priority.
I have never been so embarrassed by what my state department is telling the world on my behalf. I feel ridiculous. Mortified. Shocked and horrified. Kerry is instructing all US embassies to make climate change their top priority.
I suddenly find myself missing old Hilly and overflowing with forgiveness about Benghazi.
At any rate I listened to the whole thing and there’s 45 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
Agreed Stephen.
It’s the thundering silence from those who know better that’s truly shameful. It’s so easy to rationalize sitting on one’s hands, and it takes real courage to speak truth to power. Jobs are at stake, government grants, career opportunities. I can’t say I blame them. And yet I do blame them. Every one of them.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
David Springer, that’s the one, Zero Credibility Kerry.
David Springer,
He did not throw his medals away. He was much too shallow for that.
He threw away some ribbons that he could replace at any Army surplus store.
He kept the medals.
You’d have to ask the men who served with him whether he actually earned them though.
Hey quit picking on Kerry. He got out of Vietnam only after he sustained wounds on three different occasions that won him three purple hearts. Of course none of those wounds required any more than a band aid.
In the rice butt incident, the enemy he was meeting was himself.
=================
Springer,
It’s not clear at all that Kerry was second choice.
He lost the election because, if you remember, the country was all a titter over the threat of terrorism – another hyped threat.
I am a progressive but not in accord with their climate agenda.
There is an interesting similarity between the right’s approaches toward terrorism, Obamacare, and the coming economic apocalypse (to hear them tell it) and the left’s approach to climate change. The main difference, of course, is there hasn’t quite been a climate 9/11 although we came pretty close with hurricanes a few years back. The real 9/11 was just as hyped as the hurricanes and resulted in just as erroneous policy decisions as the policies the left is pushing on climate.
The strategy of both left and right is to warn, point out any signs or indicators (Benghazi? A bad unemployment report? A drought?) that their particular apocalypse is coming about, warn again, then wait for something concrete to happen so they can say “I told you so”.
Cross,
“It’s not clear at all that Kerry was second choice.”
It’s not just clear it’s factual. Hilly had the position until she screwed up with Bengazi debacle.
“He lost the election because, if you remember, the country was all a titter over the threat of terrorism – another hyped threat.”
He lost the election because he’s a putz who lied about his service in Vietnam and in general just told people whatever they wanted to hear and was caught flip flopping on numerous issues.
One can’t say terrorism was a hyped threat as that would require going back in time and ignoring it and Saddam and Osama to see what would happen if we hadn’t taken such strong measures.
“I am a progressive but not in accord with their climate agenda.”
I’d say the need for progressive agenda is all hype starting with LBJ’s great society but that would run into the same problem of needing to turn back time and doing things differently to see how it works out.
“There is an interesting similarity between the right’s approaches toward terrorism, Obamacare, and the coming economic apocalypse (to hear them tell it) and the left’s approach to climate change. The main difference, of course, is there hasn’t quite been a climate 9/11 although we came pretty close with hurricanes a few years back.”
Huh? New Orleans was warned a million times those levees wouldn’t hold back a Cat 3 hurricane and when one came along the warning was proven correct. A Cat 3 hurricane making landfall in the Gulf of Mexico is hardly unusual. What’s unusual is that 2013 season was the first year since JFK died that there was no hurricane above Cat 1 made landfall.
“The real 9/11 was just as hyped as the hurricanes and resulted in just as erroneous policy decisions as the policies the left is pushing on climate.”
Three thousand Americans who had no warning were slaughtered on purpose by Islamic fanatics who hate the US on 9/11. Phuck you that was hyped. Go say that in NYC asshat.
“The strategy of both left and right is to warn, point out any signs or indicators (Benghazi? A bad unemployment report? A drought?) that their particular apocalypse is coming about, warn again, then wait for something concrete to happen so they can say “I told you so”.”
There’s nothing that can be done about climate change. Big difference. No conceivable actions can reduce global CO2 enough to make a whit of difference. Many other problems are imminently fixable. The left needs to acquire the courage to fix what can be fixed, accept what can’t be fixed, and gain the wisdom to tell one from the other. See here for good guide to that:
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/
James Cross, exactly! Different day, same s***.
My father was a WW2 US Navy corpsman. He served in 6 WW2 campaigns, and is decorated for gallantry in action: Navy Unit Commendation, Presidential Unit Citation, 6 campaign stars, Silver Star, Purple Heart.
After Iwo Jima, he walked the earth full of small pieces enemy steel. He triggered every airport metal detector he ever got close to.
When a Marine or sailor showed up for wound care he wrote out a casualty card. Even if under devastating enemy fire. If there was a wound, no matter how severe, the man got a Purple Heart. That is what his commander in chief ordered, and that is what he got.
Period. If it bled, it got written up. If it was written up, the man got a Purple Heart.
Some corpsmen may not have been as meticulous, but that is how they were trained. WW2 examples of where no Purple Heart was issued. On Iwo an enemy projectile started a pile of artillery rounds on fire. A buck sgt ran over and grabbed the burning projectiles and rammed them deep into the volcanic sand. He had minor burns. He did not get a purple heart – no wound. He did get a Silver Star. If he had cut his hands while performing his act of gallantry, or had his burns been so severe his skin bled, he would have gotten a Purple Heart. Same thing with a Marine who had a bullet rim the inside of his helmet. It singed his hair and left a red burn line around the backside of his head. He begged for a Purple Heart and did not get one: a fraction of an inch from being severely wounded or even killed.
So if Dad pulled a shrapnel sliver out, the Marine or sailor got a Purple Heart. If the Marine was turned into mist by an artillery round, he got a Purple Heart. Severity was not a criterion. Not at all. Both were equally entitled to the medal.
That is how the USMC leads its men, and nobody is better at it. They want Marines with ribbons so new Marines want to be like them.
Eligibility criteria for the Purple Heart Medal is as follows:
a. The Purple Heart is awarded in the name of the President of the United States to any member of an Armed Force or any civilian national of the United States who, while serving under competent authority in any capacity with one of the U.S. Armed Services after 5 April 1917, has been wounded or killed, or who has died or may hereafter die after being wounded
(1) In any action against an enemy of the United States.
(2) In any action with an opposing armed force of a foreign country in which the Armed Forces of the United States are or have been engaged.
(3) While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.
(4) As a result of an act of any such enemy of opposing armed forces.
(5) As the result of an act of any hostile foreign force.
(6) After 28 March 1973, as a result of an international terrorist attack against the United States or a foreign nation friendly to the United States, recognized as such an attack by the Secretary of the Army, or jointly by the Secretaries of the separate armed Services concerned if persons from more than one service are wounded in the attack.
(7) After 28 March 1973, as a result of military operations while serving outside the territory of the United States as part of a peacekeeping force.
b. While clearly an individual decoration, the Purple Heart differs from all other decorations in that an individual is not “recommended” for the decoration; rather he or she is entitled to it upon meeting specific criteria.
(1) A Purple Heart is authorized for the first wound suffered under conditions indicated above, but for each subsequent award an Oak Leaf Cluster will be awarded to be worn on the medal or ribbon. Not more than one award will be made for more than one wound or injury received at the same instant or from the same missile, force, explosion, or agent.
(2) A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent sustained under one or more of the conditions listed above. A physical lesion is not required, however, the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer and records of medical treatment for wounds or injuries received in action must have been made a matter of official record.
(3) When contemplating an award of this decoration, the key issue that commanders must take into consideration is the degree to which the enemy caused the injury. The fact that the proposed recipient was participating in direct or indirect combat operations is a necessary prerequisite, but is not sole justification for award.
(4) Examples of enemy-related injuries which clearly justify award of the Purple Heart are as follows:
(a) Injury caused by enemy bullet, shrapnel, or other projectile created by enemy action.
(b) Injury caused by enemy placed mine or trap.
(c) Injury caused by enemy released chemical, biological or nuclear agent.
(d) Injury caused by vehicle or aircraft accident resulting from enemy fire.
(e) Concussion injuries caused as a result of enemy generated explosions.
(5) Examples of injuries or wounds which clearly do not qualify for award of the Purple Heart are as follows:
(a) Frostbite or trench foot injuries.
(b) Heat stroke.
(c) Food poisoning not caused by enemy agents.
(d) Chemical, biological, or nuclear agents not released by the enemy.
(e) Battle fatigue.
(f) Disease not directly caused by enemy agents.
(g) Accidents, to include explosive, aircraft, vehicular, and other accidental wounding not related to or caused by enemy action.
(h) Self-inflicted wounds, except when in the heat of battle, and not involving gross negligence.
(i) Post traumatic stress disorders.
(j) Jump injuries not caused by enemy action.
(6) It is not intended that such a strict interpretation of the requirement for the wound or injury to be caused by direct result of hostile action be taken that it would preclude the award being made to deserving personnel. Commanders must also take into consideration, the circumstances surrounding an injury, even if it appears to meet the criteria. Note the following examples:
(a) In case such as an individual injured while making a parachute landing from an aircraft that had been brought down enemy fire; or, an individual injured as a result of a vehicle accident caused by enemy fire, the decision will be made in favor of the individual and the award will be made.
(b) Individuals wounded or killed as a result of “friendly fire” in the “heat of battle” will be awarded the Purple Heart as long as the “friendly” projectile or agent was released with the full intent of inflicting damage or destroying enemy troops or equipment.
(c) Individuals injured as a result of their own negligence; for example, driving or walking through an unauthorized area known to have been mined or placed off limits or searching for or picking up unexploded munitions as war souvenirs, will not be awarded the Purple Heart as they clearly were not injured as a result of enemy action, but rather by their own negligence.
c. A Purple Heart will be issued to the next of kin of each person entitled to a posthumous award. Issue will be made automatically by the Commanding General, PERSCOM, upon receiving a report of death indicating entitlement.
d. Upon written application to Commander, ARPERCEN, ATIN.- DAR-P-VSEA, 9700 Page Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63132-5200, award may be made to any member of the Army, who during World War 1, was awarded a Meritorious Service Citation Certificate signed by the Commander in Chief, American Expeditionary Forces, or who was authorized to wear wound chevrons. Posthumous awards to personnel who were killed or died of wounds after 5 April 1917 will be made to the appropriate next of kin upon application to the Commanding General, PERSCOM.
e. Any member of the Army who was awarded the Purple Heart for meritorious achievement or service, as opposed to wounds received in action, between 7 December 1941 and 22 September 1943, may apply for award of an appropriate decoration instead of the Purple Heart.
f. For those who became Prisoners of War after 25 April 1962, the Purple Heart will be awarded to individuals wounded while prisoners of foreign forces, upon submission by the individual to the Department of the U.S. Army of an affidavit that is supported by a statement from a witness, if this is possible. Documentation and inquiries Should be directed to Commander, PERSCOM, ATTN: TAPCPDA, Alexandria, VA 22332-0471.
g. Any member of the U.S. Army who believes that he or she is eligible for the Purple Heart, but through unusual circumstances no award was made, may submit an application through military channels, to Commander, PERSCOM, ATTN: TAPC-PDA, Alexandria, VA 22332-0471. Application will include complete documentation, to include evidence of medical treatment, pertaining to the wound.
JCH | February 18, 2014 at 1:34 pm |
“My father was a WW2 US Navy corpsman.”
I’m a Vietnam era Marine sergeant.
“When a Marine or sailor showed up for wound care he wrote out a casualty card. Even if under devastating enemy fire. If there was a wound, no matter how severe, the man got a Purple Heart. That is what his commander in chief ordered, and that is what he got.”
“Period. If it bled, it got written up. If it was written up, the man got a Purple Heart.”
With all due respect to your father bleeding is not required. Treatment by a medical officer is required and an official entry describing the treatment made a part of the record. The award is recommended by the service member’s chain-of-command and is supposed to be reviewed to ensure it meets the criteria of being sustained as a result of enemy action.
Three Purple Hearts is a get out of jail free, card. You can go home.
But that’s not the nature of these objections, whether there was blood or not. The wounds were self-inflicted due to negligence. Those wounds do not qualify. Kerry requested the first Purple Heart from his commander and was denied based on witness reports. Kerry subsequently re-applied several months later to a less discriminating officer with no knowledge of the previous denial. The award was granted that time. His third Purple Heart was also self-inflicted according to eyewitnesses. Both incidents were from shrapnel from one of Kerry’s own explosives where he was a little too close to the explosion and no enemy actions were involved.
Whether the other eyewitnesses were lying or Kerry lied I suppose is a matter that can never be resolved but one might consider that Kerry got himself sent home upon receiving that third Purple Heart the witnesses got nothing for their conflicting accounts.
I was only capable of getting about a third or so through it before I had to stop.
I will say that Kerry alone should be able to power a small neighborhood, he’s that big of a windbag.
While sailors in other boats were rallying around their comrades in the water, the commander of this boat injured himself in a hurry to get the Hell out of Dodge. One, two, three; yep, count ’em. Two from disgraceful carelessness and one from damning cowardice.
Honest, kiddo, they were glad to see him go.
==========
I note that Secretary Kerry’s remarks on China are exaggerated, something I suspect is true for many of his other claims. The impact of pollution of all types, air, water and soil, is estimated to be 4% of GDP, nowhere near the 8% Secretary Kerry claims is attributable to air pollution alone.
Healthcare spending in China has not gone up. Not to deal with the very real impacts of pollution, which is a major problem in China, nor for any other reason. The government has capped healthcare spending at 5% of GDP and it furiously resists attempts or even calls to raise it.
These numbers are not at all difficult to find.
Seconded. This needs a reply from an accredited scientist. The politicians are not reading climate blogs any more because “the science is settled”.
When the public find out how they have been gulled they will not trust science in any public debate for a generation, or several.
Professor Curry, I hope you find time to respond to this.
It is quite interesting to see how folk are so bent out of shape on these political subjects.
I myself have zero interest in them.
It must be difficult for those with strong political beliefs to keep their politics from affecting their view on science…
On Iwo Jima my father was the highest ranked medical person on in his company. He had four corpsmen serving under him. They were line corpsmen. They did not have a surgeon serving in the company. No surgeon would question the battlefield medical record he created for a wounded Marine or sailor. The surgeons thought the world of him. They could not staff the company, so they counted on him to stabilize horrendously wounded Marines.
John Kerry was brave enough to be a war hero and fight for our freedoms. This speech shows he is still willing to fight for freedom. God bless the USA.
This is the same guy who betrayed our troops in Vietnam. His lack of integrity has not changed.
But, rice.
======
Except of course for the Grand Betrayal:
Kerry – he believed in climate change before Al Gore invented it.
“shoddy scientists” from a shoddy excuse for a politician.
Professor Curry,
Name calling is a sign of desperation.
As noted on Brandon Shollenberger’s site, “the inhabitants of planet Earth will all stick together and share information honestly, or . . .
We will die separately !”
http://hiizuru.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/jihad/#comment-386
Reliable information is community property. Nobody will be spared the consequences of government policies based on misinformation.
Well that’s an interesting comment – given the 10 or so comments that rest immediately above yours.
Lots o’ desperation, eh?
“Well that’s an interesting comment – given the 10 or so comments that rest immediately above yours.”
Well Joshua, maybe you have a point. ON the other hand, perhaps there’s a qualitative difference between a bunch of riled up mostly anonymous blog jockeys letting loose, and the Secretary of State insulting a significant population…perhaps approaching half the country…, while making a major speech.
Here’s a joke for ya:
John Kerry walks into a bar and the bartender says, “Hey John, why the long face?”
Sorry PG –
I don’t see any qualitative difference in the vitriol and name-calling on the two sides, respectively.
Nor do I see the differences in the degree of confirmation bias that lead participants from both sides to claim that the vitriol on their side is somehow qualitatively difference.
Nor do I see qualitative differences in the moral equivocating, cries of despair about the word’s poor, alarmist hand-wringing and pearl-clutching from feinting couches about the end of the world should the other side gain victory, etc.
There’s a long list of attributes related to this debate where I don’t see qualitative differences, PG.
Heh.
Feinting couches.
In the climate ward, that is.
“Well Joshua, maybe you have a point. ON the other hand, perhaps there’s a qualitative difference between a bunch of riled up mostly anonymous blog jockeys letting loose, and the Secretary of State insulting a significant population…perhaps approaching half the country…, while making a major speech.”
Joshua will find no difference because its not in his interest to find a difference.
However, If the example were a republican politician, say Palin, saying something stupid or name calling, versus a commenter on Huffington saying something stupid or mean, he would be able to articulate a difference.
Joshua will avoid the issue of Power unless he can use it to make his point.
He does the same thing with Judith,
Its a fundamental display of bad faith
I’m thinking of switching from cable to DirectTV – or maybe even going with Google TV.
Any preferences, steven?
So it’s bad faith, not bad food, that explains the breeze from his fundament?
==========
“Joshua will find no difference because its not in his interest to find a difference.”
“Fundamental display of bad faith.”
Correct. The scary…and depressing….thing to me is that Joshua is merely an extreme version of the way most people interact with the world. People think they’re thinking, but really all they’re doing is shoring up their own fragile egos in the face of an annihilating universe.
“For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his “ideas” are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defence of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.”
José Ortega y Gallet
Funny how “people” only reside (or reside disproportionately) only on one side of the debate, eh? Or at least there is a “qualitative difference” between the people on the two sides of the debate.
Of course, that those “people” on the side you don’t agree with have”qualitatively” more fragile egos in greater need of shoring is purely coincidence.
You know, like how the “qualitative” higher prevalence of alarmism on the other side must be pure coincidence.
To this day I still find it amazing that people could so easily criticize Palin’s qualifications for the VP position, yet completely ignore that President Obama’s qualifications for the top spot were even less.
If one had to choose the Presidency based solely on experience and qualifications, Palin should win out over Barack Obama every time.
@Joshua: I’m thinking of switching from cable to DirectTV – or maybe even going with Google TV.
Are you testing whether we can tell the difference between a carrier (cable, DirectTV) and a platform (Google TV), or proposing in Hindu fashion that they’re all one and the same?
@tim: To this day I still find it amazing that people could so easily criticize Palin’s qualifications for the VP position, yet completely ignore that President Obama’s qualifications for the top spot were even less.
After being top dog in Texas politics for many years, Lyndon Johnson’s humiliating vice presidency thoroughly depressed him. With a president 9 years younger, what were his prospects for advancement in politics?
Palin on the other hand was 28 years younger than McCain, a man of questionable health to boot. If during his presidency McCain should, God forbid, have become too ill to carry on and Palin had to step into his shoes, it would have been game over for Vladimir Putin. Suddenly America would have a president with the balls it takes to fly her own seaplane, shoot meese, advocate shooting wolves from the air, and fire her Commissioner of Public Safety when he refused under pressure from her office to fire her sister’s ex-husband.
With Palin as president, had Putin not immediately withdrawn his troops from Georgia she’d have had them shot from helicopters. And if Putin had objected she’d have him shot too.
Beats debating by a mile.
Here comes a Keystone XL denial,
a furious Canadian government,
an underemployed American workforce,
and an ecstatic railroad owning Warren Buffett.
Here comes a Keystone XL denial
——————————————-
Bingo… Pronouncements like this don’t occur in a vacuum. With the Syrian “solution” blowing up in his face, Kerry/Obama must change the subject. Canadians are a patient people, but they can’t wait forever, and the Chinese must be poking them in the ribs constantly for that tar sands oil.
Truly shameless and disgraceful performance.
Reason sufficient for the Chinese to fill his magic hat with climate canards. But this is about a great deal more than just a few buckets of tar in Canada.
=========================
Solution:
– Reserve a barrel of tar from the Canadian tar sands;
– Open Kerry’s featherbed
– Apply Liberally
– Send to Siberia on a rail; no tie.
Keystone XL Nebraska leg back in legal limbo:
“Lancaster County Judge Stephanie Stacy issued a ruling that invalidated Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman’s approval of the route. Stacy agreed with opponents’ arguments that law passed in 2011 improperly delegated the decision-making power to Heineman to give the company eminent domain powers within the state. Stacy said the decision should have been made by the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which regulates pipelines and other utilities.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/19/judge-strikes-down-nebraska-law-that-allowed-keystone-pipeline-to-proceed/
Here is how big the Keystone XL pipeline is:
“At about 714 barrels of crude oil per railcar, that’s more than 782,000 barrels of America’s crude oil transported every day last year by rail
IBD 2/19/14
Keystone XL will pump 800,000 bopd, equal to ALL oil-by-rail traffic.
Question.
How many scientists will correct Kerry’s mistakes? you know when a scientist sees something they have to speak
3% :)
That’s my question, and of course the answer is obvious.
Steven Mosher
When a politician says something utterly stupid, it is not up to “scientists” to correct him. The guy was just spouting the party line. That’s all. No big deal.
Max
“When a politician says something utterly stupid, it is not up to “scientists” to correct him. The guy was just spouting the party line. That’s all. No big deal.”
Seems like a big deal to me, Max. Just because it’s a common, ordinary occurrence for politicians to lie, doesn’t mean there’s no responsibility to counter them. You’re advocating an intolerably flaccid, passive society.
No thank you.
MAx, another apt Burke quote:
“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”
This is why the kind of passive acceptance you seem to be advising is intolerable. Propaganda, lies, exaggerations, whatever you want to call them… a Democratic country if it is to remain healthy and vibrant must call out those responsible by all lawful means.
Sadly, I think Kerry probably believes what he’s saying to be true.
He’s come a long way, baby; he no longer has to take movies of himself.
==================
Manaker, you missed Mosher’s point. It was Mann who said in the NT Times to say something when you see something.
@bob
yep. let’s see if mann practices what he preaches.
It used to be called “global warming”. More CO2 emitted by humans was supposed to raise the temperatures “dangerously quickly” and then as a result of that rapid warming other terrible things were predicted to occur that would make the lives of humans worse. These predictions of terrible changes in conditions were based upon the outputs models.
Then, surprisingly; the trend of warming greatly lessened or all but stopped. The unexpected happened and continues. Not to worry however. We will just change the title to “climate change” from “global warming”. The same players who were wrong about the rate of warming associated with more CO2 and were wrong about all the terrible things that would quickly occur as a result of it getting warmer, are now ready to tell all of us how we should live. They are sure this time. Really. Terrible things will happen if we don’t stop emitting CO2 and all will be wonderful and the climate will be stable if we only implement their plans.
Truth—The climate has always been changing and always will be changing. Humans need to be able to adapt to a changing climate. Those now calling the issue climate change have no basis for their forecasts of net negative changes resulting from a slightly warmer planet. Ask one of the zealots who will post why they believe conditions will worsen. Ask what specifically will get worse than today, what makes them believe that and when will this happen. Then wait for the general response of “in the future- sometime—trust us you denier”
They bet on CO2.
They bet on the heat.
================
Calling Vaughan Pratt! What do you think about this talk?
Kerry’s statements are disgraceful. But politicians have no shame.
Kerry notes, “On top of the unspeakable humanitarian toll, the economic cost that follows a storm like that is absolutely massive”
Is it possible to laugh and vomit at the same time?
yes, known in Australia as a liquid laugh – also technicolor yawn.
“yes, known in Australia as a liquid laugh – also technicolor yawn.”
Hah! Oh God that’s funny…
You need to come over to Australia one fine day PG you will enjoy it!
Kerry is reading from the White House playbook. He has no choice. He called “an audible” with the Syrian chemical weapons and had to “sit the pines” for a while.
Maybe, but there should be zero doubt that he is on board with it. Sec. Kerry self identifies as an environmentalist.
The “science is settled” myth continues. Meanwhile, after 25 years of dire warnings, I still can not plant my tomatoes before May 15 without grave danger of freezing.
Larry. OT. Try googling Kozy Koats for your tomato plants. A great Canadian invention.
Once again I come around to my question. And our hostess, obviously, will not be a candidate. Which eminent scientists has the gonads to stand up in public, and state, clearly, that Kerry is talking complete and utter scientific nonsense?
Who is going to bell the cat?
I know the answer. No-one. Except possibly, and in the end, Mother Nature the greatest scientific authority there is.
Hey Jim,
Asked a similar question up thread. And you’re probably right. But consider this. The more outrageous these guys get, the bigger the target they offer, which is to say the easier to refute. People can only take so much, even nervous people.
Obama ran on uniting the country, while the reality is that every day they do or say something to further divide it. I hated George Bush passionately. Never thought I’d come to say it, but Obama’s been almost as bad. Were it not for that stupid, ragic war in Iraq, Obama would have him beat.
Thanks, pokerguy. I knows my question is so obvious, that any scientist knows it needs posing. Maybe if we keep posing it, someone will take some notice.
Who is going to bell the cat?
Mother Nature will bell the cat!
Actual Data will bell the cat!
It will take some more time, but they are running out of alarmist time with NO data to support their alarmism.
Jim asked, “Who is going to bell the cat?”
The cat has been repeatedly belled by reality, but the pundits cannot believe they were deceived by those who took government funds to promote “settled science.”
http://informthepundits.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/happy-birthday-to-the-stimulus/#comments
Pokerguy,
There is one terrifying thought resounding in my head as I read this blog. I have a vague recollection, as if through a fog…. I am dead sure that in a time long ago and in a country far far away…I cast a vote for this same man to be president of the USA. I even remember doing my darnedest to convince others to do the same.
Please, World, forgive me for my sins.
Bush is still to blame, for the good ol’ days.
=============
@pokerguy: The more outrageous these guys get, the bigger the target they offer, which is to say the easier to refute.
Has it occurred to you, pokerguy, that you might be the one who is being outrageous?
Of course not, what a ridiculous idea.
“How does that make you a “skeptical” warmist? You write more like a true believer, and that is an example.”
Oh God yes. One effect of having drunk the Kool-Aid is not realizing it. Gates has made all kinds of ridiculous claims, including his recent assertion that weather forecasting is harder now that the atmosphere has been so “shaken up.”
Of course ironies abound. Met Office in U.K…..the very belly of the global warming beast…has an almost incredible record of wrong calls, including their prediction this year of a dry winter. 13 our of 14 yearly forecasts have been too warm. Though I must say I’ve never heard them use the excuse that things are too hard now due to atmospheric “shake-ups.” Meanwhile skeptical agencies such as Weather Bell and Judith’s outfit are doing just fine.
Odd that there are so many skeptical meteorologists. What are we to make of that?
V. Pratt cleverly enjoins: Has it occurred to you, pokerguy, that you might be the one who is being outrageous?
Of course not, what a ridiculous idea.”
******
If you can’t see that Kerry’s spouting nonsense, then I’m afraid there’s no hope for you. And yes, I wonder about my own objectivity all the time. It’s healthy. You ought to try it
Stop worrying – the climate is changing, sure, but is cooling slightly until about the year 2028. After that, by 2060 we may see temperatures half a degree above the current levels but, in the long run, there will be another 500 years of cooling. It’s all natural. It’s not carbon dioxide after all.
This comment explains why quite well I’d say.
Visiting Physicist? Perhaps you meant Visiting Psychic? As long as CO2 levels continue to rise, expect long-term warming.
Maybe I would R.Gates, if you could prove your point with valid physics, but you can’t because back radiation cannot assist the Sun in actually raising the surface temperature, and an initial isothermal state at 255K (without water vapour etc) would violate the laws of physics, as we see on Uranus. The evidence on the planet Uranus proves my point – click the link I provided and study that comment very carefully.
As long as CO2 levels continue to rise, expect long-term warming.
Temperature really does not respond much to CO2.
It really is just a trace gas. The man-made CO2 is only a fraction of a trace. This is like driving an elephant with a flea. Doubling CO2 should only cause a little over one degree of warming, according to scientists on both sides. We only have a fraction of doubling so far. We have no data out of bounds.
Temperature really does not respond much to CO2.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page38.html
Visiting Physicist
Yes, historic data, ice core data, shows that after every warm period, a cold period is about 500 years ahead. We have a wonderful thousand year cycle that has replaced our major ice age and warming periods. We have been in the same climate mode for ten thousand years. a fraction of a trace gas is not going to change this well bounded cycle.
Millenial cycles with a declining trend. We can but hope that AnthroGHGs alter the trend, for they can only alter it for the good.
This is the massive error in placing their bets that the alarmists made. We need not fear anthropogenic warming, rather we should fear natural cooling. It is in the cards.
=============
That’s a good comment. Thanks VP.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: As long as CO2 levels continue to rise, expect long-term warming.
How does that make you a “skeptical” warmist? You write more like a true believer, and that is an example.
The causal chain from the absorption spectrum of CO2 and the emission spectrum of Earth to CO2-induced mean temperature rise in the future is replete with broken and missing links. The theory is kept alive now by totally ad hoc hypotheses, untested empirical model fitting, and a clearly inaccurate “equilibrium” approximation.
When RGates misconstrues the Human Carbon Cornucopia as a Human Carbon Volcano he puts an ironic interpretation to his skeptical monicker.
======================
Visiting Physicist: back radiation cannot assist the Sun in actually raising the surface temperature
Are you sure you understand the argument here? Are you saying that the back radiation does not even exist (despite having been measured)?
@MM: The causal chain from the absorption spectrum of CO2 and the emission spectrum of Earth to CO2-induced mean temperature rise in the future is replete with broken and missing links. The theory is kept alive now by totally ad hoc hypotheses.
Lots of luck persuading geophysicists that the CO2-temperature connection is an “ad hoc hypothesis.”
Lots of luck persuading all the world’s fossil fuel consumers that they need to stop emitting CO2.
Vaughan Pratt: Lots of luck persuading geophysicists that the CO2-temperature connection is an “ad hoc hypothesis.”
The ad hoc hypotheses (note plural) are the diverse explanations of the unpredicted and initially denied “hiatus”. That the “missing heat” may be accumulating in the deep sea, for example. They are being created to save the hypothesis that increasing CO2 must cause future warming, despite the lack of measurable warming over 17 years now with the highest concentrations of CO2 yet measured.
We should discuss this after Kerry’s comments been peer-reviewed– i.e., by a group of wealthy Leftist politicians who hate America.
Hmm, he disagrees with me. I can easily refute his feeble argument by claiming that it shows he hates America. He probably also hates Mickey Mouse, Annette Funicello, the light bulb, and everything else that makes America great.
Isn’t logic wonderful?
Are you saying that he only loathes the military?
Old age evidently makes more things appear to be logical.
Coal Politics
Obama/Kerry are making enemies by forcing the World Bank to forbid funding coal fired power plants.
Now China is stepping in to win Pakistan’s friendshipby offering to build AND FINANCE coal fired power plants to meet Pakistan’s critical energy crisis – where Pakistan could well be importing coal from the USA.
To Kerry – Study Dale Carnegie on “How to Win Friends and Influence People” NOT make them our enemies.
“We the People” need a Secretary of State who best represents US, NOT left wing ideologues.
First, you have to love yourself.
==========
It is a fact that very few scientists, who actually work in the field of climate science, that don’t believe that humans are warming the earth and that if we don’t reduce our carbon emissions, it will have do significant harm to our global society. You Dr. Curry are in a small minority.
…but, humans are not warming the earth: no global warming for more than 17.5 years, remember? In any event, no scientist with a reputation to protect failed to make a beeline for the UN exits years ago and obviously by the end of 2009 with the release of foi2009.pdf CRUgate whistleblower disclosures.
“end of 2009 with the release of foi2009.pdf CRUgate whistleblower disclosures.”
It is all a conspiracy. Yawn.. But don’t blame Kerry for listening to what the scientists say.
It is also a fact that we are largely uncertain about the range of impacts that warming will have, how to reduce carbon emissions in a politically feasible way, and whether more money now on low efficiency technology or to invest money later into more efficient technology will leave the world a better place for humanity.
it is a fact that the politicians clamoring for action are largely ignorant of the compound economic effects (direct and indirect) of the policies they promote.
It is a fact that the costs in the short-term will impact the least wealthy the hardest, and the reduced growth through time will reduce the capacity of our grandchildren to respond to ALL of life, not just climate issues.
Being a minority is not in and of itself indicative of the correctness or incorrectness of a position nor where her alliances rest. Those who invited her to testify recently in D.C. certainly think of her as a “friendly” expert to their positions and interests, but differing viewpoints are important in a Democracy.
Joseph ” You Dr. Curry are in a small minority.”
You know, I have pretty much always favored the underdoc.
My suggestion would be to reduce our use of coal as fast as possible, increase the use of natural gas and renewables, increase energy efficiency and invest in research and development of new technologies.
Don’t be naive, Joseph. We can force other nations to reduce coal use. If we reduce coal use in the US it will simply be sold to other countries who will burn it instead and do it far less cleanly that we burn it. Same thing happens when we do things that make industrial output in the US overly expensive with regulatory burdens. The industry moves overseas and we remain consumers that drive the production which is now dirtier for having driven it overseas. Few leftists dipschits seem to have a firm grasp on reality and yours is as loose as any.
Joseph
Wake up to the realities of life.
Global warming has stalled while human GHG emissions continue unabated and concentrations reach record levels.
IOW model predictions have failed.
If you cannot (or don’t want to) see what is actually going on around you, it is difficult to claim you are a scientist.
Max
Joseph. Very few of the “scientists” who work in the field of so-called climate science have any accurate understanding of thermodynamics – the science behind it all. I am quite sure of this, because what they say is a blatant travesty of physics. I suggest you read the WUWT comment linked in my comment at 6:54pm above. The evidence on the planet Uranus completely demolishes the greenhouse conjecture.
Max said:
“Global warming has stalled…”
___
Again, your myopic focus on sensible tropospheric heat taken year to year indicates a clearly biased viewpoint. I would be curious what your response will be if we get another “warmest year on record” globally between now and 2020? To preserve your memeplex, it would have to be:
* simply natural variability
* the numbers were adjusted by a conspiracy of climategate refugees?
* it was “just” an El Nino year
* but it was a “dry” heat (Robert Chief Hydro’s favorite)
Joseph
Your ideas for reducing CO2 emissions sound good as a starting point, but…
Can you list specific actionable proposals that could be physically implemented in order to realize your ideas? (i.e. switch all future power generation in USA from coal to natural gas or nuclear, convert all heavy transportation in the developed world – trucks, buses, etc. – from Diesel to natural gas, etc.)
How much reduction in atmospheric CO2 over the next 50 years will each of these measures bring?
What impact on global average temperature will this theoretically have by 2100?
Calculations, please.
Who will implement these ideas (the EU, USA and a few other industrialized nations – or China, India, etc. and the whole world)?
Will this mean that the industrially developing nations will have to slow down their rates of development?
How will these nations be encouraged to implement these actions?
Lots of unanswered questions, Joseph.
Max
Joseph (7:25 pm),
Why? Natural Gas is not inexhaustible, nor even temporarily infinite. The national cold snap strained supplies with March deliveries above $5.56 / MCF. I had hopes that a close call on a natural gas shortage would knock some sense into those who what to shut down coal fired power plants.
Next year, with 60 GW of coal plants shut down, there is a greater danger that spare natural gas deliverability will not be available to avoid brown-out and rolling black-outs — Or what I’ll call BARAK-outs.
Coal is a cheap fuel. Used properly in a big stationary electrical generation plant with flue gas scrubbers, it is a clean source of electricity. Use fuels for the purposes they are best suited. Leave Natural Gas for topping plants, home and industrial heating, and process industries. Use Coal for base load electrical generation.
Gates,
I don’t think it is rational for a policy maker who is not an expert in the field to rely on a tiny minority to make decisions.
By the same token climate scientists are not expert in economics or public policy so the same elected representatives cannot rely on a tiny minority of non-experts to make those policy decisions for them.
So we’ve been warned by the “experts” in climate science. When they’ve proven themselves capable of predicing climate change far in advance maybe people will begin listening to them. Right now their track record is brief and problematic. Climategate revealed a deeply troubling lack of integrity in the small group of experts making the alarmist claims. It’s little wonder the world isn’t falling all over itself to curtail the energy production that makes modern life possible and holds the promise to lift those who aren’t beneficiaries of western technology out of their poverty stricken lives. Go pound sand.
R. Gates
You pose a hypothetical case that we will have a new “warmest year” by 2020.
Being a bit more skeptical than you, I do not think this is likely, in view of the current trend.
But I believe that it is more important to look at trends, rather than single years.
And the current trend in global average temperature is one of slight cooling (similar to the one we had between 1945 and 1975).
Will this slight cooling trend continue for another 15 years or so (as the earlier one did)?
Or will we return to the underlying long-term warming trend of around 0.6C per century, as we have seen since 1850?
Or will there be another cycle of strong warming of 0.15C per decade, as we saw in the early and late 20thC?
Who knows?
Neither you nor I. Nor the IPCC.
It’s a crapshoot, Gates
Max
Joseph, warming the earth or warming the sea ?
Mr Gates says it is all in the sea so we do not have to worry on the land . and all that heat apparently has warmed the sea up by 0.001 degree centigrade over the last 30 years [in the bounds of measurement error it might have become cooler].
As your friend Mr Springer has eloquently put it, cold water cannot heat the air, 2nd law of something or other].
And if humans heat the earth a little, no worries, the world and life has been there before,
Remember? Thats how we got all the fossil fuel in the first place: whew, there must have been a lot of CO2 in the air back then.
“It’s a crapshoot, Gates”
____
Any given year, or even group of years is indeed a “crapshoot”, but over the long-term the dice are loaded and will most consistently fall on “warmer”. I think the odds of a warmest tropospheric year globally between now and 2020 are pretty good– better than 50/50 I would estimate.
“Mr Gates says it is all in the sea so we do not have to worry on the land .”
____
Um, that’s not quite what I said:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/15/week-in-review-13/#comment-458077
R. Gates, A Skeptical Warmist | February 17, 2014 at 8:08 pm |
“It’s a crapshoot, Gates”
____
Any given year, or even group of years is indeed a “crapshoot”, but over the long-term the dice are loaded and will most consistently fall on “warmer”. I think the odds of a warmest tropospheric year globally between now and 2020 are pretty good– better than 50/50 I would estimate.
======
Define long term. Define odds are pretty good. Define warmer.
Because if all you have is the mush you wrote above, which basically says something large or small may or may not happen in a time frame that’s long or short…. Well, that ain’t much of a statement.
“Define long term. Define odds are pretty good. Define warmer.
Because if all you have is the mush you wrote above, which basically says something large or small may or may not happen in a time frame that’s long or short…. Well, that ain’t much of a statement.”
——
The odds that the decade of 2010-2019 is warmer than the previous decade is better than 50/50, and the odds the each successive decade is higher still is also better than 50/50. The odds that the decade of 2090-2100 is warmer than 2000-2009 is probably over 90%. The odds that we will see the first ice free summer Arctic in recorded history this century is probably over 90%. That’s called warmer. That’s what happens when you have a several century eruption of the HCV leading to the highest GH gas levels in at least 3.2 million years.
.”..a several century eruption of the HCV leading to the highest GH gas levels in at least 3.2 million years.”
You better have a word with those krazy kids at Skeptical Science about this several centuries long human carbon volcano thing.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/global.total.gif
Unless by “several centuries” you mean about 60 years, and by “volcano” you mean a dormant piece of rock sticking up out of the earth.
Um, sorry RG! But yes you have said that repeatedly on recent threads here as anyone who has read the comments would know. One little quote from 2 days ago does’t fix a hundred human volcanoes saying its in the ocean, we cannot rely on surface temps.
I’m sure you have your quotes saved in your LBB so there is no need for me to find them for you, is there?
R. Gates, a Skeptical(?) Warmist – The odds that we will see the first ice free summer Arctic in recorded history this century is probably over 90%
(2009) MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Precious. Page 25 of MIT study linked above:
So where did R. Gates get the 90% figure from? I’m guessing he pulled it out of his ass but maybe he has a different source. Let’s see.
Gates?
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist | February 18, 2014 at 12:12 am |
“Define long term. Define odds are pretty good. Define warmer.
Because if all you have is the mush you wrote above, which basically says something large or small may or may not happen in a time frame that’s long or short…. Well, that ain’t much of a statement.”
——
The odds that the decade of 2010-2019 is warmer than the previous decade is better than 50/50, and the odds the each successive decade is higher still is also better than 50/50. The odds that the decade of 2090-2100 is warmer than 2000-2009 is probably over 90%. The odds that we will see the first ice free summer Arctic in recorded history this century is probably over 90%. That’s called warmer. That’s what happens when you have a several century eruption of the HCV leading to the highest GH gas levels in at least 3.2 million years.
+++++++++++++
Wow,
“better than 50/50″… so 50.00001:49.99999??
“probably over 90%”… but maybe not I guess
Got to hand to you, you “skeptical warmist”, you’re quite firm in your forecasts.
/sarc off
MIT-2009: P(icefree summer) = 0.05
MIT-2009: ΔT(Yr 2100) = 5.1°C
MIT-2012: ΔT(Yr 2100) = 4.3°C
MIT-2013: ΔT(Yr 2100) = 3.8°C
∴ P(icefree summer) less than 0.05
R. Gates, a Skeptical Warmist: Again, your myopic focus on sensible tropospheric heat taken year to year indicates a clearly biased viewpoint.
This brings back my question: since the accumulating CO2 that is the hypothetical cause of all this warming is doing its accumulating in the troposphere, and since “warming” is predicted by the hypothesis, why is the focus on sensible tropospheric heat “myopic”. From the point of view of the warming that we have all been warned will cause catastrophic consequences, that is the most important focus of all. If not, since that is where the CO2 is, why not? Your assertions on this point always evade the mechanism that is at issue.
So it seems to me.
re; 90% probability of ice free Arctic summer by 2100
Looks like another boneheaded boner that R. Gates posted and now isn’t man enough to admit he just pulled that 90% figure out of thin air. Typical. He’s scientifically illiterate as I discovered recently when he refused to believe that Antarctica, given an average temperature of -36C, has a radiant emittance of 179W/m2 (actually a couple Watts less because ice and snow has an emissivity very slightly less than one). Blackbody physics, the most basic and well established physical laws upon which greenhouse warming is based, are not understood by Gates. Incredible. He’s arguing about things without the first clue of the earth’s radiative heat budget. That kind of ignorance is just mind bloggling given how much blowhard bragging he does about how much he knows.
Gates:
“Again, your myopic focus on sensible tropospheric heat taken year to year indicates a clearly biased viewpoint.”
So what do you think of that study that indicated the atlantic and pacific oceans were .65 degrees warmer during the MWP than today?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6158/617
how long until the earth warms to the point of the MWP, given these numbers?
The little important detail from the study of the OHC over the past 10,000 years that so many fake-skeptics somehow leave out:
“The modern rate of Pacific OHC change is, however, the highest in the past 10,000 years.”
Yep, the Pacific is warming at the fastest rate in the past 10,000 years.
Big blow to the “globe is cooling” next glacial advance is coming! Fan Club.
R. Gates
Fastest rate of increase of OHC in the past 10,000 years?
Huh?
As measured by whom?
And how?
Cite specifics, please.
(Or is this just another boner?)
Max
@cd: I have pretty much always favored the underdoc.
Belated props for a good one, cd.
@edbarbar: So what do you think of that study that indicated the atlantic and pacific oceans were .65 degrees warmer during the MWP than today?
It was extremely cold in 1910, well before rising CO2 had any significant impact. Anyone definining “today” to be 1910 should not be surprised that the MWP was warmer than “today”.
Have you had a chance to compare the MWP with 2014?
Max, you beat me to it, but to put a finer point on Gates’ claim of Pacific OHC rise being fastest in the past 10,000 years, I’d like to know:
1. What measurements he is referring to.
2. The temperature resolution of those measurements.
3. The geographic distribution of those measurements.
4. The temporal resolution of those measurements.
5. The error analysis for items 2-4.
6. The trend over the past 10,000 years as estimated using a consistent set of measurements (i.e. not switching from proxies to thermometers)
I would say the “odds are pretty good” that Gates will not answer these requests.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: “The modern rate of Pacific OHC change is, however, the highest in the past 10,000 years.”
1. There is little to no scientific evidence about rates of OHC change in the past; and there isn’t much evidence about the rate of OHC change over the past 10 years. It’s very uneven and with great errors of measurement.
2. There is no mechanism by which atmospheric accumulation of CO2 can cause an increase in OHC without warming both the troposphere and the surface, whose temperature profiles have been roughly flat over the last 17 years. If OHC is increasing, a dubious proposition now at best, it must in light of present scientific knowledge be happening independently of the increasing CO2. As far as I can recall, no one promoting the theory of AGW at this site has proposed a mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 can be causing OHC increase without tropospheric temp increase.
o Matthew R Marler | February 19, 2014 at 12:52 pm |
There is little to no scientific evidence about rates of OHC change in the past; and there isn’t much evidence about the rate of OHC change over the past 10 years. It’s very uneven and with great errors of measurement.
Incorrect. This very detailed scientific study comes to the conclusion that the current rate of increase in OHC in the Pacific is the highest in past 10,000:
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/Rosenthal_Science_2013.pdf
Even warming faster than it did during the MWP.
“As far as I can recall, no one promoting the theory of AGW at this site has proposed a mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 can be causing OHC increase without tropospheric temp increase.”
This gets back to the fundamental failure of fake-skeptics to even consider or try to honestly understand the “control knob” function of noncondensing GH gases. The past 10 years have been the warmest 10 year period on instrument record in the troposphere. GH gases are at their highest levels in the past 3.2 million years (probably far longer for methane and N20. The control knob is set to “accumulate”. As the troposphere warms even more in the coming decades, the control knob will simply be set to “accumulate faster”. C’mon, shake off your fake-skeptic myopia!
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist | February 19, 2014 at 1:14 pm |
o Matthew R Marler | February 19, 2014 at 12:52 pm |
There is little to no scientific evidence about rates of OHC change in the past; and there isn’t much evidence about the rate of OHC change over the past 10 years. It’s very uneven and with great errors of measurement.
Incorrect. This very detailed scientific study comes to the conclusion that the current rate of increase in OHC in the Pacific is the highest in past 10,000:
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/Rosenthal_Science_2013.pdf
Even warming faster than it did during the MWP.
++++++++++++
Yes, please go back to the paper, check the temporal resolution (best I can see is the statement that one of the core tops is at “~100 to 300 years B.P.”, check the geographic coverage, check the error bars, and then demonstrate to us what the warming rate was during the MWP and to what degree of certainly you know that given the issues described in the first sentence.
ps Gates – interesting to me that in the abstract for the paper they talk about “high-resolution” proxies, but the word “resolution” doesn’t appear anywhere else in the paper, nor do they seem to talk about calibration of either the temporal, spatial (geographic) or temperature “resolution” of these proxies.
Gates writes
“This very detailed scientific study comes to the conclusion that the current rate of increase in OHC in the Pacific is the highest in past 10,000”
You really think this study is a reliable record of the world’s oceans temperature record? Reading the study, I’d say that you are reading it with the desire for it to confirm your beliefs. The study has very high margin of error and the sample size is very small. Hardly a comprehensive record of the ocean’s temperature.
@R.Gates
If you want MRM to shake off his fake-skeptic myopia, you need to propose a plausible mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 can be causing OHC to increase without the tropospheric temperature increasing. It is not enough to show that OHC and atmospheric CO2 are correlated. Without a mechanism, it is just as likely that the OHC increase is causing CO2 to rise or even that their respective increases are coincidental.
If you do not have a plausible mechanism, you are arguing much like a perpetual motion advocate would and certainly not like a skeptical warmist.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: This gets back to the fundamental failure of fake-skeptics to even consider or try to honestly understand the “control knob” function of noncondensing GH gases. The past 10 years have been the warmest 10 year period on instrument record in the troposphere. GH gases are at their highest levels in the past 3.2 million years (probably far longer for methane and N20. The control knob is set to “accumulate”. As the troposphere warms even more in the coming decades, the control knob will simply be set to “accumulate faster”. C’mon, shake off your fake-skeptic myopia!
Again you fail to address the issue: How does the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere transfer solar energy to the deep ocean without warming either the troposphere or the surface. “Control knob” is not a mechanism here, it is a misleading analogy.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist: This very detailed scientific study comes to the conclusion that the current rate of increase in OHC in the Pacific is the highest in past 10,000:
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/Rosenthal_Science_2013.pdf
Even warming faster than it did during the MWP.
Thank you for the link. I don’t think it shows what you claim it shows, but we could possibly come back to it during an open thread.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist, from the Rosenthal Manuscript:
43 2. Age models
Accelerator mass spectrometry (WHOI AMS facility) 1444 C dates were obtained on
45 mixed planktonic species (primarily G. ruber and G. sacculifer) and corrected and
46 converted to calendar age (5) using a reservoir age correction of 500 years for all the
3
cores (6) (Table S1). In core 13GGC we identified a 47 n ash layer at 3 cm depth, which we
48 assumed to be Mt. Tambora ash layer, and therefore assigned this depth the age of the last
49 eruption 1815 CE.
50 We generated several high-resolution records of the Common Era (CE) using a
51 combination of multi- and gravity cores. The composite records have higher resolution
52 and more replication than the longer ones. The age models for the gravity cores are
53 based on AMS radiocarbon dating. The chronology of the multi-cores is based on several
54 criteria. All multi-core tops contained sigifivant amounts of bomb radiocarbon.
Therefore, we use the similarity between the planktonic foraminiferal δ1355 C records and
the decrease in atmospheric δ1356 C (aka Suess Effect) to date the top-most part of the multi
57 cores, whereas AMS radiocarbon dating was used to determine the age of the bottom of
58 the multi-cores. We assume a linear age change between the top and bottom, and tested
this assumption using lead isotopes (21059 Pb) dating and correlation of distinctive ash layers
60 in these cores with known historic volcanic eruptions (e.g., Mt Tambora’s eruption in
61 1815). For details see MSc thesis by Katharine L. Esswein (7).
That’s from the Supporting Online Material.
They do not have sufficiently accurate estimates of dates or other measured quantities to compare rates of warming in ancient times to the rate of warming of the last decade. They also sample a pretty small section of the Pacific Ocean.
Rates are estimated from ratios, and when the denominators of the ratios are poorly estimated, the ratios are poorly estimated. Here the errors in measurement are substantial.
R. Gates
Just looked at that interesting paleo study on ocean temperatures which you cited.
Some excerpts that caught my eye:
and
and
and
So the paleo reconstruction suggests that:
– The ocean was warmer than today over most of the Holocene, except for the LIA
– The HTM was global and 1.5°C ± 0.4°C to 2.5°C± 0.4°C warmer than today
– The MWP was global and ~0.65°C warmer than today
– The LIA was global and ~0.25°C colder than today
– The modern rate of change is highest in past 10,000 years (as you wrote)
Hey, I can go along with these conclusions, Gates, keeping in mind that studies using paleo climate proxies are dicey to start off with and have an even harder time with rates of change than they do with absolute temperatures.
Can you go along with these conclusions, as well?
Thanks for a reply.
Max
More on the Rosenthal et al study here:
http://climateaudit.org/2013/11/02/rosenthal-et-al-2013/
Only a perverse misanthrope would wish for cooling.
It is one way to take attention off the disasterous policies in the Middle East
Face it folks.
John Kerry has absolutely no knowledge when it comes to global warming or climate change, anthropogenic or not.
His proclamations are those of an uninformed politician.
Beware.
Max
His comments are those of a shameless liar. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth exposed the man’s utter lack of character.
We wuz takin’ it to ’em.
=================
Should the leadership of US scientific community, even when it concurs with the IPCC step up to the plate and tell Sec Kerry and President Obama that they are making claims well beyond what even the scientific concensus they claim to believe is asserting? Should Science Advisor Holdren be held accountable for the shoddy sdvice he is giving on climate change? The credibility of the scientific community is at stake, regardless of one’s position on human caused climate change.
Only of they want to maintain any sense of the public trust. Not holding my breath.
Podestra is the massage maker.
That is a Freudian slip it should be message maker
Absolutely. I would expect the president of the APS to write an OpEd calling Kerry to task for implying that Lindzen, Curry and Christy are second rate scientists and not worth listening to. Clearly APS invited them to their workshop because they are credible respected scientists and very worth listening to.
Some advisers and speech wrters are putting these words in Kerry and Obama’s mouths. Who dey be? Anyone know?
ordvic
Try George Soros and John Holdren.
Just a guess.
Max
I’ve long wondered if M. Strong is in the Middle Kingdom advising, or being advised of his rights.
==========
Who dey be is not important. All Presidents have them, but they are hired to research and write speeches to support his policies. They are his policies, not his speech writers. Often times they may even oppose the policies they are writing about– such is the nature of being a hired “Pen”.
I guess I can still goggle. This advisor may be ann important move by Obama.. Dan Utech work ed for the energy dept and has been a longtime pol. He also did a five year stnt with Hillary. He is hailed by greens. It looks to me like they are getting more aggressive that didn”t seem to be the case with the previous appointee Heather Zichal. The y are apparently going to persue a policy of executive action and snub congress.
John Kerry departed China with a magic hatful of climate canards and has been deployed to use his bubble gum bazooka to spook the natives into fleeing like gazelles.
==================
R. Gates, A Skeptical Warmist | February 17, 2014 at 7:53 pm |
Who dey be is not important. All Presidents have them, but they are hired to research and write speeches to support his policies. They are his policies, not his speech writers. Often times they may even oppose the policies they are writing about– such is the nature of being a hired “Pen”.
========
So, you’d have us believe there are no qualifies greenies liberal speech writers. Hmmmmm. What are the odds there are no Ivy grads willing to write for these knuckleheads.
I call BS.
Podestra is the message maker.
There’s no ‘R’ thar, but you’ve found one of the incendiaries in the woodpile.
Weapons of Mass Destruction, wielded by these would be one-worlders.
Here’s to diversity, such as it was.
=========
Judith Curry
I am assuming that Kerry was not referring to you when he said “shoddy scientists”.
This would not have been a very “PC” thing to say (and Kerry is a master at “PC-talk” – or he wouldn’t be US Secretary of State).
It appears that he was simply braying the mantra that “the science is settled – it’s time for action”.
I can understand the political motivation behind his speech, but I am amazed at how totally uninformed he is about the subject.
Max
And in a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction. – John Kerry
_________
Potentially, yes.
… and, is John Kerry with a garage full of SUVs potentially committing an atrocity?
Max_OK
Sorry to put it so bluntly, but it appears that you are as totally uninformed about this subject as your secretary of state, John Kerry.
Max_not from OK
I guess you could say, the Left loathes global warming but… wouldn’t have it any other way.
M-W.com has only one definition for flat-earther: “a person who believes that the planet Earth is flat.” Obviously, Kerry meant something else. Flat-earther is defined by thefreedictionary.com as “One who stubbornly adheres to outmoded or discredited ideas. [From the long-discredited belief that the earth is flat.]” and by en.wiktionary.org as “ a person who refuses to acknowledge the truth despite overwhelming evidence.” I believe the latter definition was what Kerry had in mind.
I’m not sure why Kerry chose to use “flat-earther” rather than “denier,” but IMO it’s a better choice than “skeptic.” I consider myself a skeptic in general, but I have little in common with people who identify themselves as global warming skeptics, many if not most of whom strike me as being right-wing cranks.
We need to alert Homeland Security to be on the lookout for people from the Middle East carrying climate change in their underwear.
I’m sorry Max_CH and Waggy, but I’m not a flat-earther. But I am a skeptic, one of the even-handed kind.
Waggy, why should I expect Kerry to live in a hovel and walk every where he goes? I don’t.
Why don’t people jump on Kerry’s wife like they jump on the Waltons? She is a billioinaire. I guess she gets a pass from the liberal liars.
Exactly how would I use this weapon against a selected foe?
Ok, Max – how?
The calamity crowd is slowly acknowledging that temperature is not an important factor to most atmospheric motion. ( Look at the primitive equations and note that while temperature gradients are key, temperature only appears in the equation of state ).
So there’s just not a lot of disaster to conjure up from warming.
What specifically are you thinking about?
I’m actually relieved that Kerry compared global warming to a weapon of mass destruction. Based on his dealings with Iran as Secretary of State, the comparison is a clear signal that he and the administration intend to do nothing at all about the issue beyond making speeches.
By the way, since he’s so certain that we have no time and that it’s obvious what “we need to do,” we can expect the administration to actually propose something concrete for the first time in six years, right? I mean something other than taking credit for the shale gas boom. Drill baby, drill was Obama’s slogan, right?
JeffN
Best comment so far.
+1
I guess that makes Kerry the real Flat Earther since he’s refusing to look at the actual data indicating lower forcing and commensurately lower warming than was testified to a quarter century ago.
Max,
Have you any qualifications regarding WMD’s? I can only claim expertise on one category. And it involves destruction on a level far greater than anything likely to occur as a result of global warming in the next 100 years or more.
Max,
You left out “elderly” right wing cranks.
@timg456: You left out “elderly” right wing cranks.
Teenager Tim feeling a bit left out here…
@manacker: it appears that you are as totally uninformed about this subject as your secretary of state, John Kerry.
Whereas Max Manacker is thoroughly informed by (pick one):
* God
* Received wisdom
* The denizens of Climate Etc.
* Careful calculations he’s performed over the years, that are way better than the calculations performed by the global climate community.
* None of the above.
Don’t be a jackass Vaughan.
Anyone reading Dr Curry’s blog is aware of Max regularly posting on his ageist hypothesis. I simply reminded him he was leaving out one of his favorites.
Also try being a bit less obtuse. Your Johnson – Palin comment had no discernable point. Several comments in this thread have exhibited the same characteristic. As for the teenager label, let’s just say I remember Johnson as VP.
Trapper Vaughn is gonna git thim varmints by heself, with his snowshoes and his trusty firearm. Fergit the bounty, this is personal.
=============
There is not much wrong with taking steps to clean our air and improve or fuel efficiency and use multiple sources of energy production.
there is nothing wrong with wind and solar power complementing our current power sources. What is wrong is looking after some imaginary future at the expense of the people who are here today.
I am old enough to remember electricity being connected for the first time.
I have gone from radio being connected to state of the art computers.
There will always be poor and suffering people in the world
there have always been wars, droughts, floods and natural disasters.
Most people will be lucky enough to avoid most of these in their lifetimes.
We are at the cusp of invention and progress,
We have 30 Einsteins alive today who are able to actively improve the lot of mankind.
What we need are policies of population reduction, sharing of resources but not equally, rather commensurate to the communities producing them.
More people prepared to work at all jobs, not pseudo university degrees for pseudo jobs. People happy to share but also to be rewarded for “success”.
In that context we need more energy production so more people can have better lives, not less energy for the well off to drag everyone down to poverty level.
And no using fossil fuels/ increasing CO2 temporarily does not cause climate change of any consequence.
Mr Kerry is a classical example of self perceived guilt and atonement, just other people atoning , not himself.
+100
What’s the worst that could happen if we were wrong about AGW?
We take and shift capital and energy away from productive industries, lowering our overall wealth by 25-50% compounded year after year, ending up in 2060 with 1/2-1/3 the wealth we would otherwise have, and which would allow us to address the challenges we face.
We invest in sub-standard technologies and build a relatively cost-inefficient infrastructure that hinders our later investment/implementation of much more efficient technologies. We also fail to invest in the dozens of other critical social issues that threaten to destroy and hamper our thriving as individuals and as a society.
We create government bureaucracies that hamper creativity and innovation and create huge political interest groups and lobbying to steer the trillions in subsidy/regulation into the pockets of the richest and most politically connected/astute/ruthless rather than into the hands of entrepreneurs and small business owners applying new technologies to local challenges.
The political infighting of the various groups fighting for the political pork is leveraged by clever politicians and media-savvy interest groups to to further confuse the issues and divide their manufactured constituencies into entrenched partisan forces – further/increasingly fracturing the goodwill between citizens in various countries and between them.
there is nothing wrong with wind and solar power complementing our current power sources.
There is a lot wrong with the unfair subsidies and tax credits that promote wind and solar and give them unfair advantage that harms our energy providers who are responsible for a power grid that works.
Nice one. Big ups.
This bit is perfect “Mr Kerry is a classical example of self perceived guilt and atonement, just other people atoning , not himself.”.
@angech: And no using fossil fuels/ increasing CO2 temporarily does not cause climate change of any consequence.
This would appear to be the main disagreement, right?
I said elsewhere that this is a treacherous time for true science. With the current Obama administration saying that he intends to take steps and will do it with “his pen” rather than seeking agreement and consent of Congress, and Kerry’s historical ideological leaning. I am not sure whether Kerry understands anything at all … or whether he just accepts what left is telling him then feeling this is the common good thing for mankind etc. I am sure he does not understand anything about the science. The president is more inclined to take massive steps because he truly wants to undermine the existing energy infrastructure and transform it thereby expanding government size, scope and control … and this is just the right kind of weapon for doing it – he is absolutely not competent to form opinions of his own based on science nor does he give a hoot. Bringing on Podesta as the czar / special advisor on healthcare, climate change and WH staff/organization. Podesta is far left and has background on climate change related and yes directly connected to Geo Soros and Holdren who along with Podesta was a key player in the Center for American Progress. Obama says he plans to present US climate targets to the rest of the world (United Nations) in the next two years. This is why it is paramount to not give this administration trade promotion authority – fast tracking on international / trade treaties which will allow him to totally sidestep Congress on a climate agreement (a global climate agreement is a treaty), although he would try to do it anyway. Is this a correct assessment?
Obama alone cannot continue to kill the economy and jobs. That requires voters. Obama is not the problem; he is the symptom of a problem — much like global warming –i.e., it is a symptom of the Fall of Western Civilization.
+100
Excellent assessment
Holdren provides the goofy apocalyptic input
Soros provides the behind-the-scenes political guidance for the international takeover of power
Obama and Kerry are tools, with Podesta giving good yes-man support
Only the US voting public can stop this. Let’s see how it plays out.
Correct, sadly. Sic semper tyrannis.
=========
Posted this below – but it belongs here
Link to comments by Pielke and Spencer to “zombie science” of John Holdren (President Obama’s “science czar”):
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/climate_scientist_faults_obama_science_advisor_for_zombie_science.html
Enjoy.
Good grief, grow up. Obama is not part of some sort of cabal seeking the end of western civ. He and his team are just standard issue libs- they need a fat source of new tax revenue in order to spend, spend spend and global warming/cooling/stasis fits the bill.
As long as they don’t have to do anything icky- like support rational alternatives to coal such as nuclear power, this issue is great. A nice fat carbon tax sneaks in the middle-class tax hike they need in order to extend the benefits party through the baby-boomer retirement wave. It won’t do anything about climate, but that’s been obvious for over a decade and they haven’t cared about it yet.
I’m becoming an agnostic on the idea. It’s been a great joy, frankly, to see “communitarians” discover that they are getting the bill for Obama Care (they actually thought “the rich” were going to pay for it!). I think a regressive tax is just what we need to focus the voters’ minds on the fact that there is no such thing as a “free lunch.” The GOP should accept the Obama Tax Hikes with the compromise that it is clearly labeled as such on your electric bill and gasoline receipts.
With the current Obama administration saying that he intends to take steps and will do it with “his pen” rather than seeking agreement and consent of Congress,
This must be stopped. Congress must stop this. The courts should stop this, but I fear that they will not.
Speaking of Kerry’s ability to understand a topic – some people never could come to terms with the fact of the “dumb” guy President having progressed further and achieved higher grades than either of the two guys he beat.
From the article:
One example of the authors’ use of economic theory involves demonstrating the existence of cheating among sumo wrestlers. In a sumo tournament, all wrestlers in the top division compete in 15 matches and face demotion if they do not win at least eight of them. The sumo community is very close-knit, and the wrestlers at the top levels tend to know each other well. The authors looked at the final match, and considered the case of a wrestler with seven wins, seven losses, and one fight to go, fighting against an 8-6 wrestler. Statistically, the 7-7 wrestler should have a slightly below even chance, since the 8-6 wrestler is slightly better. However, the 7-7 wrestler actually wins around 80% of the time. Levitt uses this statistic and other data gleaned from sumo wrestling matches, along with the effect that allegations of corruption have on match results, to conclude that those who already have 8 wins collude with those who are 7-7 and let them win, since they have already secured their position for the following tournament. Despite condemnation of the claims by the Japan Sumo Association following the book’s publication in 2005, the 2011 Grand Tournament in Tokyo was cancelled for the first time since 1946 because of allegations of match fixing.[3]
The authors attempt to demonstrate the power of data mining, as a number of their results emerge from Levitt’s analysis of various databases. The authors posit that various incentives encourage teachers to cheat by assisting their students with multiple-choice high-stakes tests. Such cheating in the Chicago school system is inferred from detailed analysis of students’ answers to multiple choice questions. But first Levitt asks, “What would the pattern of answers look like if the teacher cheated?” The simple answer: the more difficult questions found at the end of test sections will be answered correctly more frequently than the easy questions at the beginning of test sections.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
Given human nature is what it is, and due to that some people in any arena will cheat if they believe it can remain hidden, we can assume that some in the climate establishment will cheat. What numbers could be mined to demonstrate cheating?
Maybe we could put climate scientists into two classes: skeptics and consensus. The we could look at things like months to get published, number of revisions to get published, number of papers not submitted but refused.
What other metrics could be mined to reveal cheating. It would take someone very familiar with that world to find points of leverage.
“not submitted but refused.” should have been “submitted but refused. “
Yeah I just saw Freakonomics on the boob tube this afternoon. Most of it anyway.
I don’t know how many readers noticed the level of pearl clutching and hand wringing Mr. Kerry does in that speech. I don’t know how many readers will note the absolute certainty we are doomed. Doomed I say. Mr. Uncertain T Monster is nowhere to be seen. And how do you suppose those third world countries seeking payment for damages done by extreme weather will respond? Well, I doubt they will take the words of the U.S.Secretary of State very seriously. This will surely not give those looking for restitution payments from the big bad USA as well as the rest of the developed world any credible voice admitting we are the blame. Probably not. I wonder if Mr. Kerry put that in his calculus of how much money it’s going to cost us all?
But seriously, this is the kind of panic stricken doom and gloom prognosticating that turns the public off. It’s been heard so many times by other failed presidential candidates that it very well could end up doing more harm than good for the climate change cause. There is no certainty in that, but the message has not worked so far, why this time?
One other thing careful readers will note…. Apparently the reason we are so completely flat footed on doing anything at all is due to a few shoddy scientists and some flat earthers. Amazing! We are all held hostage by those few… Along with the obligatory big no name corporations that don’t want to change. We are absolutely powerless to these few mere 3%. Their message has apparently been so so much more powerful than thousands and thousands of non shoddy scientists. The five AR reports wilts to the power of those few shoddy scientists. It just boggles the mind how asymmetrical the playing field is how that minuscule 3% holds us all back from achieving anything related to climate policy. Really? Or maybe it’s a tad bit easier to just blame someone else for your own inability to act.
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry in reponse to what Mr. Kerry has to say in the matter. If this the state of knowledge about the climate change problem among the top of this administration…. it is a travestyand in my opinion a step backwards.
Yes, it’s all old hat; a hat with too much made up meaning.
==========
John –
Thought you might find this interesting:
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/
I mean this:
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/adaptation-mitigation-or-both/
John Carpenter
+100
Joshua, I think that linked comment sums up much of where I am coming from lately. Much of what the author talks about is very similar to what you and I were discussing the other day. I would not put me in the adaption only box. I would say adaption/resiliency plans should get more attention now with mitigation plans growing more aggressive over time. What Kerry gets right is many options we have are no regrets. Preparing for weather extremes is no regrets. Mitigating smartly when alternatives prove themselves to be more reliable and cheaper as they improve and mature will benefit us for obtaining additional energy sources we will need as fossil is finite in supply… Whew… Is no regrets. Cleaner air is icing on the cake.
Though I think using extreme weather as a poster child for pushing policies is wrong and statistically unfounded, it could help focus certain types of adaption policies in areas that are susceptible to certain types of more likely local extremes. As I see it, it helps the adaption movement more than mitigation.
Hey John –
Yeah, that’s why I linked it. The problem is in creating dialog so that there can be a discussion between people that are open to sharing interests rather than just doubling down on opposition.
I just added a comment over there.
“Yeah, that’s why I linked it.”
Heh, I meant to say thanks.
John –
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/climate-change-causing-extreme-weather-experts-disagree
Mr Kerry has taken forth a seventh hat from de Bono’s hat box.
Oh look, he’s wearing the purple hat of travesty predickshun!
Kerry commands the headless Bartholomew to take off his hat.
=========
OK.
Let’s get serious.
Kerry has told us that the science is settled.
It’s time for action.
We all know that ketchup is used in conjunction with high carbon footprint foods such as hamburgers, French fries, etc., which are also prime contributors to the wave of increased obesity in the USA.
This is a gigantic and very profitable market.
http://news.heinz.com/press-release/finance/heinz-reports-double-digit-eps-growth-090-continuing-operations-reaffirms-prev
So let’s put a $5 per 2oz serving tax on Heinz ketchup, worldwide. The tax could be made “revenue neutral” by charging it to Heinz corporation rather than the actual ketchup consumer.
I’m sure John Kerry (a major shareholder) would not mind making this small sacrifice to save the planet from the greatest threat it faces.
Max
Re: “the Flat Earth Society.”
John Kerry is master at illogical rhetorical denigration with negligible understanding of the scientific method.
Re: “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction”
It is incredible that a US Secretary of State is so appallingly ignorant of the consequences of nuclear war and nuclear winter and the consequent global mass starvation.
Nuclear Winter Revisted with a Modern Climate Model and Current Nuclear Arsenals: Still Catastrophic Consequences.Alan Robock et al. 2007
Harwell, M. A. and T. C. Hutchinson, Eds. (1986), Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War, SCOPE 28. Volume II, Ecological and Agricultural Effects, John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Ira Helfand finds that even with a regional India-Pakistan nuclear confrontation:
Nuclear Famine: Two Billion At Risk 2013 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Social Responsibility.
With > 95% failure of current climate model 30 year projections, what confidence can we have that we can achieve sufficient warming to avoid the next glaciation with its consequent global crop failures?
Contrast common sense by Interior Secretary Mr. Salazar declared:
Dear Mr. David L. Hagen — Mr. Salazar’s comment on Keystone XL and energy security is incorrect. The heavy oil from the tar sands would mainly displace heavy oil from Venezuela and/or Mexico (if the price is lower), not from the Middle East. The WSJ has said this numerous times.
David is not likely to correct you but I will. It’s not Mr. Hagen it’s Dr. Hagen.
Dear Mr. David L. Hagen — Keystone XL as a North/South pipeline does very little to help “Energy Security”. If Politicians truly wanted to increase “oil security”, they would do 2 things: (1) encourage building east/west pipelines to oil refineries on the East and West Coasts; (2) eliminate the Jones Act, a 100 year old shipping law which basically eliminates oil tanker transportation from the Gulf Coast to East or West Coast markets.
Stephen
Re: “The heavy oil from the tar sands . . . not from the Middle East.”
You refer to current production. Are you aware that tarmats in the Middle East are up to an order of magnitude thicker than the Ft. McMurry Oil Sands? e.g. Saudi Arabia’s Uthmaniya tar zone is 500 ft thick. See Twilight in the Desert. p 174 Kuwait’s Minagish field has tarmat from 30 to 115 ft thick. Assuming there will be no imports from the Middle East is premature.
Stephan
Your characterization of the Jones Act appears out of date.
Shale oil storm blows U.S. tanker trade out of doldrums
David L. Hagen — I read your link on the Jones Act and I stand by my earlier comments. The Jones Act has not changed, and the cost of moving oil via a U.S. tanker is up to 10 times that of international rates.
Stephan
The major issue appears to be lawyers, with suits driving up insurance rates, and consequently quadrupling construction costs to ensure redundancy, leveraged by union protectiveness.
Jones Act ‘Product Tanker’ Market: The Contagion Effect?
Tanker Freight Rates
David,
Nuclear winter scenarios are less than credible.
timg56
I gave links to major reports. Besides rhetorical flourish, can you provide any evidence?
Climate models are giving poor projections by over predicting warming. That could suggest actual results of nuclear holocaust could be even colder and the consequences worse.
David,
in addition to handling nuclear weapons in the service, I later took graduate level coursework in nuclear & catastrophic warfare. If your point is that a nuclear exchange, even a small one, would be more devastating than possible impacts of climate change, I agree with you. If you are saying that nuclear winter is foremost among the reasons why, then I’d say you are overstepping. One example – to reach the levels of particulate matter on par with a large volcano requires not only a number of weapons upwards of a thousand, but that they all be ground burst detenations. I can’t speak knowledgeably about Soviet policy, but a significant percentage of US warheads were not intended for such a deployment.
Besides, of we should learn anything from following the climate debate, it is that the act of being published does not bestow any sense of being fact. Look at who published the last paper you referenced. As of any thinking person wouldn’t consider the possibility of the outcome being pre-determined.
‘A characteristic feature of global warming is the land–sea contrast, with stronger warming over land than over oceans. Recent studies find that this land–sea contrast also exists in equilibrium global change scenarios, and it is caused by differences in the availability of surface moisture over land and oceans.’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2778.1
The whole study is interesting and easy enough even for me to read. But the point of quoting it again is gatesy’s (it’s a dry heat) misrepresentation of science for nefarious purposes. Any misuse of science is nefarious.
Surface temperatures are cooler as water evaporates – that’s a basic fact that we are all familiar with. Evaporation takes energy as latent heat from the surface to higher in the atmosphere where vapour condenses. If there is less water available at the surface than the evaporative potential – then the surface stays warmer than it otherwise would. It is one of the problems of the surface record – as opposed to tropospheric temperature – the other being cold, upwelling, oceanic water biasing the record to cold.
What seems interesting in all your equivocating Robert is that it seems more that you’re trying to convince yourself of all the reasons why the hottest year in Australia’s history is not important or should be dismissed. It simply blew all previously warm year records away. Your “anything but CO2” memeplex is your blind spot Robert.
Yes, Son of Dingo seems positively schizoid in his belief systems.
Here is a homework problem that I devised to explain how land and sea heating interact with one another. Like RG says, the heat flow is always from ocean to land. This is pure algebraic book-keeping
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/25/what-missing-heat/
The fact remains that the land is heating at an average rate of 50% greater than the ocean, and since people are not fish, they will have to deal with it.
The hottest year in Australia’s very recent history is something to be celebrated.
I was there and I survived.
Wow the hottest year in what, one hundred years?
Like its a very short time so the odd of it happening were at least 1 percent
What if it were in a thousand years 0.1 percent?
Or 10,000 years 0.01 percent? So we could have had a hunded hotter years on chance alone.
So was it the hottest year in any other country in the whole world 2013?
Let’s see.
No, he didn’t mention that.
Why not ?
I get it . Australia must have been the only country in the world to have had its hottest year.
So why didn’t you say instead ” only one country in the whole world out of what 300 countries had its hottest year last year. All the rest were cooler . OMG the world must be cooling
Lucky Australia was there to keep it it up in 6th? Place if we had a cold year the pause would have become the Freefall.
The reality of the land/ocean contrast is purely a surface temperature phenomenon caused by less evaporation over land. Surface temperature is the temperature at 2m using standard equipment. It is not tropospheric temperature as this is well mixed and influenced by the moderating effect of the oceans.
The study linked to is mostly concerned with ocean to land heat transport in the troposphere.
e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/DIETMARDOMMENGET_zps939fe12e.png.html?sort=3&o=82
The oceans provide a heat store that moderates temperature variability in the troposphere.
The problem with these guys is that they don’t really say anything let alone reference any credible science. Webby self linky’s (slinkys?)are typical misguided blog science – the only reputable science happens in journal articles. Reputable sources have a history of publication. I tend to do reviews of science – the synthesis part of hypothesis, analysis and synthesis. This is a matter of referencing and comparing credible science and building a larger picture based on solid building blocks of more or less solid analysis – data in other words.
The typical response from true believers is mean spirited – intellectually shallow – completely science free – and grasping at straws to resurrect zombie like a failed catastrophic global warming narrative. Much like Kerry does in the speech – and with the same mean spite and school yard level bully banter.
All in all such empty vessels create an invidious environment at CE that is certainly not the spirit CE started with – but I suppose it is the reality of the climate war.
The annual average anomaly by the way was – http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=tmean&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=0
The rainfall anomaly was – http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=0
The small part of the story is that drought and temperature are closely linked.
The big picture is that nearly all early century warming was quite natural as was most of the late century warming. All of the current hiatus is natural and is moreover likely to persist for a decade to three more. Saying so inspires childish tantrums from true believers.
Not quite. Do you read Terry Tao, JC Baez, etc etc?
JC SNIP
Not really – a few graphics and – in climate – a very tedious of reiteration of very basic ideas and the philosophy of human limits. Sound familiar?.
http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/planet/
There was a reference to networks – which is a key to understanding many problems in ecology and other areas. The new kind of mathematics of complexity just evolving. Chaos in other words which is applicable to population dynamics – etc.
Not today – and certainly not webby’s slinkys. A ‘slinky’ is a ‘self link’ – I must get on to Urban Dictionary.
But as always – maths is not quite science but is the language of science. Quite a distinction that. All he really has is whines about cleaning up the internet just like a new sheriff in town. Ultimately he has a collection of disparate bits and pieces of symbols and jargon that collectively signify nothing of any value at all. It is a narrowing in on a bauble without understanding the context at all.
What a curious mind should do instead is the synthesis part of hypothesis, analysis and synthesis. Broadly comparing and contrasting study after study each with a solid basis in analysis – data that is – and building a bigger picture on a solid framework. What used to be called natural philosophy in Newton’s day.
‘In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.
This rule should be followed so that arguments based on induction be not be nullified by hypotheses.’
The proposition above is certainly not nullified by webby’s slinkys. So what is his point? God only knows.
Watch how Robbo the Gobbo tries to marginalize anything outside the denialist mindset.
He just can’t cut it and is sulking over the fact that MNFTIU.
WebHubTelescope: Watch how Robbo the Gobbo tries to marginalize anything outside the denialist mindset.
Is there a mistake that you would like to quote and rebut with some fact or another? I know and others know from following your links that they do not always support your claims, but if you have a link to a contribution here I am willing to read it.
Yes. It’s been done over and over. Don’t act so clueless.
John Kerry mocks climate change deniers in Indonesia speech
US Secretary of State John Kerry has called climate change perhaps the world’s “most fearsome’’ destructive weapon and mocked those who deny its existence or question its causes, comparing them to people who insist the Earth is flat.
In a speech to Indonesian students, civic leaders and government officials, Mr Kerry tore into climate change sceptics. He accused them of using shoddy science and scientists to delay steps needed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the risk of imperilling the planet.
A day earlier, the US and China announced an agreement to cooperate more closely on combating climate change. American officials hope that will help encourage others, including developing countries like Indonesia and India, to follow suit.
China and the United States are the biggest sources of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that cause the atmosphere to trap solar heat and alter the climate. Scientists say such changes are leading to drought, wildfires, rising sea levels, melting polar ice, plant and animal extinctions and other extreme conditions.
Also in the Jakarta speech, Mr Kerry said everyone and every country must take responsibility for the problem and act immediately.
“We simply don’t have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,’’ he said, referring to what he called “big companies’’ that “don’t want to change and spend a lot of money’’ to act to reduce the risks.
Mr Kerry later singled out major oil and coal concerns as the primary offenders.
“We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,’’ Mr Kerry told the audience at a US Embassy-run American Center in a shopping mall.
“Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.’’
“The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand,’’ Mr Kerry said. “We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society,’’ Mr Kerry said the cost of inaction will far outweigh the significant expense of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that trap solar heat in the atmosphere and contribute to the Earth’s rising temperatures.
He outlined a litany of recent weather disasters, particularly flooding and typhoons in Asia, and their impact on commerce, agriculture, fishing and daily living conditions for billions of people.
“This city, this country, this region, is really on the front lines of climate change,’’ Mr Kerry said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that your entire way of life here is at risk.’’
He added: “In a sense, climate change can now be considered the world’s largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even, the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.’’
The solution, Mr Kerry said, is a new global energy policy that shifts reliance from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. He noted the President Barack Obama is championing such a shift and encouraged others to appeal to their leaders to join.
The US-China statement issued just after Mr Kerry left Beijing on Saturday said the two countries agreed on steps to carry out commitments to curb greenhouse gases, including reducing vehicle emissions, improving energy efficiency of buildings and other measures.
Beijing and Washington launched a climate change discussion last year, promising progress in five areas: reducing vehicle emissions; advanced electric power grids; capturing and storing carbon emissions; gathering greenhouse gas data; and building efficiency.
Mr Kerry was in Indonesia on the last leg of a three-nation tour of Asia that started in South Korea. After leaving Indonesia on Monday, he planned to visit Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
Before the climate change speech, Mr Kerry toured Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, one of the largest in the world, to pay his respects to Indonesia’s Muslim majority population.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/john-kerry-mocks-climate-change-deniers-in-indonesia-speech/story-e6frg6so-1226829058880
Trying to control the uncontrollable is a fools errand.
The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere depends on ocean temperature, not human emission of CO2 as shown by the following data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/compress:12/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/derivative/from:1979/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/trend/normalise/plot/rss/trend/normalise/offset:0.02
“The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere depends on ocean temperature, not human emission of CO2 as shown by the following data.”
Which brings up another point, which I have not seen addressed (It may have been; I just haven’t run across it.): The amount of CO2 emitted by volcanism is often discussed here and in other climate science venues, usually in the context of arguing about the amount of its contribution to atmospheric CO2 relative to anthropogenic CO2. I always assumed from the context that they were referring to continental and island volcanos. From what I have read, the number of undersea volcanos compared to the number of continental volcanos is at least proportional to the area of the oceans relative to the continents. Is the amount of undersea CO2 emission considered in the overall calculation of volcanic CO2 to the atmosphere? If not, is it just assumed that undersea emissions of CO2 are simply dissolved in the oceans and remain there, or is eventually outgassed to the atmosphere? Or is the emission of CO2 by undersea volcanism simply ignored in calculating the CO2 budget?
“The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere depends on ocean temperature, not human emission of CO2 ….”
——-
This would be the kind of flat-earth thinking Kerry is addressing.
R. Gates,
And what do you think of Kerry’s round-earth warning of massive typhoons becoming “the normal thing that happens every single year in many places.”
The record setting heat of the IPWP played a big role in the record setting typhoon that took so many lives. Kerry is correct to talk about it, but wrong to suggest it will happen every year, though the IPWP has been warming for decades.
Kerry is correct to talk about it, but what he actually said was wrong. OK, got it.
Sorry that nuance is lost on you Gary. Couldn’t be because you hate Dems could it?
I don’t hate anybody. I just find your reflexive defense of such idiocy amusing.
Oh, c’mon RG, Kerry said not one word about ‘energy budget’. How do you expect him to sell this year’s model with last year’s talking points? Get off your duff and inform him, please. You’re wasting time here.
=================
The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool warmed after 1998 with the shift to La Nina dominace in the Pacific – with enhanced trade winds.
e.g. http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/files/news/tropics.jpg
‘Analysis of the prehistoric record near Cairns, Queensland show that during the period AD 1800–1870, the latter being the date of first European settlement, three cyclone events occurred producing storm tides between 2.52 and 4.51 m AHD. The highest historic storm tide was 2.5 m. Because there have been no inundations of this magnitude (>2.5 m) recorded or observed in this region since AD 1870, the prehistoric evidence suggests that the incidence of severe cyclones during the 19th Century was much higher than the 20th Century. When these data are combined with the historic record of inundations, the magnitude of the 100 year return interval storm tide (including wave set-up) increases by approximately 1 m (Nott, 2003).
The last few centuries have seen a regime shift in the occurrence of tropical cyclones crossing the coast in north Queensland. The causes behind this regime shift are not yet known, but they are likely to be climatic. Even in the absence of an understanding of the cause of the regime shift, it is still important for this shift to be considered in risk assessments. Yet risk assessments of tropical cyclone impacts to date in this region have been entirely based upon the historic record, and hence the present regime (Granger et al., 1999). The implications of this approach for assessing building exposure to storm tide, amongst other important factors, are potentially serious. Based upon the variability of cyclones within the present regime, and at 1999 building patterns and levels, approximately 4% of housing and accommodation buildings would be inundated by storm tide during the 1 in 100 year event. Under the same scenario 17% of business and industry buildings would be inundated. If a return to the previous regime of cyclone variability were to occur, however, the percentage number of housing and accommodation buildings and business and industry buildings inundated by the 1 in 100 year event increases by greater than six times and four times, respectively. Given that these cyclone regimes appear to be century scale in length, it is entirely possible that a shift in regime may occur in the near future.’ Jonathon Nott – Extreme Events
New proxies show centennial increases in La Nina – which power cyclones in the region.
The problem with short termism and blaming everything on the carbon emissions is that it might delude you into thinking that the world can be saved by powering your ipod with a solar cell.
When in Rome…
The Judeo-Christian Shrine Pool warmed after 98AD with the shift to La Nina domination in the Prohibition – with enhanced spiritual content.
e.g. http://www.boozers.unsw.edu.au/files/news/tropics.jpg
‘Analysis of the prehensile record near Crappingdale, Kingsland show that during the period 1800–1870BC, the latter being the date of first Egyption settlement, three pyramid events occurred producing storm tides between 2.52 and 4.51 m AHD. The highest historic storm tide was 2.5 m. Because there have been no pyramidal perturbations of this magnitude (>2.5 m) recorded or observed in this region since 1870 BC, the prehensile evidence suggests that the incidence of severely conservate Pharoahs during the 19th Century BC was much higher than the 20th Century BC. When these clay tablets are combined with the hyroglypic record of inundations, the magnitude of the 100 year return of Noah’s flood (including ark set-up) increases by approximately 1 m (Notthead, 2003).
The last few centuries have seen a regime shift in the occurrence of pyramidal perturbations crossing the coast in north Kingsland. The causes behind this regime shift are not yet known, but they are likely to be Pharoahic. Even in the absence of a crystal skulls of the cause of the regime shift, it is still important for this shift to be considered in property assessments. Yet property assessments of tropical pyramid power impacts to date in this region have been entirely based upon the historic record, and hence the present regime (Grungeband et al., 1999). The implications of this approach for assessing broadband blackout exposure to tin foil hats, amongst other important factors, are potentially ludicrous. Based upon the variability of off topic spew within the present thread and at 1899 building codes and bubble levels, approximately 4000% of unicorn and fairy buildings would be flooded by Egyption stone masons during the 1AD to 100AD year event. Under the same scenario 1700% of the olive trees would fall over. If a return to the previous regime of tin foil variability were to occur, however, the percentage number of unicorn and fairy housing and accommodation buildings and usury and chariot industry buildings inundated by the 1AD to 100AD year events increases by greater than four score and twenty times, respectively. Given that these Roman regimes appear to be century scale in length, it is entirely possible that a shift in regime may occur in the near future.’ Jonathon Notthead – Extremely Offtopic Events
The problem with terrorism and blaming everything on the Osama emissions is that it might delude you into thinking that the world can be saved by powering your camel with a solar cell.
The contrast between springer and Nott couldn’t be more stark. Leading edge science on extreme events and poorly conceived and executed parody that merely wastes time and clutters up the thread at great length.
http://research.jcu.edu.au/research/tess/people/staff/Nott_J
Does this – as a whole – meet the definition of cyber harassment – a serious question Judith -after so many occasions of this persons aggressive and seemingly obsessive dealings with me.
At any rate – climate extremes would seem to be eminently on topic.
One would think that the Secretary of State when delivering such an important message would use a speech writer. Ignoring for a moment the factual errors, this is just a terrible speech.
It has been said that “science” is going to come out of this global warming mess with a reputation for shoddy work and dishonesty. The same is true for the politicians — although they don’t have much to lose.
It was Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, fercrisakes. It’s not like the speech was in Japan or South Korea or some developed nation that isn’t swimming in desperate poverty or drowning in its own filth. Kerry would have got laughed out of any influential Asian nations.
This is in response to David Springer’s disparaging remarks about Indonesia.
Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world’s 16th largest by nominal GDP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia
All nations and people deserve respect. You may be an exception.
“All nations and people deserve respect.”
What a stupid progressive platitude.
https://www.hrw.org/asia/indonesia
I refuse to respect diseased cultures and governments that arise from Islam. You should too.
Speed,
Exactly how do you respect a state?
I think Kerry has realized that the “skeptics” that are still left are not going to be converted by more science or even more warming, so let’s just marginalize them and move on with the majority. His somewhat relentless aim at the flat-earthers might have seemed odd in many other countries where there is less doubt about global warming among the government or people as they even acted, or tried, in response to Kyoto 16 years ago. It is a peculiarity of a few countries that this “debate” is still happening about whether or not to do anything at all.
Jim D, you probably are right. Most of those who identify themselves as global warming skeptics are right-wingers incapable of accepting facts inconsistent with their ideology. Discussions with them are good for amusement but little else.
Yes, at some point you see that it won’t be unanimous and just move forwards on behalf of the majority who do care, and this is clearly what they are doing. There will always be some naysayers left even as the minority dwindles.
cue sounds of back-slapping and high-fiving
Thank God we have the scientific realists like Kerry to warn us of the impending doom of massive typhoons becoming “the normal thing that happens every single year.”
Every. Single. Year.
“In many places” no less.
Good job Jim.
You’ve managed to put yourself on the same level of credibility as Max.
If “deniers” are so few, why can’t global warming gain any traction with the public?
I think it is just facing reality that much of the public won’t believe in global warming until they see it already happening in the news, or in some cases in their own back yards, and even then they won’t think it could possibly be CO2. It is just damaging to wait for these people to come around. At some point you cut the remaining skeptics loose, like the baggage they are, and proceed, and this is why policies are already being enacted in many countries, with plans for more.
Suppose we had a planet the size of Earth out where Uranus is, nearly 30 times further from the Sun than Earth is. But we give it a 350Km high troposphere like that on Uranus made up of 85% hydrogen, 13% helium and a ceiling of 2% methane confined to the uppermost limits of the atmosphere, absorbing nearly all the solar radiation and maintaining the very cold radiating temperature of about 60K. So what would the temperature of the surface of that planet be without any internal energy generation, or any water vapour or carbon dioxide, or any solar radiation reaching that surface?
Well, look up the temperature at the base of the actual Uranus troposphere and decide whether the surface of our imaginary planet would be hotter or colder than Earth’s surface. Why is it so?
I can’t read John Kerry’s words without hearing his dull, droning voice in my head. Please make it stop! I can’t stand listening to him ramble on endlessly about subjects he knows little or nothing about, boring me to death and at the same time sickening me with his smug sense of superiority, his arrogance in spite of his ignorance. I promise, if you make it stop, I will buy LED light bulbs, I turn down the heat, I will take cold showers, install solar panels, and buy carbon credits, just please make him stop talking, PLEASE!
On the other hand, it’s not a bad strategy for the Secretary of State in our strategic negotiations.
Alright, President Rouhani, either stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons or Mr. Kerry is going to start talking again, and he won’t stop until you accept our demands.
+1
John Kerry appears to have made the wrong speech in the wrong country.
Kerry,s speech was strong on pollution due to the burning of fossil fuels, But Indonesia produces little pollution from burning fossil fuels, its burning of its forests each year to create farmland produces far more pollution and annoys its neighbors, particularly Singapore..
Kerry who is not a scientist gave a speech on climate science in Indonesia and appears to have fallen under the same spell that gripped his fellow Democrat, Al Gore, whose Sci-fi film made such a stir years earlier. You would think that the Secretary of State would make a study in some depth of climate science before embarking on such a mission, but he put his faith and that of his country in the IPCC. He even quoted ‘greenhouse gas’ to justify his remarks when everyone knows it is just an analogy mot a scientific proof of climate change. Of course there has been about a 1C degree increase in global average temperature since 1910, but there is no reason to believe that will continue. In fact the IPCC models all greatly exaggerate the present global temperature.
I was wondering if we should start a Dynamical Earth Systems Society – it would have an illustrious membership. Perhaps we can ask Wally Broecker to chair – http://web.vims.edu/sms/Courses/ms501_2000/Broecker1995.pdf
Greenhouse gas ‘forcing’ is small compared year to year fluctuations of both emitted IR and reflected SW. The satellite records show longer term changes – including a climatologically significant step change after 1998. Possible changes in the Earth’s energy budget following a disruption of thermohaline circulation and ice and snow feedbacks far exceed any possible change in greenhouse gas ‘forcing’. Cooling of 10 degrees C in places is possible with that scenario within a decade.
This is a very interesting graph – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Broecker1995_zps591a26cf.png.html – it would certainly make for an interesting future if repeated. What are the chances of avoiding another glacial? A snowballs in hell perhaps? Perhaps initiated by an open Arctic, huge winter snowfall and immense spring runoff freshening the north Atlantic?
Smaller and less persistent climate shifts are mainstream science – e.g http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00626.1 – and these are virtually certain to occur a few times this century. Thus the problem with John Kerry – and AGW more generally. Little if any warming is likely for a decade to three at least – blowing mitigation out of the water for another generation – but most of them seem lost in a groupthink murk that seems impenetrable and can’t see this at all.
Yet as Wally says – more with sadness than anger – climate is a wild beast at which we are poking sticks. Perhaps we could make it our motto. In Latin – It always sounds more important in Latin.
Before this thread becomes bogged down, the thread topic is some politician’s rhetoric
All comments so far have missed the point, I fear
Sure, this political rhetoric is full of the usual inflammatory stupidities … but:
the motive for this is POWER, Bonfire of the Vanities, impenetrable moral vanity, shameless grasping for power, “I saved the planet”, – ad vomitous nauseum
It was said millenia ago:
My name is Ozymandias, King of kings
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair
The only real issue is whether one thinks this person is capable of living up to his rhetoric. Ozymandias didn’t
I was gonna go for the point by point take down, but honestly he just comes across as snotty. It’s no surprise that he spews the misinformation he does – he gave a $quarter mil of Teresa’s money to Hansen after all. Maybe if global temperature trend ever reached even Hansen’s scenario C we could start to worry – would that be a good test?
CO2 is such a problem that Kerry had to emit tons of it flying around the world to deliver a speech? Either it’s a problem and he’s failing to lead by demonstrating that it’s low on his personal priorities, or it’s not a problem but the carbon campaign does have ulterior motives to consolidate power, but it speaks poorly of Kerry either way.
Wow that’s pretty rude.
I have to say though that my experience with speeches is that if you are short on substance, shout louder.
Typical behavior by this administration. Kerry’s didactic and dishonest diatribe ignores the fact that Indonesia’s economics blow PBO’s sorry results out of the water. I wonder if Kerry even knows that Indonesia’s economics are based on fossil fuels and lumber?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/id.html
Don’t throw your pearls to this swine, Judy!
A link to thoughts by Pielke and Spencer to “zombie scientist” John Holdren (President Obama’s “science czar”):
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/climate_scientist_faults_obama_science_advisor_for_zombie_science.html
In order of what is wrong with the climate change dialogue: scientists who know better but don’t speak; scientists who have fallen off the intoxicant wagon and have become catastrophists; journalists who by nature and training can’t assess anything other than social media let alone science and intellectual subjects; and finally, politicians who are merely letter carriers of various portfolios, influenced by the ravings of journalists, politicians who plod along with the papers describing the same tired meme that is thrust in front of them by yet another politician trying to hold onto some imagined power. Enter John Kerry; quintessential portfolio carrier; a global trotting letter carrier reminiscent of the nation’s postal service; in darkest night, through sleet and snow. Unimpeded by real life elements that confront him. The science is settled like the dew on the grass, to evaporate in the blaze of the morning sunlight and enlightenment.
Kerry and Obama seem very certain about climate change and drought. There was an interesting article in the science section of the NYT on sunday. It is titled: “Science linking drought to global warming remains a matter of dispute”. Sorry I can’t link with my tablet. It was interesting and not one sided.
I am collecting materials on the California drought for a future post
John Kerry is Al Gore no 2…. honesty deficient politician …
Dr. Curry,
This abuse of the truth by Kerry cannot stand unanswered.
If you will not say something… who will?
Or, as Jim Cripwell likes to ask, “Who will bell the cat?”.
Well, windmills will cull the bats. The bells toll in the wind, for thee, for me, and for the cats.
=============
Ask not fer whom but fer what?
Lotsa’ tolls, too many … poor ol’
Econ. Prosperity,
R.I.P.
Kerry is just playing politics. He’s trying to cover their lack of action with strong and ridiculous statements like this. Mr. Kerry, if it is true that you actually believe your ridiculous statement, why the hell is your government still burning huge amounts of fossil fuels? Talk is cheap. The French have no need for such stupid breast beating but they’ve gone nuclear long ago.
My first impressions were: Kerry is running for president; the alarmists are getting desperate, GW is out LGBT is in; he doesn’t dare give this speech at home?; where did he dig up such an old list of talking points?; move over Big Al.
Mr. Secretary of State John Kerry does not represent a future. He represents the current America. The future of America is being formed by its schools today. The emphasis is on diversity, not on excellence. Why it does not apply to climatology is beyond me.
I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Denialist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.
Joseph R. McCarthy
Well if they worked in the UK it looks like they would all soon lose their jobs. Sychophants only are wanted, not those with minds of their own.
Dr Curry, i am being interviewed today by an academic journal in Australia on the origins and meaning of the emerging literary genre you and I call CLI FI, for climate fiction novels and movies. Email interview q and a style, will be publushed on Saturday in Sydney. Intro and first question:
And to analyze this new genre, I was able to interview Dan Bloom, who
first coined the term cli-fi back in 2007 (and which Dr Curry blogged about in December 2012 on her very good blog CLIMATE ETC)..
Dan, 65, has worked most of his life as a journalist and editor, but
is also a self-described ”public relations climate activist” from
Boston who has been living in Japan and Taiwan since 1991.
Unaffiliated with any group or institute but deeply influenced by the
climate writings of British scientist James Lovelock, Dan says
boosting the profile of the cli fi genre via what he calls ”public
relations gestures” to news media outlets around the world is now his
life’s work.
INTERVIEW
Welcome, Dan.
You’ve described cli-fi as a dystopian fiction form, that differs from
most science fiction in that it can just as easily be set in the
present than in the future. What makes cli-fi … cli-fi?
DAN BLOOM: I need to explain something important here: for me, and the
way in which I coined the term and have tried to popularize it in
English-speaking countries, cli fi can take place in novels or movies
either in the past, the present or the future and it does not have to
be dystopian if the authors or screenwriters don’t want to go down the
doom and gloom road. A cli fi novel could also be utopian, and present
an optimistic and hopeful future for the readers. I never started with
a fixed agenda, and for me cli fi is open to definition by writers and
critics (and readers). In general, I think cli fi novels will take the
position that climate change and global warming are real and are
happening, but I am also open to the fact that some cli fi novelists
or screenwriters might take a skeptical view of global warming and
climate change, as Michael Crichton did in his 1994 novel “State of
Fear.” Although, I myself am deep green and very worried about the
future of humankind and the future of the human species due to what I
see as major devastating climate impact events coming down the road in
the next 500 years, if we as a world community do not stop C02
emissions soon. So for me, cli fi is a fiction genre that might be
helpful in waking people up and serving as an alarm bell via
literature and cinema. Some literary historians and sci fi writers I
have spoken to have told me that they like the cli fi term but that
they feel it is best to see it as a subgenre of sci fi. And I accept
that point of view, too. But for me, in the way I am working with it
and trying to popularize it, cli fi is a new fiction genre of its own
and will define itself more and more as time goes by.
What makes cli fi….cli fi? Novelists and screenwriters — and
literary critics and academics — with determine what makes cli fi cli
fi in an organic way that will unfold over the next 100 years. This is
just the beginning of a whole new world of literary and cinematic
expression, come what may. I’m just a fan. I want to read good cli fi
novels and see powerful cli fi movies.
Danny, if only you knew what Crichton knew. The world doesn’t need another ‘gaslander’. I suppose you are “deep green” because you understand so little of the science.
I’m gonna try sneaking up on Danny with a microphone in hand in an attempt to get his autograph on my copy of a first edition of ‘The Equatorial Cities Journal’.
================
That such people as Barack Obama (or Barry Soetoro), John Kerry, et al should succeed in rising to the pinnacle of power in the US provides all the evidence, as if any additional were needed, that if the US were an individual it would be locked up for its own protection.
Joshua said:
“IMO, the discussion needs to proceed from, first and foremost, a discussion of the range of uncertainties.”
Josh rides The Uncertainty Monster’s coat-tails
First response: how did this man ever get to a position of responsibility?
Second response: economist Andrew Lilico has a much better take on events:
… But whether we should do anything about it and, if so, which of the available technical options is best to adopt, is emphatically not a question for scientists. Instead, it is a question for economists, which then puts you very much in my world.
For any ongoing event, there are at least five kinds of potential policy responses: ignore, accelerate, prevent, reverse or adapt. Assuming we do not wish to accelerate or ignore global warming, the three relevant options are reversal, prevention (called “mitigation” in the climate change jargon) or adaptation.
For 25 years the main approach politicians have discussed has been prevention. … In the late 1980s and early 1990s it seemed plausible that prevention (or even reversal) was a genuine option. …
Yet the past 25 years have taught us that our scope, capacity and will to prevent climate change by limiting CO2 emissions is much less than was the case for these other pollutants.
These decades of devising fabulously expensive mitigation schemes are hoped, at best, to take a few tenths of a degree centigrade off global warming during the 21st century, compared with a likely rise of two to four degrees. The low-end estimates of the cost of such futility is put at 1pc to 3pc of GDP, with some models suggesting the actual cost is much higher.
Those of a scientific bent respond by saying we must enormously increase our efforts, doing far more to prevent warming proceeding. But the Chinese and Indians and Americans will never agree, and in economically depressed Britain the public appetite for even the sacrifices we make at present has all but evaporated, let alone asking for more.
Even if prevention were feasible, standard policy analysis suggests it would be a terrible idea. Already, according to UK government criteria, it is rare to find a global warming mitigation policy that comes anywhere near having benefits that match costs. …
Before the notorious Stern Review of 2006, economists studying the area typically thought adaptation to climate change should be the central focus of policy. What would “adaptation” mean in practice? The first principle is this: it’s easier to adapt to change if you’re richer. Green policies that force us to use overly expensive energy or that make us spend inefficiently large amounts of resources on insulation or that tax our travel in ways that make us do less business will damage growth, and make adapting to climate change harder. …
The next principle is: do not waste resources on futile mitigation efforts while cutting resources on adaptation. If government budgets are tight and you must choose between subsidies for green energy and money for flood defences, that should be a no-brainer.
There are many ways we may need to adapt to a warmer world with potentially more violent extremes of weather. That may change the ways our houses are roofed and our river banks are buttressed, the clothes we wear, the ointments we put on our children. Adaptation will not be easy or cheap. But it will be feasible (unlike preventing climate change) and it will be much, much cheaper.
Furthermore, adaptation is much less risky than mitigation in two important ways. First, there is obviously some chance that climate change will not turn out as expected. In the past decade or so climate scientists have been struggling to explain the fact that global surface temperatures have not risen since the late 1990s. They insist that makes no difference to their long-term story about whether the Earth is warming and what the eventual impacts may be. And perhaps that’s right. But it does make a difference to policymaking.
If we had known in 1998 that even if we had tried nothing more to prevent climate change there would be no warming for two decades, that ought to have changed very markedly the policy assessment. Almost no policy that would have no impact within five years is ever a good idea, because of the ways the future is discounted.
The second way adaptation is less risky is that we know relatively little about the effects of mitigation strategies and they may not work as expected or might even have perverse long-term effects. By adapting as and when we need to, we cut down on the risks of doing something counterproductive by accident or of simply wasting our time and money.
The last advantage of adaptation is that as we become richer our tastes and technology will change automatically. It is perfectly possible that we shall naturally find ways to change our behaviour that stop climate change in its tracks, or alternatively we may devise some clever way of cleaning up after our grandparents.
We’ve spent 25 years trying to prevent global warming, and have barely scratched the surface. In doing so we have spent untold billions and plan to spend countless more. One does not need to doubt that climate change is happening to doubt that this is the strategy we should stick to. Prevention is dead. Long live adaptation.
Andrew Lilico is an economist with Europe Economics
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10644867/We-have-failed-to-prevent-global-warming-so-we-must-adapt-to-it.html
But this makes too much sense!
Well, Nat, he is an economist.
What would it take to get the public aware of the term ‘lost opportunity costs’? Heck, what would it take to get some of the economists exploring global warming aware of the term?
Me, I’m gonna be tellin’ some grand chirrun about lost opportunity costs. They’ll have much interest, and will doubtlessly be much in my debt. Thankful? Well, not that kind of debt.
=====================
Actually, there is a semi-infinite number of policy responses involving different combinations of these five “potential policy responses over different time-frames.
Contrast this to the way polities (and other economic actors) actually behave over periods of much more than 5 years. Also, contrast this to the way many policies are justified in terms of longer-range results.
It isn’t just a matter of technology changing because “we become richer”. In fact, IMO it’s much more the other way around: we become richer because our technology changes. Tastes will then adapt to both being richer and having a better technological toolbox.
And there’s no reason we shouldn’t focus a large societal investment in R&D with a good chance of creating technology that will help drag the CO2 out of the air, just in case we end up needing it. After all, such R&D almost always pays for itself in the long run through spin-off technology, regardless of its success at the specific goal.
Yah, beat chlorophyll.
=======
The oil-from-algae option actually uses chlorophyll. OTOH, AFAIK the demonstrated efficiencies of the latest solar PV (IBM’s microchannel-cooled concentrated demos) generating electrolytic hydrogen (Nocera’s “artificial leaf” technology) bio-converted to methane by tailored methanogens is actually higher, or at least in the same range. And PV chips (using surface sunlight) will probably last a lot longer.
The problem with oxygen photosynthesis is that the reactive oxygen species generated by the photocenters tend to destroy most of the proteins (and other important bio-catalysts) in the cell, thus requiring a high level of replacement, which costs energy. Evolution has suited most modern photosynthesizers to high growth levels, which diverts energy from potential fuel production to rebuilding cell components.
Thus, there is the potential for solar PV to outstrip the energy efficiency of oxygen photosynthesis. As for the economic efficiency, that depends.
Thanks, tres interessant. I note that’s for energy production, not carbon dioxide reduction.
============
Well, according to my calculations, existing methanogens can operate at very low pressures of H2 and (AFAIK) CO2. The key is finding an economical way to drag the CO2 out of the ocean surface (or atmosphere) and make it available to methanogens in an anoxic environment.
A simple problem of membrane materials technology. When/if somebody comes up with a working proof-of-concept, it will almost certainly be a game-changer.
Given that the enzyme carbonic anhydrase is widely produced in a variety of forms, all the membrane has to do is pass bicarbonate (or carbonate) while blocking O2. The remaining technology is (almost, IMO) a slam-dunk.
Even more interesting. I don’t know why we shouldn’t be able to do it; I’m just skeptical that we can improve on nature and evolution in producing an economical substitute.
Don’t put me in charge of the project.
===========
You’d think that being an economist, he might understand the concept of false dichotomy.
He might know that it is fallacious to ignore associated benefits from ACO2 mitigation, such as a reduction in particulates.
He might know that it is fallacious to ignore any other variety of negative externalities associated with fossil fuels – such as the geopolitical and financial and human capital costs of keeping fossil fuels flowing.
You know, as an economist.
Particulates can be reduced way more economically than throwing money at temperature reduction by CO2 mitigation.
==================================
Poverty cannot be reduced more economically than by keeping energy cheap.
=======
In the world where all things are possible, all things are possible.
Excuse me if I don’t consider that to be a profound insight.
Also, in that world, there are benefits to reducing fossil fuel emissions that our economist friend forgot to mention, and may well have forgotten to consider.
In the world where all things are possible – supporting renewables is the enemy of providing energy access to poor people.
Also in the world where all things are possible, such a viewpoint is the product of binary thinking.
Also in the world where all things are possible, access to energy for poor people is a complicated process that involves a variety of factors, and poverty alleviation and reduction involves more than just a false dichotomy of mitigation vs. adaptation w/r/t climate change. You know, such as access to political power (of the sort that is lacking in many oil-producing countries), access to education and healthcare, etc.
Pretty lame response, Joshua, even reframed.
Let us do focus on lost opportunity costs, and an honest appraisal of benefits and detriments. Note that warming is net beneficial, and cooling is net detrimental.
===========
kim –
I don’t see how to focus on opportunity costs from within an overly simplistic (and falsely binary) frame. The net costs and benefits of warming or cooling are dependent on the magnitude of net warming or cooling, respectively.
If the discussion of your first sentence is conditional on the second, there is no discussion to be had. IMO, the discussion needs to proceed from, first and foremost, a discussion of the range of uncertainties. Absent that, everything else is same ol’ same ol’.
For the biome, my second sentence is not falsely binary. The benefits of warming and the detriments of cooling are net true at practically any rate or magnitude of change, especially any which we can effect. Observe paleontology, please; you may call it history if it will help you repeat it.
==============
Excuse my ignorance. Clearly, history tells us that 5 degrees warming would be more beneficial than .001 degree of cooling. I don’t know how I could have failed to realize that.
Observe any transition from glacial to interglacial and we can put your extreme reframing into proper perspective.
================
F-
It sounds like the Secretary of State has read about the-
….“The Great Unifier
Climate change presents an unprecedented set of challenges for California. We are already experiencing its impacts and know that they will only increase. But it can also be a great unifier. It gives us the opportunity to focus on doing more with less; to work across programmatic, policy and political boundaries; and to figure out ways to achieve various goals more quickly and more effectively. The task is to continue building on the steps we have already taken by further integrating climate thinking and sustainability programming into the range of actions we take to grow the economy, protect the environment and public health, and plan for the future….”
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/2013_update/draft_proposed_first_update.pdf
Luckily for the rest of the world CA has already figured out how to reduce carbon dioxide levels as denoted in the :California’s Energy Future- The View to 2050”
“….The total commitment necessary to achieve this accelerated pace will require strong societal and policy backing because there are less than 40 years to make a nearly total change-over to the required technology. Essentially, in this time period, every existing building will either be retrofit to higher efficiency standards or replaced, 60 percent of light-duty vehicles will use electricity, so that the average fuel economy will be roughly 70 mil…”
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/2013_update/draft_proposed_first_update.pdf
I do wonder how the banks are going to deal with the plans CA would like to implement to address the challenge. It been awhile since I obtained a home mortgage but I don’t recall the bank having to figure out if I could pay for the upgrades required to meet the states goals noted above. I imagine they will have to come up with a new metric or two. The old no more than 33% of income for Principle, Interest, Taxes and Insurance will have to be modified to include utilities and mandatory improvements and/or …….. I wonder who is going to make the decision to replace an existing building, and might these requirements lead to some abandonment of buildings………………………
“Ladies and gentlemen, I saw with my own eyes what the Philippines experienced in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan and I will tell you it would be absolutely devastating if that kind of storm were to become the normal thing that happens every single year in many places.”
As I said on the other thread, stupidest Secretary of State ever.
Only smart thing he ever did was marry the widow of an heir to a ketchup magnate.
This guy makes Al Gore look smart.
Many places will experience the equivalent of one of the strongest tropical storms in history, every single year? And not just in one unlucky locale, but in many places?
I guess if you hate your typhoon, you can keep your typhoon, over and over and over….
Mr. Kerry…
Old news, I know:
Wednesday, Jun 26, 2013 07:40 AM NZDT
Actually, even the Flat Earth Society believes in climate change
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/25/flat_earth_society_believes_in_climate_change/
Tuesday 23 February 2010 22.39 GMT
The Earth is flat? What planet is he on?
The Flat Earth Society has become a byword for sticking your head in the sand, whatever the scientific facts. David Adam tries to make sense of its new president, Daniel Shenton
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2010/feb/23/flat-earth-society
So the president of the Flat Earth Society says he believes in global warming?
Priceless!
phat – great catch. :-)
Well, the temperature record is flat. Got part of the earth right, he did.
=======================
I haven’t seen a link to this Wall St. Journal piece, by Bret Stephens, so here it is:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304675504579389492229581738?mod=Opinion_newsreel_3
Highlights: Kerry opens with a hat-tip to Maurice Strong, Canadian oil millionaire and organizer of 1992 Rio summit, among many others. He also helped establish the Chicago Climate Exchange and China Carbon Corp. “If George W. Bush had left office and immediately joined the boards of defense contractors building MRAPs for Iraq, hard questions would be raised,” says Stephens. “When Maurice Strong, Al Gore and other climate profiteers seek to enrich themselves from policies they put into place while in office, it scarcely raises an eyebrow.”
Thanks.
Hmmm, hanging his hat with M. Strong. Good will come of this, most assuredly.
================
How useful the Big Oil is. Let it organize alarmists, then blame it for any dissent.
Climate profiteering is a perfect crime (almost). This quote comes to mind:
“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
‘There is high confidence for droughts during the last millennium of greater magnitude and longer duration than those observed since the
beginning of the 20th century in many regions.
There is medium confidence that more megadroughts occurred in monsoon Asia and wetter conditions prevailed in arid Central Asia and the South American monsoon region during the Little Ice Age (1450–1850) compared to the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950–1250). {5.5.4, 5.5.5}
Confidence remains low for long-term (centennial) changes in tropical cyclone activity, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. However, for the years since the 1970s, it is virtually certain
that the frequency and intensity of storms in the North Atlantic have increased although the reasons for this increase are debated (see
TFE.9). There is low confidence of large-scale trends in storminess over the last century and there is still insufficient evidence to determine
whether robust trends exist in small-scale severe weather events such as hail or thunderstorms. {2.6.2–2.6.4}
With high confidence, floods larger than recorded since the 20th century occurred during the past five centuries in northern and central Europe, the western Mediterranean region and eastern Asia. There is medium confidence that in the Near East, India and central North America, modern large floods are comparable or surpass historical floods in magnitude and/or frequency. {5.5.5}.’ AR5 Technical Summary
I haven’t looked in detail at the specific sections but the summary seems reasonable as far as it goes. Where ENSO is a factor – and where isn’t it – ENSO variability over the Holocene exceeds by a great deal that we have seen in recent times. The patterns suggest millennial El Nino increases with La Nina dominating in the centuries between. With all that implies for droughts, floods, cyclones and surface temperature globally.
Just like this – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=142 – dry periods shown of the graph are El Nino and are dry for Australia, Indonesia, Central Africa, etc.
The US may have a much drier future – but still within historic limits. Mind you – if THC stumbles over an open Arctic we may all have a colder and drier future.
Adaptation to variability is another name for resilience – which is a property of prosperous communities. Anthropogenic climate change – if such there is more than a minor increase in the energy in the oceans and atmosphere – itself seemingly within Holocene limits – is not all that relevant. Taxes, caps and renewable targets are – however – the enemy of prosperity.
I might add that tropical cyclones have been studied intently in Australia – e.g. http://research.jcu.edu.au/research/tess/people/staff/Nott_J – confidence is high that we have had very mild conditions for the past 150 years. Not surprising as cyclone frequency doubles with La Nina.
Earth to Ellison: The topic is John Kerry’s remarks on climate change.
I think he’s operating under the idea that if you repeat ‘The Big Truth’ often enough, it’ll sink in. There is value in repetition.
=============
Am I repeating anything? John Kerry’s speech concerned drought, cyclone and flood. Some actual science based discussion of drought, cyclone and flood – indeed starting with AR5 – seemed germane.
In contrast springer can’t seem to stop infesting the threads with trivialities. It is how he rolls I guess.
I realize it is not about science but we can only hope that somewhere, somehow a love of the hydrological verities persists.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
R. Gates
Yes, I’m predicting it will be about half a degree warmer in 105 years from now, before 500 years of natural cooling sets in. There’ll be slight cooling until at least 2028, maybe 2030 and then 30 years of natural warming. But I have proved why it’s not carbon dioxide after all.
we should not allow — right, we. And who is this “we” supposed to be? Presumably it refers to Barack Obama &. John Kerry, President and Secretary of State of the U.S. of A., those who believe very deeply etc., etc.
Now, I do not think the executive branch of power in said States is authorized by the Constitution or any law of the land to do such a thing, to stop scientific and political debate dead once and for all in a particular field, based on their own deeply held beliefs.
Therefore John Kerry is expressing here clearly his intention to overstep the scope of his authority, an abominable feat in itself. If he actually tries to go down this road, he should be fired immediately, whatever it takes.
Do we have time for credulous truebelievers like Kerry? Especially those like him whose underlying totalitarian agenda is clearly visible through the paper-thin cover of politically-funded climate alarmism ?
Joshua and FOMD aren’t alarmed about the totalitarianism slide Kerry is threatening, since like him that’s precisely what they’re after in the first place. That’s the whole ‘beauty’ of the CAGW meme, for them.
BREAKING NEWS
John Kerry’s Speech Evokes
Shocking Displays of Climate-Change Denialism
Common-Sense Forms of skepticism that consistently ignore the strongest climate-science, and focuses instead upon personal grievances and/or marginally relevant scientific quibbles and/or political stump-speeches and/or ideology-first slogan-shouting, are themselves pernicious forms of denialism.
The Plain Teaching of Science Human-caused climate-change is real, serious, and accelerating.
Nature can’t be fooled, and that’s why — over the long haul — denialism is futile …
`Cuz who really wants to join the futile collective of willfully ignorant climate-change denialists?
The world wonders!
BREAKING NEWS
FOMD in yet another Shocking Display of Climate-Change Credulity.
The Plain Teaching of Science Human-caused climate-change is real, serious, and accelerating.
As usual blithely ignoring that …
– climate science is government-funded and presents alarmist dogma
– government stands to gain handsomely from public alarm over climate
… FOMD makes a misleading reference to the product of anything-but-plain government science lackeys, carefully keeping sure their message serves the interest of their self-serving paymaster – government. Thereby arguing for more taxes, more bureraucrats, more political power, more government interference generally. Music to ears of his fellow credulous totalitarians.
BREAKING NEWS
Conservative Sportsman Bets Valuable Rifle
Conclusion Conservative, conservation-minded, common-sensible folks who hunt and fish, one-and-all appreciate that Gail’s frothy brand of climate-change denialism is utterly non-rational.
Blinkered committed alarmist FOMD again ignores plain facts
– climate science is government-funded and presents alarmist dogma
– government stands to gain handsomely from public alarm over climate
He has no answer, and is loathe to admit it. Textbook example of entrenched dishonesty.
Good thing that Gail eschews alarmism, eh?
Joshua – Were you around in the 20th century? Totalitarianism in the name of “protecting the people/economic justice” and “new technologies that solved seemingly catastrophic problems and redefined what is possible for humanity” were its defining features.
Being alarmed about potential totalitarianism AND not being alarmed that we won’t find technologies to solve potential major problems is the sign of a historically informed mindset. The converse…
I’ve long been of the opinion that the first one who calls ‘Godwin’ on a thread is a useful idiot. It’s kim’s corollary to Godwin’s Law.
=================
Whoa, I’ve had comments awaiting moderation on Climate Etc, and on Watt’s Up on the same day. I’ve got to circle this date on the calendar in bright red.
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Mark –
I know that it may be hard for some to believe, but I know many non-“skeptics” who are find totalitarianism to be abhorrent – even if they are less confident in their firm belief that we are serfs with no freedoms left.
Well – actually, my view of history would tells me that we have not yet found technologies to “solve” the major problem of extreme weather. Sure, it is possible that we might find technologies that “solve” the problem of more acidic oceans or significantly increased sea levels, should those developments occur. I would say that a comprehensive risk analysis in the face of uncertainty should include such consideration. On the other hand, I’d say that it also makes sense, in the framework of a risk analysis in the face of uncertainty, to consider the probability that we may not develop such technologies.
Personally, I think that finding “totalitarians” around every corner and under every bed may not be a particularly constructive approach to either mitigation or adaptation. Such a methodology looks more to me like tribal warfare, that holds technological development along both lines hostage to preexisting identity-protection and identity-aggressive paradigms.
Just the way I roll, I guess.
The context of 20th century warming is at most 0.08 degrees C/decade.
e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/lontermtrend_zpse9264a75.png.html?sort=3&o=70
‘Global mean temperature at the Earth’s surface responds both to externally imposed forcings, such as those arising from anthropogenic greenhouse gases, as well as to natural modes of variability internal to the climate system. Variability associated with these latter processes, generally referred to as natural long-term climate variability, arises primarily from changes in oceanic circulation. Here we present a technique that objectively identifies the component of inter-decadal global mean surface temperature attributable to natural long-term climate variability. Removal of that hidden variability from the actual observed global mean surface temperature record delineates the externally forced climate signal, which is monotonic, accelerating warming during the 20th century.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16120
The study suggests that the dynamical complexity that is the cause of vigorous decadal variability in climate leads to the likelihood of non-warming – or even cooling -for decades hence. This impacts the politics of mitigation in ways that must be evident to everyone.
In the longer term the same dynamical complexity implies the existence of climate tipping points both in the near past and in the near (decadal) future. These are unpredictable and may involve the climate linchpin of thermohaline circulation. The true nature of climate catastrophism – in the sense of Rene Thom. What seems certain is that the pattern of the 20th century will not be repeated in the 21st.
The catastrophism of Kerry and fellow travelers is different in quality. The hard left core expects climate catastrophe to overtake us – and this stems from the millennialist impulse that is a robust feature of the human condition. This is inevitably linked to the desire to use catastrophes to transform society and economies. An ambition to be resisted if we wish to retain the values of classic liberalism and deny the impetus to centralized planning.
There are two starkly divergent paths to the future – at least in theory. A top down approach involving increased government power and centralized planning – and a bottom up approach that features polycentric governance of global commons. In reality only the latter has any chance of success.
‘The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts.’ http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
Joshua – agreed: most alarmists (non-skeptic does not necessarily mean alarmist, but calling for radical change by force…) find totalitarianism abhorrent. So did those who supported government intervention in the economy in Germany, Italy, etc. before it happened, and same with socialists/communists in Russia, etc.
The point is not that people want totalitarianism and therefore support world -wide carbon reforms. It is that world-wide carbon reforms open the doors and create the politicall/historical conditions in which totalitarian movements thrive. The Road To Serfdom described why/how it happens – if you are truly interested, I recommend reading it. If you cannot answer the problems/patterns it outlines (you may be able to) you probably want to rethink your stance on this issue.
And again – Agreed: We did not solve the challenge of climate change in the 20th century. However, technology fundamentally changed human existence from 1900 to 2000. The number of challenges we essentially solved (an order of magnitude, sometimes several) are legion. This creates and allows us to face new challenges, sure. And, if we let 1900 politicians and scientists use government power to “solve” the problems FOR people in 2000 – do you really think they would have added any real value? Or, would they have created legacies the interfered with later technological solutions?
Technology is growing exponentially. iby 2050, we will face as much change as from 1900-2000, and by 2075 that much change again, and by 2100 we will have experienced 8 times the change of from 1900-2000. Let cost-efficient solutions the EASILY integrate into markets, driven further innovation lead the way. Trust the creativity and morality of our future entrepreneurs – they will solve challenges we can’t even imagine yet.
Let cost-efficient solutions THAT easily integrate into markets and drive further innovation – lead the way. Trust the creativity and morality of our future entrepreneurs – they will solve challenges that we can’t even imagine yet.
Fan,
As usual, you can’t get your own references right. The firearm in question is a shotgun. Not a rifle.
I’m sure such details matter little to you.
Mark –
That’s an excellent point. Yes, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and John Kerry = same, same, same, same but different. How could I argue with such impeccable logic?
And let’s not forget Mao.
What the heck, let’s throw in Pol Pot and Genghis Kahn as well, eh?
It may just be necessary to separate the content of Kerry from the intent. The latter may well be to shackle Asian economies, especially China, with some growth retarding policies. My impression of Kyoto 1997 was of EU countries seeking to inhibit USA growth at a time when the latter was robust thanks to new information technologies. State broadcasters in Europe were explicit about their immediate target, endlessly quoting a mantra from President Chirac that 2% of the population was producing x% of the emissions (I forget the amount, but it was much larger than 2). The (Delors) European Project was very upbeat in those days, intent on EU superpower status.
Things have moved on since 1997, and now the USA (and the EU) eyes China etc with somewhat similar apprehension. Or am I too realpolitik?
Despite the fine insight, OAS, I’m amused by the picture of Kerry shackling Chinese growth. He’ll be fine until he notices the red line in the sand.
================
The discrepancy between climate models and observation must be exercising a lot of minds at the moment. However, I never see any satisfying explanation emerge.
For example, maybe the GHG theory is flawed in some way. Perhaps the way we calibrate the magnitude of the effect is wrong. Perhaps the secondary, but more important, water vapour positive feedback does not happen.
Maybe the problem does not lie with the GHG back heating. Maybe negative feedbacks neutralise the warming. So perhaps the extra water vapour forms extra clouds, reducing incoming SW radiation. Perhaps all of the above is wrong and we don’t understand much at all.
Surprisingly, I never see any debate of these issues. It seems that most of the effort is spent on finding an excuse for an assumed temporary lack of warming. We missed some thermometers in the arctic, the heating has suddenly by-passed the atmosphere, land and sea surface and is hiding in the oceans. The trade winds are to blame.
Perhaps we are experiencing a temporary pause in warming. Perhaps we are about to slide into an ice age. Who knows? All we know is that our understanding of the climate has failed us. Our models are currently wrong and may be fundamentally wrong.
There seems to be a dogged mindset that there is a tweak somewhere that will allow the alarmism to resume and that reality will just have to do its best to catch up. Perhaps a solution will be found that satisfies the science and its consensus. It may not be true in reality and may perpetuate our state of ignorance.
I would like to think that scientists somewhere are taking a critical look at the key assumptions that underpin our understanding and the models that use that knowledge. However, such is the polarisation and the hype about consensus and settled science, I have my doubts.
The politics of catastrophism have failed, just as the climate models have failed.
Yet they keep on doing the same old thing, expecting a different result.
=======================
“Surprisingly, I never see any debate of these issues. ”
Once you understand that the purpose of Climate Science has nothing to do with actually understanding how our climate works and what causes it to vary, but to support the axiom, unchallenged and unchallengeable, that ACO2 is causing the Temperature of the Earth (TOE) to rise rapidly and catastrophically and that disaster can only be avoided if governments force a reduction or elimination of ACO2 through taxation and regulation of all activities that have a ‘carbon footprint’ (that would be ALL activities) you will cease being surprised.
As you will note from Mr. Kerry’s speech, comments on this and other Climate Science sites, articles and editorials in the MSM, and pretty much everywhere you look, the PURPOSE of Climate Science, writ large, is to SUPPRESS debate on these issues. In fact, it is a quite common and spreading opinion among the Climate Science nomenklatura (Mssrs Kerry and Obama, for example) that ‘The time for debate is over!’ and that if those insisting on actually examining and debating the science don’t shut up, more ‘active’ measures will be taken to ensure that they do.
It is not surprising that they are NOT debated; it would be astonishing if they were.
Bob, you write “It is not surprising that they are NOT debated; it would be astonishing if they were.”
I can agree that it would be astonishing if the debate occurred in the world of politics and the MSM. However, and there is always a however, the fact that the scientific community refuses to debate the issues is an entirely different matter.
Shame on ALL senior scientists for not screaming from the rooftops that John Kerry is lying.
@ Jim Cripwell
‘Shame on ALL senior scientists for not screaming from the rooftops that John Kerry is lying.’
Of course he is. He knows it and so do the ‘senior scientists’.
Don’t forget that the percentage of ‘senior scientists’ who are funded by government asymptotically approaches 100. And that the purse strings of that funding are controlled by the Obama’s, Kerry’s, the EPA, etc and senior officials in every department who, as a condition of employment, swear an oath of fealty to ACO2 as an existential threat demanding absolute control by the government.
There is not going to be much whispering in the basement, let alone screaming from the rooftops, from people, down to elementary school science teachers, whose livelihood is absolutely dependent on loudly and enthusiastically affirming ACO2 driven CAGW and the need for government action to control it.
And it is not confined to government. How long do you think a meteorologist on the Weather Channel or any network TV station would remain employed if he announced on the air that based on observations there was no convincing evidence that ACO2 had much to do with the Temperature of the Earth or that there was no obvious reason that any effort should be made to control it?
You and I can ‘bell the cat’ because neither of us have any ‘skin in the game’ and, most importantly, we have absolute no influence on policy and can therefore be ignored as ‘flat earth denialists’. Those with potential influence can, have, and will be, professionally destroyed and their personal lives attacked if they question the catechism. And they know it.
The madness is very deeply entrenched. What’s the cure? Ah, Nature’s Remedy.
==========
Bob, I have been trying to digest what you wrote. I am appalled. If what you write is true, then it is bad. If what you write is false, then it is worse. if scientists are being muzzled by the government using the power of the purse, that is bad. If scientists are being quiet for no reason, that is worse.
I fully expect that the President will enact onerous carbon dioxide reduction rules by executive order. Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech is just to set the stage for that to happen. The irony is that those who claim the mantle of science are the ones who are ignoring the temperature measurements.
Heh, headless chickens, running around on a flat earth, have a better idea of the temperature than these tin phone and phony pen dictators supposedly at the pinnacle of information.
===================
I was lying in the bath this morning, when I suddenly realized the similarities between the John Kerry speech, and the Colin Powell speech on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Shortly after that, Colin retired from public life. It is all very well lying for the President, but it does not do much for self esteem.
I also note that the “sounds of silence” emanating from our hostess are very loud indeed.
Remember, Saddam having WMD was a ‘slam dunk’. It might be amusing to review Kerry’s words from that time. Heck, look at Obama’s words, or those of nearly any Democrat.
======================
By the way, Putin’s discovered the roundball was slam-dunked into Syria, and has the little pill well in hand.
================
Jim, Saddam bluffed the world into believing he had more WMD than he did, and he did it to keep the Persians at bay. His own military officers believed he had WMD. Ironically, his success at the bluff against the Persians failed at the international level. For extra irony, he had the will and the way to significant WMD had he not been deposed by an international voluntary coalition of the world’s functioning democracies.
Now, wither Persia? And wither Pakistan?
============
Kerry, dogged fear mongerer.
Terrorist or terrier?
Big Finance For Global Warming
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/us/politics/financier-plans-big-ad-campaign-on-environment.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=1
Andrew
I remember even Andy Revkin blanched at the statement by Al Gore that he had a $300,000,000 fund for climate alarmism from ‘internet and anonymous’ donors. This was in 2008.
=========================
Kim,
This the $100 million that will finally be really really convincing.
Andrew
Heh, a fool and his money are soon parted. Tom Steyer ought to understand that as well as any old fool.
===================
And scientists further predict that climate change also means longer, more unpredictable monsoon seasons and more extreme weather events.
Noaa prediction is around the simian for the US winter.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-18/the-official-forecast-of-the-u-dot-s-dot-government-never-saw-this-winter-coming#r=hp-ls
The Met Office in Great Britain predicted a dry winter.
===============
“The Met Office in Great Britain predicted a dry winter”
Very few sure things in the world, but betting against the Met Office with their warm biased models and the hapless Slinging Slingo might be one of them.
Can’t run a string though; odds are they’ll be right by accident sooner or later.
=========
The age of ignorance and central planning with the likely results on display;
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/17/study-democrats-more-likely-to-think-astrology-is-scientific-less-likely-to-know-earth-revolves-around-the-sun/
The numbers are pretty appalling across the board regardless of party but the backdrop explains the culture and how political fraud and mythology about Climate Change could take hold. These are the same people in many cases labeling others as “anti-science deniers”.
It’s easy to fault the mob but consider the elite leading that mob. Consider the weakness of those who were obliged to stand up to the Greenshirt academics and media operatives?
Instead of talking about how “complex” the details of climate science might be why not focus on the broad based ignorance on political degeneration that is the core of the Climate Change thesis? Dr. Curry’s comments are again the act of staring at her shoes when so much more was obviously required. Kerry’s comments are beyond the pale ignorance and willfully as even he can be this naturally stupid;
“Now, President and I – Obama and I believe very deeply that we do not have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.”
They are the Flat-Earth society.
It must be heavily frustrating to lose a presidential election against G.W. Bush (the dumbest US president of all times). But neither Gore nor Kerry are right about the “solid” scientific basis of climate change. If JC wants, we can discuss the scientific foundations of IPCC’s theory (I have sent her 3 papers with key ideas and 3 more to go).
Con men are not intellectually gifted but are very good at convincing others … who may be much smarter than they are, that the Con’s best interest is the target’s best interest – whether financially, emotionally or intellectually, politicians (current ones included), preachers, financiers, scientists … the list is endless. For example, Canada Bill Jones – king of the Three Card Monte; Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower to tourists; George Parker sold the Brooklyn Bridge (twice); infamously famous Charles Ponzi; William Thompson, for whom the FBI came up with the term “confidence man” ; Natwarlal (Indian con artist), sold the Taj Mahal (multiple times); Bernard Madoff.
The problem climate advocates face is weak support from real data: a) attribution – cause/effect of GHGs, b) true consensus – extreme weather events are not caused by manmade GHGs. Most thinking scientists accept the Arrhenius/Tyndall effect – greenhouse gases trap heat … at least in isolation. But GHGs account for less than half of the atmospheric warming. IPCC hurt, not strengthen, their case in the AR5 in failing to address the current hiatus AND the entire period of cooling / flat temperatures (30 yrs+) from mid ‘40s-mid ‘70s, They do not address well know natural causes, sticking to talking points (akin to “…if you like your health insurance / doctor…”). Talking points are disingenuous non- or half-truths; facts win over propaganda, chickens eventually come home to roost. Norman Davies’ 5 rules of propaganda (“Europe – a History, 1996, p500-501):
• Simplification – Reducing arguments to simple confrontations framing opponents as evil uncaring actors – Good v. Bad, Friend v. Foes, Virtue v. Evil
• Disfiguration – Discrediting opposition w/ crude smears and parodies
• Transfusion – ‘Manipulating’ consensus values of audiences to achieve the objective
• Unanimity – Pushing one’s viewpoint as unanimous opinion of right-thinking people; appeal to “star- performers”; use of social pressure – ‘psychological warfare’
• Orchestration – repeating the same message over and over and over
Populism and progressivism have similar political roots that teach people that progress (change) is good and desirable. Populist movements have been precursors – building blocks for fascist movements. Conspiratorial scapegoating employed by national socialist populism were part of, and helped to facilitate, fascism in Germany. The recent occupy movement is an example of populist movements to pit “have-not” 99% against the “haves” – 1% elite, the “cause” that undermines social safety nets. Who is the arbiter of good vs. bad or disruptive social instability? What rule? It’s who is waving the political baton (or “pen” and “phone”).
The scope and reach of propaganda is expanded by co-opting television, film famous faces, and use of other obvious means of mass marketing, mass persuasion, commercial advertising and PR. “Total propaganda” — the art of ‘the Big Lie’ was pioneered by the Bolsheviks. Josef Goebbels was the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany who along with Willi Münzenberg worked to perfect the art of persuading right-thinking people to adjust / accept their new ideas.
From today’s Wall Street Journal opinion page …
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304675504579389492229581738?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304675504579389492229581738.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Why he’s the very model of a perfect public servant.
=============
Gee, Kerry is hyping this just as much as Bush hyped the WMDs in Iraq.
You don’t suppose this is what politicians do?
Let’s not let the facts and uncertainties get in the way of a war or climate policies.
Bush’s ClA Director Tenet told the President that Saddam having WMD was a slam dunk. Most of the nation’s Democrats were in unison with the rush to war.
It was only after little WMD was found that the charge of rushing into war was made, and by some of the same hypocrites who were urging it.
Nevertheless, Saddam had the will to WMD, and the way through the Oil for Food program. Oh, look, Maurice Strong had his sticky little fingers in that mess, too.
=========
Kim,
How naive are you anyway?
They were rushing to war without any regard of the facts. Even I knew at the time that whatever Iraq had in the way of WMDs could not have been significant. We and the U.N. had been prowling around the country and over-flying it through most of the nineties. Do you think they could have been making a massive arsenal with all of that going on?
And you believe the CIA?
I think George took one for the gipper (oh, different President).
The fact that Democrats bought into it is the result of 9/11.
All we need is climate 9/11 – you know something like a Category 6 hitting Florida – followed by a CIA/climate scientists report that GW (not the President) was behind it and we can get the policies we want.
I repeat, Saddam’s own military thought they had WMD.
Look at the February 6, 2003 Op-Ed in the LATimes, by a certain Joe Wilson, arguing that we should not invade Iraq for fear that Saddam would use his WMD on our forces.
Joe Wilson, where have I heard that name before? He must be the husband of someone famous.
============
Should the President believe his Director of the CIA? Well, probably unless he has private access to better intelligence.
The CIA, along with the rest of the world, believed that Saddam had WMD. Why the CIA even had a report that Saddam had been interested in 1999 in obtaining yellow cake uranium from Niger, a report they somewhat discounted because of the unreliability of the reporter, a naive young diplomat named Joe Wilson.
=======================
Kim,
Thanks for answering my question.
We definitely should believe everything the CIA says they say.
Hey, I’ve a got a bridge…
Heh, the Democrats bought the bridge, then shoved it back onto Bush when it wouldn’t carry traffic, or span the divide.
===============
There were many “experts,” “people” (h/t, PG) in the state department among them, who were skeptical about the claims about Saddam’s WMD.
The Bush administration – and specifically people with little expertise on the subject and about the region – systematically sought to undermine and divert from that skepticism. This is a matter of record.
Isn’t it interesting the number of ways that people can assume alternating views on how to treat uncertainty, kim?
Duelfer documents Saddam’s will to WMD, and Rossett his way to it, through the Oil for Food program. It would be a marvelous irony on the UN, except that it is wholly fabricated from such greed and treachery.
=================
Will to WMD is not what we were sold.
My theory always has been that Iraq was going to be coming off U.N. monitoring and it would potentially pose a threat in the future. Most likely the intelligence services of most of the Western countries colluded in hiding that there were probably little or no actual WMD in Iraq at the time.
Sort of just like this pause will be ending soon and we need to act now before the big WMD climate monster strikes.
The same people selling the WMD in Iraq story are selling global warming alarmism today.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
STATUS: True
kim –
No matter where you look, you can always find a squirrel, eh?
JC, there are bits about your perspective that I’m perfectly in agreement with.
===========
I can’t recall his name, but about the only person who didn’t believe Saddam had WMD’s was one of the lead UN Inspectors.
That said, I think it tough to argue that the Bush Administration did not knowingly overplay the nuclear weapons card. I’m guessing they figured it was needed to make the full house hand necessary to get all the players on board.
I am curious – why is it so many people forget that we had effectively been involved in a shooting war with Iraq for more than 10 years, prior to the start of Iraqi Freedom?
“Most likely the intelligence services of most of the Western countries colluded in hiding that there were probably little or no actual WMD in Iraq at the time.”
These would be the same omniscient intelligence services who failed to notice a massive buildup of Soviet troops to invade Afghanistan?
The ones who were clueless as to the September 11 attacks?
Those geniuses who ignored Russian warnings about one of the Tsarnaev brothers?
It’s amazing how much people know, without need of any of those annoying things called facts.
Google: “Office of Special Plans.”
-snip–
In February 2007, the Pentagon’s inspector general issued a report that concluded that Feith’s office “developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers.”
–snip–
Ah yes, selectivity about skepticism. Now where have I seen that before?:
–snip–
“In the late summer of 2002, Sen. Graham had requested from Tenet an analysis of the Iraqi threat. According to knowledgeable sources, he received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies–noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA’s classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration’s claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes.” [Source: The New Republic, 6/30/03]
–snip–
Should we go on?:
–snip–
“An unclassified excerpt of a 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency study on Iraq’s chemical warfare program in which it stated that there is ‘no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has – or will – establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.’” The report also said, “A substantial amount of Iraq’s chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) actions.” [Source: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 6/13/03; DIA report, 2002]
–snip–
There’s more. Lots more. A good place to start would be to Google PNAC. Should be required reading for anyone claiming to be a skeptic.
Thank you, Judy, for bringing this story out. By accident, I was thinking about the Obama’s climate policy yesterday. As a probably futile effort, I decided to compose an email to him to wake him up, if this can be done. After all, he says he is “… committed to creating the most open and accessible Administration in history.” And then sent it off just to satisfy myself. Did not expect to see Kerry exposed next morning as an archetype of what is wrong with the Administration thinking. Below is the copy of my email. Some of you may need to tweak their radiation physics a bit but I assure you the science in it is accurate.
*****************************************************************************
Dear Mr. President,
You are captive to a global warming clique of activists that lie to you about global warming. Your global warming policy is on the wrong track because of the fraudulent information they give you. First, let me explain how I know. I was happily retired when Al Gore showed his movie and got a Nobel Prize. Having worked as a professional scientist on the Apollo lunar lander project I knew he was wrong to forecast a twenty foot rise in sea level. From scientific literature I quickly discovered that sea level had been rising all right, at the rate of 2.46 millimeters a year, or 24.6 cm, just under ten inches, a century. But the world’s premier science publications Nature and Science would not publish that because they are controlled by the same clique. This set me on serious climate research and publication of my book “What Warming?” I have been researching climate for the last five years now and have found that the climate establishment is spreading incredible lies about global warming. First, official records prove that there has not been any warming for the last 17 years. That is an observed fact but your EPA and other climate organizations are ignoring it and pretending that the warming that was before is still going on. Their recommendations for emission control and switching to “clean energy” are irrational because they are designed to fight a non-existent warming. That is because it can be proven that the greenhouse effect that is supposed to cause the warming does not exist. We already know that the twenty-first century is greenhouse free. In the twentieth century there are two warming spurts that could go either way. They happened in 1910 and 1999, respectively. The first one raised global temperature by half a degree, the second one by a third of a degree. Radiation laws require that to start a greenhouse warming you must add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at the same time. Using data from Mauna Loa in Hawaii and from Law Dome is Antarctica it can be shown that there was no increase of carbon dioxide at the times when these two warming spurts began. This means that there has been no greenhouse warming at all either in the twentieth or the twenty-first century. You are being lied to about the existence of global warming and have agreed to implement a climate policy that is totally irrational and harmful to our national interest. It is a shame that pseudo-science has a hold on our highest executive office.
Arno Arrak
2/17/14
**********************************************************************************
It’s actually quite interesting how often I read this sort of comment these days in the “skept-o-sphere” or in the media from folks like Montford.
Montford walked it back, but in the context of offering lame excuses (he’s not a scientist, he shouldn’t be expected to keep figures in his head, etc.).
But irrespective of whether “people” (h/t, PG) lamely walk backwards, what is interesting to me is the compelling draw of ignoring uncertainty – from both sides for sure, but even from those who wear pictures of Mr. Uncertain T. Monster on their sleeves.
Why does ignoring uncertainty have such an allure?
There’s a clue to the allure, Joshua, in the alarmists’ simultaneous embrace and rejection of uncertainty. They got the tiger and the lady from behind the same door.
=========
kim –
Are those alarmists “people” (h/t, PG), kim?
Yep, unhappy and conflicted people. Yesterday, everything was all so certain, now I’ve got to find a way to wonder anew.
===================================
Kerry has either massive stones or minimal grey matter or both to call AGW a weapon of mass destruction.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
Status: True
“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime … He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation … And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction … So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real…”
— Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003
The mass-destruction threat of “aluminum tubes” was real and remains real—as Iran’s centrifuge program demonstrates. The mistake was to invade the wrong country, with a dementedly over-simplified ideology-driven Plan A … and no Plan B.
From the Duffel Blog:
Question What is denialism’s “Plan B” … in the (likely!) event that James Hansen’s climate-change worldview proves to be scientifically correct?
Common sense As in Iraq, so with climate-change. Denialists cannot conceive any “Plan B” … and that’s why they cling so tightly to their denial.
Dear John Sidles,
Iran wasn’t the most immediate threat and there would have been no political will to invade it. The first Gulf War run by Bush 41 OTOH was not concluded. There was a cease fire agreement under the proviso that Saddam cooperated and remained in compliance with UN imperatives. He was not in compliance so the US was justified in resuming hostilities. He was given many, many chances to comply. Absent any legal or moral authority to invade Iran certainly the next best thing was to make over its neighbor into a democracy and establish a huge military presence, supply lines, and a well seasoned desert and urban-guerilla fighting force right next door where it can be called upon at a moment’s notice.
Your shallow analysis is par for the FOMD course, eh?
Random abuse by Springer, lessons-learned by FOMD.
Oh you poor sweet thing. I didn’t mean to abuse you. Who knew you were such a delicate little flower?
Fan,
You ask for abuse when you stray outside your narrow area of expertise and make arguments your own links don’t support.
Incorrect claims by tim56, solid links by FOMD:
The abusive willful ignorance of denialism provides a refreshing contrast to MajGen McMaster’s commitment to rational non-ideological open public discourse, eh timg56?
Much as I hate to say it springers uncharacteristically moderate statement pales against FOMBS – and indeed Joshua’s – habitual snide disparagement.
FOMD: The mistake was to invade the wrong country,
What was the “correct” country and how would it have worked out?
Since Kerry voted for the invasion of Iraq (both the authorization and the bill commending the administration’s diplomacy), was there some other occasion on which Kerry strongly advocated invading the “correct” country?
@MM: Since Kerry voted for the invasion of Iraq (both the authorization and the bill commending the administration’s diplomacy), was there some other occasion on which Kerry strongly advocated invading the “correct” country?
So you don’t think Kerry was lied to about Iraq having WMD?
Vaughan Pratt: So you don’t think Kerry was lied to about Iraq having WMD?
How does that address FOMD’s assertion that the mistake was to invade the wrong country, or my question to FOMD of what the correct country to invade would have been?
According to Tony Blair, all of the intelligence services of all the EU and NATO nations believed that Saddam Hussein still had significant stores of WMDs. According to Senator H. R. Clinton, the Senate had all of the same intelligence estimates that the Bush Administration had.
Matthew, I was more interested in what you’re thinking than in what FOMD might have meant. Mainly I wanted to be sure I hadn’t misinterpreted your premise, “Since Kerry voted for the invasion of Iraq (both the authorization and the bill commending the administration’s diplomacy)”, which seems to be saying that you see no need to apply any discount to votes that were based on faulty intelligence.
BBC One’s Panorama programme (a current affairs documentary that has run continuously since 1953) had some new material last March which can be seen in the second half of
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21786506
The first half seemed to be just rehashing older information about unreliable sources. Relevant quotes:
“Much of the key intelligence used by Downing Street and the White House was based on fabrication, wishful thinking and lies.”
“Lord Butler [who conducted the first post-invasion inquiry] and Sir Mike [Jackson, then head of the British army] agree Mr Blair did not lie, because they say he genuinely believed Saddam Hussein had WMD.”
The second half dealt with new information from the former head of CIA’s Paris station, Bill Murray, concerning information from supposedly more reliable Iraqi sources about which Murray commented,
“I thought we’d produced probably the best intelligence that anybody produced in the pre-war period, all of which came out – in the long run – to be accurate. The information was discarded and not used.”
Whether all this justifies applying a discount to a vote made in 2002 seems to be well correlated with where one sits in the political spectrum.
Try to incorporate the following facts into your thinking, Vaughn, if possible what with old dogs and new tricks…
The 1991 Iraq war had not concluded by 2003. There was a cease-fire agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_687
Iraq had violated the terms of the agreement many times in many ways. That alone was legal justification to resume hostilities. Moreover Iraq attempted to assassinate President George HW Bush in 1993 in Kuwait which is, in and of itself, an act of war. Iraq fired upon US warplanes enforcing the UN designated no-fly zone which, in and of itself, is another act of war.
See here for documentation of other reasons that made the case even more compelling that simply being legally justifiable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
Vaughan Pratt: which seems to be saying that you see no need to apply any discount to votes that were based on faulty intelligence.
That’s a big “seems”.
Maybe you know the answers: What was the correct country to invade? When did Kerry advocate invading it? Before Bush submitted the bill to authorize the invasion of Iraq, he gave a speech in which he castigated the Bush administration for wasting manpower and resources in Afghanistan and advocated stronger military measures against Iraq.
When Bush took office there was already a shooting war between the US and Iraq, with the Iraqis attempting to shoot down US aircraft patrolling the no fly zones, and US aircraft attacking Iraqi air defense systems. There was also an active (and effective) effort by France, Germany, Russia and China to evade the sanctions regime, which was how China was able to resupply the Iraqis with new equipment as their anti-aircraft assets were destroyed.
Perhaps that’s beside the point, so back to Kerry.
Having voted to authorize the war in 2002 and to support the invasion in 2003, he then voted in 2007 to lose the war.
Now we know that everyone was wrong, but that does not support the claim by FOMD that Kerry correctly advocated invading a different country. If you have some evidence that FOMD is correct, I hope you’ll provide it.
Meh, for it before they were against it and lost it after it was won. Typical.
===================
Matt –
So much for skepticism, eh?
http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/17/john-kerrys-remarks-on-climate-change/#comment-459491
There seems little doubt that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons – and used them.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/a/husseincrimes.htm
Yup. 1988 in closing days of Iran-Iraq war.
3,000 – 5,000 killed by chemical weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chemical_weapons_Halabja_Iraq_March_1988.jpg
Hanging was too good for Saddam. We should have overrun his sorry ass in 1991.
Jeebus. Dead-enders? What dead-enders?:
If that was aimed at me – and if Johua imagines I give a rat’s arse about what idiot American said what and when about Iraq he is sadly mistaken.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Chemical_weapons_Halabja_Iraq_March_1988.jpg
If that was aimed at me – and if Johua imagines I give a rat’s arse about what and when some id_ot American said about Iraq he is sadly mistaken.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Chemical_weapons_Halabja_Iraq_March_1988.jpg
Vaughan Pratt: you see no need to apply any discount to votes that were based on faulty intelligence.
I see no evidence that Kerry is more deserving of any such discount than anybody else.
Ya’ just gotta love “skeptics.”
One can always tell when a comment hits fan in the ten ring.
Fan,
So how is your quoting McMaster relevant? Are you following Michael Mann’s lead in equating debate on global warming with the stresses of combat? I have graduate level coursework in Military Sociology and prior service time. It is difficult to see any connection. What I do see is your usual lack of ability in providing links and references that relate specifically to the points under discussion.
Seriously, Mark Lewis, aren’t there *plenty* of parallels between a global carbon energy economy and the 20th century policy of Mutual Assured Destruction?
• Risk of planetary-scale warfare
(with nukes/for oil)
• Massive deficit spending
(to buy nukes/oil)
• Massive environmental destruction
(radiation/stripmining)
• Threat of mega-casualities
(city-busting/city-drowning)
• Harm to unborn generations
(genetic damage/ozone destruction)
• Shills and demagogues advocate destruction
(M-I Complex/Big Carbon)
Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for wisely embracing disarmament treaties *and* the Montreal Protocols (that restricted fluorocarbon production)!
Now we need a 20th century conservative president who will be similarly foresighted, and wisely compromising, in regard to climate-change.
Conclusion Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest of America’s foresighted, science-respecting, wisely conservative, prudently compromising Presidents, in regard to environmental protection, market restraints, and global treaties.
Ain’t that plain conservative common-sense, Mark Lewis?
Ain’t John Kerry just saying, what Ronald Reagan would have said too?
AFOMD – accepting your premise that I am a libertarian – why would I particularly care what a conservative politician says?
Are you suggesting that the USA is burning carbon (less emissions each year now) as an attack on another country. MAD and waiting for more certain science predictions are not quite the same, methinks. YMMV.
Parallels? No.
Fan,
Your comparing Ronald Reagan and John Kerry is strong evidence that Dave Springer’s assessment of your analytical abilities is spot on.
Fan –
tim makes an excellent point. You should top making Springer abuse you.
Another “skeptic,” another interesting notion of accountability.
FOMD: Seriously, Mark Lewis, aren’t there *plenty* of parallels between a global carbon energy economy and the 20th century policy of Mutual Assured Destruction?
Serously? No.
It’s not really Sec Kerry’s fault. His handlers have him in the hot seat.
He’s controlled from behind by Bill Nye the pseudo-science guy.
QUESTION: I saw on TV one of those experiments to frighten small children.
2 transparent containers. One had normal air, the other was CO2 rich. A light was shone on both containers. The CO2 became opaque and heated up by 6’C, the normal air heated by 3’C.
The CO2 opacity demonstrated that it was reflecting light away from the container, the normal air did not. Thus the warming effect of the CO2 would reduce the further from the light source since most energy transferr is via convection. In the air container the light energy (SW) continues on, to warm whatever is on the other side of the vessel. If we are to transpose this experiment to the real world above the oceans. the CO2 rich atmosphere could only heat the sea with whatever energy could pass thru the CO2 atmosphere, while the air atmosphere would allow almost all the energy to be absorbed by the sea. In this real world it is the oceans that are warming – so the obvious question is: does increased CO2 warm or cool the oceans?
Perhaps we could try changing the composition in the columns by ppm of CO2?
More CO2 in theory warms the atmosphere – which decreases energy losses from the oceans initially. The immensely complex reality can only be approached with space based equipment and instruments sampling the oceans.
“so the obvious question is: does increased CO2 warm or cool the oceans?
_____
The oceans are the primary climate system energy reservoir. When the climate system is gaining energy, the oceans are the first place that energy will be stored. A warmer atmosphere acts as control knob to regulate the rate of energy storage in the system, but owing to their extremely low thermal inertia and very low energy storage compared to the oceans, the atmosphere stores very little of the accumulating energy.
ROBERT ELLIS
Who says warmer air acts as an insulator to a body of water????? Have you been seduced by the dark side? Temp is just an expression of energy with the water being 3,500 more ‘energised’ than the same vol as air. Throw in a density ratio of 800 to 1, and you seem to bestow air with a dynamism most commonly professed by the AGW club.
Let me Google that for you – http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+atmosphere+warms+oceans
I’m joining the flat global temperature society
+100!
R. Gates,
A warm atmosphere is not the control knob for the ocean, it’s the other way around. Much more solar radiation is absorbed by the ocean then by the atmosphere. If I put a pot of water under a heat lamp is the air above the water going to regulate the water temperature or the energy from the lamp. I suggest you try that experiment and let me know how it turns out.
The oceans absord short wave and not much else. In the experiment the CO2 acted as a filter, thus u get warmer atmosphere yet cooler oceans. Cooler ocean currents to the poles means larger ice mass. Also higher air temp allows for higher air pressure – thus increased loud a d higher planet albedo. For all the gazillion of words, has anybody done any actual lab experiments: pot of water, topped with varying consentrations of CO2, shine a light, then note water temp??????
The atmosphere composition, specifically the concentration of noncondensing GH gases determines the thermal gradient between ocean and space. Increase these GH gases and the oceans retain more energy. This is pretty basic. But there is an interesting feedback here in that at least 50% of the energy in the atmosphere comes directly from latent and sensible heat flux from the ocean, thus, even as the GH gases allow the ocean to retain more energy, the flow to the atmosphere is slowed and the atmosphere doesn’t warm as fast. This all of course assumes that there is not some continual external source pumping more and more GH gases Into the atmosphere overwhelming all natural negative feedbacks at ever increasing rates such as the HCV is doing. In this case, all bets are off, and we probably need to look to the mid-Pliocene or even Miocene for where the climate is headed.
Kerry is becoming famous:
Stephens, Bret. “Climate Prophets and Profiteers.” WSJ.com, February 18, 2014, sec. Opinion. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304675504579389492229581738?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304675504579389492229581738.html
“The weirdest thing about John Kerry’s weekend speech on climate-change—other than the fact that this is the same guy who in 1997 voted to forbid the U.S. from signing the Kyoto Protocol—is that it begins by quoting something Maurice Strong said at the U.N.’s 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: ‘Every bit of evidence I’ve seen persuades me that we are on a course leading to tragedy.'”
Conor,
The majority of the energy is the visible wavelengths (short wave if you prefer). The atmosphere doesn’t absorb visible light for the most part. The majority of the visible energy goes to heat the ocean, except some blue photons (not absorbed by photosynthetic algae which are reflected back into space). Frankly I would expect nitrate and CO2 pollution to cause more global warming by growing more ocean algae that absorb more visible light than acting as some grand neutral density filter.
The spectral band of CO2 is a small percentage of total solar radiation (about 1%). I doubt it’s going to keep the pot cooler at any concentration. I’ll suggest the experiment to my ten year old for the science fair this year.
JOHN
I would be extreamly pleased if John Jr did the experiment. Since the entirety of the CO2 arguement is based upon it insulating the planet, specifically the oceans – it would be prudent for the sceptic side to check fact, rather than squabble over untested theory – will sent £50 for the materials and labour.
I am an Aussie and have a differenet perspective to a US citizen but clearly John Kerry is a complete clown, probably the biggest clown at such a senior level in a US administration since Al Gore, IMHO. You could create a hybrid character (Al Kerry/John Gore ) for South Park episode on CAGW and everyone would get the joke, even President Obama.
Youtube ‘Manbearpig’. Perhaps a sequel?
=================
If Biden had said that, it might be a pardonable lapse of intelligence. But when Kerry indulges in such hyperbolic blather, one knows it’s the rehearsed act of a professional snake-oil salesman.
Flat earthers………..Hmmmmmmm
Let’s see if we can get our minds wrapped properly around this gem. Would a flat earth experience eccentricity, obliquity and precession? Would a flat earther even know what those are? Would a flat earther know anything at all about when they live? Would the number 11,717 have any significance to a flat earther? Would the term ‘glacial inception’ have any meaning to a flat earther?
This next question is meant for all flat earthers and all non flat earthers. What would be your educated guess on the probable length of the Holocene?
(For goodness’ sake, please don’t anyone quote Loutre and Berger 2003 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818102001868. Lisiecki and Raymo 2005 soundly put that modeling exercise to rest with actual data. http://www.350.me.uk/TR/Hansen/LisieckiRaymo_preprint.pdf)
For all you flat earthers, we live today in the Holocene epoch, or the 11,717 years since we melted our way out of the Younger Dryas. A.K.A. the interglacial in which all of human civilization has occurred.
Seven of the last eight warmings to interglacial levels (i.e. O18<3.6 o/oo) have each lasted about half a precession cycle. The precession cycle varies from 19k to 23kyrs, and we are at the 23kyr part now, making 11,500 half……
At face value we therefore have a 12.5% chance of going long, like that 8th interglacial. A closer look yields a 50% chance the Holocene will go long, like MIS-11 did, because then, as now, we are also at an eccentricity minimum. Be careful with that argument though. MIS-19, 800kya, also occurred at an eccentricity minimum, and it didn't go long. So 50/50. For an excellent treatment of the subject I recommend Tzedakis 2010 http://www.clim-past.net/6/131/2010/cp-6-131-2010.pdf.
Gosh! What is a flat earther supposed to do? Well, it could be a lot worse than you think. Assume, for the purposes of discussion, that CO2 is the heathen devil gas it is made out to be. Use the upper end limits of whatever non flat earther you choose to believe regarding CO2. Now remove it from the late Holocene atmosphere to whatever 350.org concentration you prefer.
Voila! Instant glacial inception speedbump removed. Feeling better yet?
Now, assume for the purposes of discussion that CO2 is not the heathen devil gas it is made out to be. If you are truly a non flat earther then this should bring the focus onto what the ends of the other interglacials looked like.
And this is where it gets ugly, very ugly indeed. And just how ugly is that? We will not take the median AR4 value for sea level rise by 2099, we will take the upper error bar of the worst case scenario which measures out to +0.59 meters. That's a lot, right? Well, only if 0.59 is a larger number than 6.0 or 52.0. It's the new math!
http://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@sci/@eesc/documents/doc/uow045009.pdf
http://lin.irk.ru/pdf/6696.pdf
It's allright! Really, it is! Let's just all agree that MIS-1 will be like MIS-11! Houston, we have a problem……. You see MIS-11 peaked at about +21.3 meters amsl http://www.researchgate.net/publication/240752030_A_sustained_21_m_highstand_during_MIS_11_(400_ka)_direct_fossil_and_sedimentary_evidence_from_Bermuda._Quaternary_Science_Reviews_28_271-285/file/9c96051c7177e8b1b2.pdf
Just remember "If you like your current sea level, you can keep it. Period." Apologies to Resident Obama and his Secrete-ary of State John Kerry.
Now, will all the real flat earthers please stand up. (Remember to choose the right side of the disc to standup on, otherwise you will fall off, like Columbus……:-)
‘Thus, we have now been able to test the ocean’s response to freshwater forcing. While the 8.2 kyr event is not an analog for what may happen in the future, a slowdown in the MOC is predicted by our model (and others) for a future world, partly as a function of ocean warming and partly as a function of increased freshening from ice melt and increased rainfall. As more models perform these kinds of experiments, it may be possible to narrow the uncertainties in the future projections based on how well they simulate the 8.2 kyr event.’ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/legrande_01/
The real question it seems is what triggers a sudden shift from warm intergalcials to cold glacials more generally.
I’d put money on warming resulting in high winter snowfall and high spring runoff – a further slowdown in AMOC – not ruling out an abrupt change – causing NH cooling and ice sheet accumulation in the context of low NH summer insolation. Any day now basically.
Robert I Ellison | February 18, 2014 at 6:01 pm |
Stop the presses. I agree with Ellison.
Note to self: Call doctor ask if meds need to be adjusted.
Yah, so anthropogenic warming is now shoving us more quickly into the next glaciation. Got it.
==================
kim:
I’m not following you.
‘warming resulting in high winter snowfall and high spring run-off’. I don’t believe it, but if we cool it will be seized upon as the reason.
=================
Northern hemisphere winter snowfall extent is around a 0.4% expansion per decade in the satellite age,
kim:
Thanks!
An open Arctic provides the source for next winters snowfall – http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/pnas.pdf – what’s not to believe?
This is probably the most important chart to watch if you want to get advanced notice of a coming glacial advance:
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=6
Next glacial advance very likely not gonna happen for a long long long time. Sorry flat Earthers…but warmer is better, so be happy, like these bats:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10558183/100000-bats-fall-dead-from-the-sky-during-a-heatwave-in-Australia.html
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/19708/1/2012GL052656.pdf
‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation. We place strong emphasis on using isotopes as a means to understand physical mixing and chemical cycling in the ocean, and the climate history as recorded in marine sediments.’ Wally Broecker
This is the metric to watch.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Smeed-AMOC_zpsa64ca7c4.png.html
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Smeed-AMOC_zpsa64ca7c4.png.html
Randy is oh so dogmatic – but comes up short again.
. Gates
You seem to be fretting about a handful of dead bats who died from the heat somewhere.
How about those several members of the species “homo sapiens americanus” that died in the recent cold weather there?
Does that also bother you as much?
Just checking.
Max
Robert I Ellison: Very, very good!
Hah, on another blog I put: ‘John Kerry is the Secretary of State? In what alternate universe have I arrived?’
=======================
some say that it
will end in ice, oh no!
Imagine all the people
livin’ in high rise ice cubes
sans carbon energy, let’s
bring back ol’ King Coal.
So, have you been following Game of Thrones?
What do you think of the trailers for the coming season?
Or have I misidentified the source of your climatology knowledge?
I’d do Khaleesi in a heartbeat. I’d do the dragons first just get a whack at their owner.
More likely Robert Frost.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
If Bart had any notion of the poetical – he might have known this. If he had any notion of climatology we might have less of the cli-fi fantasy genre. If he had any notion of the practical and pragmatic there might be some possibility of strategic progress.
Would they be living in Skyloos?
Frost was the source
and ice a likely
climate curse
fer human
civil -izay-shun.
All good things pass, and something will eventually replace coal. Great rafts of our superb Sydney Basin Black will one day lie unused. All I can say is, whatever replaces that will have to be a noble and potent substance (or technology.)
Coal has the glamour of all good things which lasted and did the job: sail, horse, bullock, hydro, aqueduct, wind for actual milling…but only coal has the wonderful gloss and tarry aroma.
Coal isn’t for small spaces or scattered use. That’s when it’s been a danger. Coal is for centralising. It’s meant to burn in massive plants and then deliver its power soundlessly and without flame, without fuss. Coal is pure muscle. If (for obscure reasons) you need to manufacture a Prius or wind turbine…you’ve got coal for that. If you need to dismantle or recycle a whole lot of alternative junk…coal is up for it!
Black Aussie coal. It’s just so good.
I think there should exist a single place somewhere on the Web for similar thinkers to reply to Kerry’s remarks. I sent the following message to the State Department today:
“I must respectfully object to Secretary Kerry’s disparaging, in fact insulting, references to those many credible, established, scientifically sound, published, well-respected climate scientists who disagree with many of the erroneous statements made in his recent speech. The Secretary should do better research into the subject before repeating now discredited theories and especially should refrain from personally insulting those who may legitimately disagree with his unfounded theories. Politicizing and reducing to simplistic sound bites a complex subject is not only poor statesmanship but also openly reveals an otherwise hidden ignorance of the topic.”
Don C. Pearson, MD, JD
@DCP: Politicizing and reducing to simplistic sound bites a complex subject is not only poor statesmanship but also openly reveals an otherwise hidden ignorance of the topic.
Bravo, spoken like a true technocrat.
A similar criticism was lobbed at Steve Jobs in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE
The critic felt that Jobs was clueless about technology and had done nothing useful in the last seven years. Jobs’ response was to interpret this as a bottom-up technology-driven critique and to explain (somewhat apologetically at times) his top-down simplistic customer-facing view.
One would never ask a technocrat like you to explain a situation to the public. You would dazzle them with science, but that’s no way to communicate with the public. Try to picture Reagan doing what you’re asking Kerry to do and you’ll see what I mean.
As to whether Kerry was insulting, slightly more likely would be that the State Department would feel you were insulting their intelligence by expecting them to reject the views of the mainstream global climate community and pay attention to the handful of scientists whom the climate skeptic community regards as credible, scientifically sound, and well-respected.
But only slightly, since more likely they’ll just put your message in the S-for-Skeptics bin.
Nice to see VP even if it seems to be drive-by shootings! I was starting to get a bit sleepy around this site of late. Its amazing that whenever a polly or a reporter write or talks about a subject one knows a bit about it often is dead wrong!
My somewhat limited knowledge of the climate change issue still finds many faults with Kerry’s talk, but what does VP think about the head post?
What’s to say? Everyone (McCain, Gingrich, etc.) has stuck to their positions on the subject. No new information there.
Naw, Republicans have generally moved significantly skeptical from the consensus positions on climate science and the restrictive measures on energy. There was once bipartisan support for cap and trade.
The push in the future will be to de-emphasize the flop that the science has become, and to re-emphasize the economic destruction.
Unless we get lucky and the Mann/Steyn case captures the popular imagination.
=================
Heh, I read that Tom Steyer is big into fracking and transporting fuel by rail rather than pipeline; not so much into renewable energy.
==================
Here is another unintended consequence of socialist-centric market interference. This might end up being very painful before it’s run its course.
From the article:
…
Executive summary:
The EPA’s push to encourage ethanol usage has resulted in an “Ethanol Bubble” that threatens the entire farming industry.
Changes to the EPA’s RFS2 mandate and waning political support may provide the catalyst to pop the “Ethanol Bubble.”
The popping of the “Ethanol Bubble” will have a catastrophic impact on the farming industry.
_____________________________________________________
…
The main reason farm prices have been forming a “bubble” is because of ethanol, and the problem with that concept is the same problem with the affordable home concept. Government programs have detached the markets from reality.
This graph shows how farmland began its meteoric rise back in 2005. The Index took a pause along with everything else due to the 2008 crisis, but it rapidly rebounded to new highs.
…
Because farmland is relatively inelastic, it is the most dangerous kind of market for the Government to tamper with. Inelastic markets behave like “squeezing” a balloon, and when you squeeze one area, an unintended consequence bulges out somewhere else.
…
Ethanol has the same problem the industrial and mining unions have. They all rely on the Democratic Party for support, but the Democratic Party is attempting to form a coalition of completely diametrically opposed groups, so someone has to be thrown under the bus. President Obama has already demonstrated where his allegiance lies when he decided to sacrifice coal mining and pipeline building jobs to appease the environmentalists. The problem is, environmentalists are beginning to turn on ethanol.
…
It appears that the Senate leans more National Socialist whereas President Obama and the EPA seem to lean more towards the World Socialist. Current policies are abandoning free market solutions, and the focus is more towards empowering a central authority over vast ranges of our economy and society. Once highly independent and proud farmers now go cup in hand to the government begging for programs to keep them alive, or should I say thriving. They act as if farming didn’t exist before the USDA was formed.
…
Almost the entire farming industry is being propped up by ethanol. Farmers have leveraged up paying top dollar for farmland, equipment and supplies to produce corn, nearly 40% of which is used for ethanol production. That leverage requires hefty margins to pay off, and those margins are almost totally the result of the RFS2. Even the RFS2 margins can still collapse as is happening right now in the biodiesel industry.
…
My intent however isn’t to bash one political party or another, it is to simply to call people’s attention to the fact that Government actions, often done with the best of intentions, can have disastrous results. After all, the Democrats promised to “stick it to Big Oil” and save the world from its global warming causing toxins back in late 2006 early 2007. Right now we are witnessing the potential intentional popping of another bubble, the “Ethanol Bubble.” Both parties are joining the effort, and I would imagine they will eventually succeed. If and when they do succeed, investors and farmers should be prepared to protect themselves. This article is an attempt to get the conversation started and afford investors time to prepare. Hopefully my fears are unwarranted and America finds a way to smoothly transition from first generation food based biofuels to second generation cellulosic/non-food based biofuels – only time will tell. If history tells us anything, however, that is highly unlikely. I would imagine that only after the ethanol mandate is repealed will Congress realize all the unintended consequences that they didn’t think of before they acted. If you want a great case study to examine, watch the movie “Too Big To Fail,” it makes that concept crystal clear.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2026951-consequences-of-a-farmland-bubble-and-who-gets-hurt-when-it-bursts
Let’s be aware of the consequences of silly practices
concerning the unsustainability of renewable technologies
that require heavy subsidising and back ups when the sun
don’t shine and the wind don’t blow and there’s not enough
land fer ethanol crops – and – that’s – the – reality.
Here in Melbourne Oz, the official jobless figures kicked
up to 6.4 % last week. Article by Terry McCrann, Herald
Sun, 19/02/14 ‘Carbon Tax Not Helping.’
‘The message is brutally clear. We have to get the carbon
tax monkey – and the added costs of high- priced so-called
renewable energy – off the back of Victorian businesses, and
especially manufactures.’
The moat – enclosed in academia who think, plato -nist -ic -ally,
that they are born to rule top down, seem unaware of how
wealth is actually created, never havin’ skin in the game. But
wouldn’t yer think, they havin’ access ter libraries, they’d have
picked up on that historical human breakthrough from the
daily searchfer enough food jest ter survive, that came with
steam energy and, as Schumpeter argued, the consequent
creativedisequilibrium of technical innovation by serfs on
the ground.
Hey, Bart, not much interested in board games. Why I like
readin’ the classics and other literature is because they
are about our fraught human condition, here, not lost in
space. Serfs think about the littoral. Survival and expanding
our life options, exploringhuman possibilities, make good plots
too.
A serf.
I ran across this article on why some events that seem unlikely are actually likely. I don’t know if we understand climate well enough to apply the principle in the article. In order for it to apply, there would have to be many factors that affect multiple other factors. If the principle does apply, it might help tease out natural variability of extremes from those cause by man.
Anyway, from the article:
A set of mathematical laws that I call the Improbability Principle tells us that we should not be surprised by coincidences. In fact, we should expect coincidences to happen. One of the key strands of the principle is the law of truly large numbers. This law says that given enough opportunities, we should expect a specified event to happen, no matter how unlikely it may be at each opportunity. Sometimes, though, when there are really many opportunities, it can look as if there are only relatively few. This misperception leads us to grossly underestimate the probability of an event: we think something is incredibly unlikely, when it’s actually very likely, perhaps almost certain.
How can a huge number of opportunities occur without people realizing they are there? The law of combinations, a related strand of the Improbability Principle, points the way. It says: the number of combinations of interacting elements increases exponentially with the number of elements. The “birthday problem” is a well-known example.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/math-explains-likely-long-shots-miracles-and-winning-the-lottery/
The negative AO excursion keeps the Arctic warmer. Just saying.
Ah – wrong place.
Nothing to see here folks. Just keep moving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H-BbPBg3vj8
What’s the fallback position if Arctic sea ice starts increasing?
For how much and how long? Keep in mind that we often hear that it has been increasing, and dramatically so.
How much and how long?
See here for baseline:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi_range_ice-ext.png
Let’s say ten years where negative decadal trend (labeled in percentages) is equal and opposite polarity.
With Atlantic hurricanes fizzled out, extreme winter in US, no statistically significant warming of the lower troposphere for a full santer (17 years), no statistical increase in severe weather (not counting severe cold of course)… there seem to be only two points left to stand on for warmists and those are Arctic sea ice (which harms no one by declining) and rising sea level (which is too slow to be alarming).
Put a sock in it springer. This is a red letter day – some actual science from little Josh. A nice little animation too
I’m not even going to argue – Just suggest he look at the Arctic Oscillation in relation to ice leaving the Arctic via Fram Strait. http://nsidc.org/icelights/2012/02/02/the-arctic-oscillation-winter-storms-and-sea-ice/
Forget the polar vortex – the negative excursion has had dramatic impact on US weather but the winter positive should still lead to less ice this September.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html .
So down a little from last year in an ENSO neutral – might even challenge for a record low – say 4.5 million square kilometres.
All-time record monthly warm temperatures have been observed at many sites in the Siberian states of Yakutia and Kamchatka. In what is normally the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth, Oymyakon (various spellings), saw its temperature rise to a February record high of -12.5°C (9.5°F) on February 9th (previous record was -15.3°C/4.5°F in February 2010). The normal high temperature at this time of the year should be around -42°C (-51°F). Oymyakon also holds the world record (along with Verkhoyansk) for the coldest temperature ever measured on earth at an inhabited site: -67.7°C (-90°F) set on February 6, 1933 (almost exactly 80 years ago).
Other all-time monthly records have been set at:
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski: 5.3°C (41.5°F) on Feb. 3 (previous record 5.0°C/41.0°F on Feb. 19, 1986)
Pevek: 5.6°C (42.1°F) on Feb. 8 (previous record 1.4°C/34.5°F on Feb. 28, 2008)
Magadan: 3.2°C (37.8°F) on Feb. 8 (old record 2.5°C/36.5°F in February 1968.
Omolon: 2.9°C (37.2°F) on Feb. 7 (old record -0.6°C/30.9°F on Feb. 1, 1985). This is the first time this site has ever risen above freezing during the month of February.
Okhotsk: 2.0°C (35.6°F) on Feb. 7 (old record 1.9°C/35.4°F in February 1985.
Keyes: 3.7°C (38.7°F) on Feb. 6 (old record 3.0°C/37.4°F on Feb. 28, 1982).
It is. I figured out the mystery of predicting the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). It should make the skeptics cry … reminding me of what flounder once said.
‘In addition to interannual variations associated with ENSO, the tropical Pacific SSTs also fluctuate on longer timescales. The patterns of Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV) are very similar to those of ENSO. When SST anomalies are positive in the tropical eastern Pacific, they are negative to the west and over the central North and South Pacific, and positive over the tropical Indian Ocean and northeastern portions of the high-latitude Pacific Ocean. Many mechanisms have been proposed for explaining PDV. Changes in ENSO under global warming are uncertain. Increasing greenhouse gases changes the mean states in the tropical Pacific which in turn induce ENSO changes. Due to the fact that the change in mean tropical condition under global warming is quite uncertain even during the past few decades, it is hard to say whether ENSO is going to intensify or weaken, but it is very likely that ENSO will not disappear in the future.’ http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/cdeser/docs/submitted.wang.enso_review.pdf
Not today – and not you webby.
Of course this aussie character has a deeplly ingrained anti-science streak.
Again I quote yet another group of scientists – this time from an ENSO review. This hardly qualifies me as anti-science one would think.
Webby has only his slinkys – self links – that I have given up trying to make sense of long ago.
He has solved ENSO after 100 years of endeavour by scientists. Any credible modern day ENSO scientist will readily to huge uncertainties – as the review suggested in the quote I provided.
Here’s another from Julisa Slingo and Tim Palmer.
‘The richness of the El Nino behaviour, decade by decade and century by century, testifies to the fundamentally chaotic nature of the system that we are attempting to predict. It challenges the way in which we evaluate models and emphasizes the importance of continuing to focus on observing and understanding processes and phenomena in the climate system. It is also a classic demonstration of the need for ensemble prediction systems on all time scales in order to sample the range of possible outcomes that even the real world could produce. Nothing is certain.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
Does webby’s claim to have solved ENSO prediction sound credible? Or is it just more blogospheric braggadocio?
I’m really getting into this alliteration thing.
Chief/Skippy/ JC CNIP said:
Oh, I have the SOIM mathematically solved all right. And I have huge amounts of credibility.
Besides that, sometimes you just know something is right. Like when you can use a single eigenvalue root to generate a time series. And when you can use one part of the time series to predict another part.
And this is all going on the http://contextEarth.com blog as proof. I have the precursor narrative already in place.
As a bit of coincidence, I noticed that NW linked Dean Wurmer’s youtube announcement that all you skeptics had gotten F’s on your report card. At the same time, and unbeknownst to that video, I got inspired by Flounder’s anticipation that “this is going to be great”.
Success will be sweet and csalty. Time to rub some CSALT into your wounds.
On top of that, I will dedicate it to John Kerry.
‘”The winds change the ocean currents which in turn affect the climate. In our study, we were able to identify and realistically reproduce the key processes for the two abrupt climate shifts,” says Prof. Latif. “We have taken a major step forward in terms of short-term climate forecasting, especially with regard to the development of global warming. However, we are still miles away from any reliable answers to the question whether the coming winter in Germany will be rather warm or cold.” Prof. Latif cautions against too much optimism regarding short-term regional climate predictions: “Since the reliability of those predictions is still at about 50%, you might as well flip a coin.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130822105042.htm
The physics of the IPO are that of dynamical complexity. The only question I have is can webby’s ‘prediction’ be less reliable than flipping a coin?
“WebHubTelescope (@WHUT)
Oh, I have the SOIM mathematically solved all right. And I have huge amounts of credibility’
it appears that your only fault is an excess of humility.
Doc, Can’t you recognize trash-talking?
Of course the best of the trash-talkers are the ones that deliver in the end.
We will see how it pans out. To show humility by building on the works of others that came before, or to have the gall to call all of climate science into question, or at least endlessly cherry-nitpick — that is the way this audience is divided.
‘Regardless of what type of ENSO forecast model one uses, forecasting ENSO is considerably more difficult during certain seasons of the year than others. Individual El Niño or La Niña episodes tend to develop between the months of April and June, and, once developed, last until the following February through May. Thus, once an episode has developed in early northern summer, forecasting its evolution through the remainder of its life cycle is not difficult. A much harder task is to forecast what will happen between March and June, when a forecast is being made in the preceding January through April. The difficulty in forecasting at this time of year is often called the “spring barrier” (in the Northern Hemisphere), or the “autumn barrier” (in the Southern Hemisphere).’ http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/background/prediction.html
We have already seen Webster that your blogospheric braggadocia about predicting ENSO over the century is utterly impossible. Your approach is neither statistics or dynamics – but just another curve fitting exercise. Something you can do with a program like Eureka – http://www.nutonian.com/products/eureqa/
In fact – I will do it in Eureka just to see if it can cope with a non-stationary series. It still won’t project onto the future because the series is non-stationary. The future will be different from the past in unpredictable ways in the frequency and intensity of ENSO events.
Yes we can build on knowledge – but not by believing six impossible things before breakfast – all the time arm waving about cherry picking or whatever complaint you are recycling currently. The reality is that you understand almost nothing at all about the system you pretend to model and it is all just blowhard bragging you call ‘trash talking’.
Just using the term in a forum for actual grown up people suggests a bit of problem I think.
.
That’s Eureqa.
I don’t use Eureqa for this problem.
This aussie character’s problem is that he is all hot air and parrots whatever someone else says with the intent of engaging in FUD.
This is how well I can predict the SOI
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/21/soim-and-the-paul-trap/
It works because it is essential physics — something that the aussie will never understand.
All that guff to poorly fit a curve to an historic data series. The point is to predict which still can’t be done.
You lost badly on that one. I did the cross-validation on training intervals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-validation_%28statistics%29
This is as good as a prediction because the non-training data was not used in the development of the predictive model.
Ha ha. Own goal on your part.
It is a poorly fitted curve that means precisely squat.
It is not even the SOi – just SLP at Darwin. Which is not ENSO at all.
It is the SOI, if you care to look.
And it may be revealing the underlying behavior which means that the measured SOI may be the “worse” fitting data.
You won’t catch up for a long time.
So what happened to Darwin? I honestly can’t bring myself to look at this mish mash of ideas from wherever. Fitting a curve on the basis of totally irrelevant ideas is fitting a curve. It is all quite obvious that fitting curves is all you do.
I’d suggest you try understanding how the physical oceanographic system works – with the all the vagaries of Rossby waves, upwelling and downwelling, Pacific trade wind and multiple feedbacks, the actual shifts in ENSO states with variable periodicities but I know I would be wasting my breath.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W.B. Yeats
Sorry – did I read that right? The curve doesn’t fit because the data isn’t as good as the fitted equation?
You are a waste of my time webby.
You are so far behind. You might as well start from the beginning. After I got going with the idea, I found this paper from 1929:
S. Goldstein, “Tidal Motion in Rotating Elliptic Basins of Constant Depth.,” Geophysical Journal International, vol. 2, no. s4, pp. 213–232, 1929.
Go read it and then you can catch up. Some of your smarter aussie buddies read Goldstein’s paper, too:
J. P. Antenucci and J. Imberger, “Energetics of long internal gravity waves in large lakes,” Limnology and oceanography, vol. 46, no. 7, pp. 1760–1773, 2001.
It really is hard to find something completely new, and someone somewhere has likely scratched the surface of just about every seemingly innovative idea already. But has anyone actually explored this particular topic in depth yet?
The answer to that is no, and that is why the model may turn out to be so powerful. MNFTIU.
‘At present, we don’t know enough about how ENSO has changed in the past (the detection problem) and what caused the changes i.e. the contribution from
external forcing vs. that due to internal variability (the attribution problem). Given the much too short reliable observational record (both for ENSO and for the external forcing fields, Wittenberg 2009), the complexity and diversity of the paradigms and processes involved, and the shortcomings of current state-of-the-art models, understanding the causes of ENSO property changes, both in the past and in the future, remains a considerable challenge.’
http://www.pages-gibp.org/download/docs/newsletter/2013-2/PAGESnews_2013(2)_58-59_Capontondi.pdf
Wave equations are usually solved numerically – and their formation and elevation depend on wind stresses and basin configuration. ENSO is a lot more complex.
‘ENSO has been viewed as a self-sustained, naturally oscillatory mode or a stable mode triggered by stochastic forcing. For both views, ENSO involves the positive ocean-atmosphere feedback over the eastern tropical
Pacific hypothesized by Bjerknes (1969). After an El Niño reaches its peak, a negative feedback is required for terminating a continued growth of El Niño. Different negative feedbacks have been proposed since the 1980s associated with a delayed oscillator, a recharge oscillator, a western Pacific oscillator, and an advective-reflective oscillator. These self-sustained oscillators respectively emphasize the negative feedbacks of wave reflection at the ocean western boundary, discharge of equatorial heat content, equatorial wind in the western Pacific, and zonal advection. As suggested by the unified oscillator, all of these negative feedbacks work together to terminate
El Niños, and their relative importance is time-dependent. The issue of ENSO as a self-sustained oscillation mode or a stable mode triggered by random forcing is not settled. It is possible that ENSO is a self-sustained mode during some periods, a stable mode during others, or a mode that is intermediate or mixed between the former and the latter. The predictability of ENSO is more limited if ENSO is a stable mode triggered by stochastic forcing than if ENSO is a self-sustained mode, because the former depends on random disturbances.’
Thousands of people work on ENSO – the importance of the phenomenon warrants it and many approaches have been suggested. Without a solid theoretical framework it remains an open problem. But webby has solved it by poorly fitting a curve to data series. Given the unbelievable – and unschooled – claims to leading the world the constant repetition of My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable – seems appropriately juvenile.
The aussie claims that “thousands of people work on ENSO” and so that is his reason that one person can’t make headway.
This is just so much anti-science spin it makes me sick.
According to the aussie’s logic, S.Goldstein who postulated some of these deterministic effects in 1929 [1] was able to make progress because there weren’t thousands of people working on the problem back then … yup, uh huh, sure.
However much you want to deny it, this physical effect exists and it causes you grief because it is largely deterministic. How could it not be given the fact that the effect involves entire basins of water?
The aussie confuses an inharmonic time series with chaos.
This is the baby that I will parameterize in the CSALT model so that I can generate temperature projections:
http://imageshack.com/a/img89/8562/1uae.gif
It will work sweet, and the fragile aussie will weep.
[1]S. Goldstein, “Tidal Motion in Rotating Elliptic Basins of Constant Depth.,” Geophysical Journal International, vol. 2, no. s4, pp. 213–232, 1929.
It really is hard to find something completely new, and someone somewhere has likely scratched the surface of just about every seemingly innovative idea already. But has anyone actually explored this particular topic in depth yet?
It is a wonder he doesn’t get dizzy with the spin. I was across gravity waves in lakes decades ago. My honours thesis was on comparing analytical solutions of the differential equation of storage with numerical schemes. I have worked in coastal engineering. There are very special cases in which these sort are equations are analytically soluble. It is certainly not the case with a coupled ocean/atmosphere system with stochastic forcing can be solved with ‘wave equations’ even if competently formulated.
The level of blogosphere bragadocia is incredible. Mad theories abound on the blogosphere – many of then webby’s.
‘The richness of the El Nino behaviour, decade by decade and century by century, testifies to the fundamentally chaotic nature of the system that we are attempting to predict. It challenges the way in which we evaluate models and emphasizes the importance of continuing to focus on observing and understanding processes and phenomena in the climate system. It is also a classic demonstration of the need for ensemble prediction systems on all time scales in order to sample the range of possible outcomes that even the real world could produce. Nothing is certain.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
And he still doesn’t understand the nature of deterministic chaos.
OK, then go ahead and see if you can “determine” it. You said it was deterministic chaos. So why don’t you determine what is in the deterministic chaos? Perhaps you don’t have the necessary chops?
And then you bring up the idea of stochastic forcing. Have you not heard of stochastic resonance or parametric resonance?
Somebody had the chops back in 1929 to come up with the idea. And it has been there all along, just waiting to be rediscovered.
I will be waiting for you to catch up.
‘The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.’ http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1956/4751.full
This is pretty much the definition of deterministic chaos – or chaos for short. Pretty much like the shifts in ENSO every few decades – totally deterministic but not currently predictable.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00626.1
Stochastic resonance involves boosting a weak signal by adding noise in a broad range of frequencies. The signal resonates with certain bandwidths boosting the signal.
Stochastic forcing of ENSO is simply some seemingly random factor initiating ENSO. The SAM is an obvious candidate – driving storms and currents north – especially in the Peruvian Current. What drives SAM? Why the polar vortex – associated by some with solar UV/ozone interactions in the stratosphere. What drives solar UV? Why the music of the spheres. Which since Poincare has been known to be deterministically chaotic. Thus we come full circle.
Your a guy who throws around jargon in the forlorn hopes that no one realizes you don’t know what you are talking about.
Bye webby – believe me your discourse hasn’t been at all interesting. It comes up to the level of ‘spew’ – as you elegantly defend as a critique of pure reason.
‘HUMAN REASON, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions.
But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours
must remain ever incomplete, because new questions
never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion.
The arena of these endless contests is called
Metaphysic.’
Aussie-boy, never mind that your quoting is hopeless to disentangle, this is all you want to know:
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/21/soim-and-the-paul-trap/
Put this together with the CSALT model, and perhaps we can figure out how to predict Wyatt and Curry’s long-term Stadium Wave effect, then we may have a chance of nailing the warming trend to a gnat’s eyelash — all without having to incorporate GCMs.
I know that this goes against your agenda of marginalizing all scientific progress, but so be it.
Minnesota mouth – never mind that your 1929 study on an ideal lake is irrelevant to the Pacific Ocean.
How would you know?
You don’t seem to be much of a hydrologist
From Partial Differential Equations of Mathematical Physics, Arthur Gordon Webster
where Goldstein’s approach is deemed “very successful”.
The fact that you do not understand how this can be applied is not my problem.
“Tidal Motion in Rotating Elliptic Basins of Constant Depth.,” – ideal for which analytical solutions may be developed.
Pacific Ocean dynamics – real and hugely complex ocean atmosphere coupled system.
The two don’t mix in real world applications.
What you do is fit a curve to data – simple as that – with a lot of smoke and mirrors that remain ultimately ludicrous to an informed observer with even a cursory review. It is a pattern with you – grand claims to a basis in deep physics and wild jargon and no substance.
Physics doesn’t care about the size of the system. The reason the mathematical physics that we have devised works as well as it does is because it scales over systems of different sizes
Tell you what, take the SOI and my model and you will see that my model fits the Mathieu variation of the wave equation, which is a conservation of energy formulation. And because they lay on top of each other, the SOI also conserves energy.
Chief of hydrology, and you don’t get that?
I does care about the shape of the basin and varying depths. It also cares that Kelvin and Rossby waves are just one aspect of the system.
and your point is?
you are really trying to catch up.
Analytical solutions are feasible for simplified cases only – as in the elliptical, constant depth lake. Or for the infinitely wide rectangular basin I did my thesis on.
Real solutions for real problems are numeric. Not that you have an analytical solution for anything – unless it is in an alternate universe.
And which part of waves are but a component of a complex, coupled system didn’t you understand?
What a whining excuse-making machine this aussie is.
It has never been my intent to go the route of a numerical solution. Instead what I have always tried to do is to simplify the mathematical physics enough to produce insight into the problem at hand. And if something useful and practical comes out of it, so much the better.
That’s why MNFTIU.
http://contextearth.com/2014/02/21/soim-and-the-paul-trap/
Speaking of billionaires … liberal billionaires. How can these people be allowed to keep so much money? Oh yeah, they aren’t a Walton. I forgot.
From the article:
A billionaire hedge fund maestro on a mission to combat climate change is looking to up the ante. Tom Steyer, a 56-year old Democrat who accumulated more than $1.5 billion as founder of Farallon Capital Management, is galvanizing donors to raise as much as $100 million. His mission is to enact climate change measures through a campaign of attack ads aimed mostly at Republican lawmakers.
Steyer is seeking to raise $50 million from donors that he will match with his own $50 million to make his PAC NextGen Climate Action one of the largest in the country. The billionaire came into prominence last year when he infused $11 million into Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s campaign against former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and bolstered a Democratic congressional primary in Massachusetts with millions.
In February Steyer rounded up the troops of the country’s leading liberal donors and hosted a climate change and environmental mastermind session at his 1,800-acre ranch in Pescadero, CA, which raises prime grass-fed beef. The money raised will be allocated to target key 2014 governor and senate races. Many of the deep-pocket donors hail from Silicon Valley, where climate change is ranked as the most important political issue. This round of fundraising appears to be focused more on specific political elections and less on philanthropy and education, toward which donations used to gravitate.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/18/Liberal-Billionaire-Spearheads-Big-Ad-Campaign-on-Climate-Change
I bet the IRS leaves this guy alone!
Hedge fund managers’ tax rate is only 15% – their billions in income is counted as ”capital gains’ even though the only money at risk is their client’s. So, yah, the IRS leaves him alone.
I so get it. Rarely have modern hominids been privy to such intimacies as Deepthroat (Watergate), Deepthroat (the Lewinsky Affair), Deepthroat (Climategate) and Deepthroat (Obamacare). One would think that by now most modern hominids would have ‘referse-speak’ down-pat. Such as “If you like your current climate, you can keep it. Period.” One doesn’t pick-up 1,800 acres on the Monterrey peninsula unless some kind of wealth distribution has taken place, eh?
This is why one wonders if some kind of ‘put’ has not been made with respect to decarbonisation………….. One might also be tempted to wonder if there is profit to be made (and where) in shorting the Holocene…………
He got a couple things right. The first being that it leaps out at us like a 3D movie which of course means it’s an illusion of manipulation. If he’s using this to set the stage for Keystone XL denial, the choices are pipe or rail line. Rail line is much more prone to disaster and much higher value terrorist target. P.S. The weather including the location of the jet stream, strong trade winds, California drought, UK floods all scream La Nina like conditions which happen to neatly correspond to maximum solar cycle activity. The only oddity was the El Nino-like hurricane season. But it’s all weather, not climate.
I’m sure the Indonesian audience was impressed by Kerry’s speech, they are committed to the global war on climate change, and will work hard to ensure the climate remains static.
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His clear solution is to de-industrialise. Order your horses now: Transport, fertilizer and fuel in one package! Party like it’s 1885!
“Commission proposals on energy and climate are the road to de-industrialisation”
http://www.eurofer.org/#/News&Media/Press releases/EC proposals on energy and climate .fhtml
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/seeking-the-strategy-behind-kerrys-climate-speech-in-indonesia/
Seeking the Strategy Behind Kerry’s Climate Speech in Indonesia
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Thanks for the link. Interesting article, especially the updates. I was particularly pleased to see David Victor’s common-sense comments:
“Even with serious, sustained efforts and smart strategies—all basically absent for the last two decades—this will be really hard, slow and probably expensive until radical new technologies come into place. Kerry’s point that the “technology is out there” isn’t correct.”
This, IMO, is the best distillation of the “climate debate” ever. There is no reason to sign on to unserious, faddish, dumb strategies to deal with a “problem” that even the IPCC points out ranges from a whole lot of nothin’ to a very unlikely something. And the advocates are essentially lying about the solutions, so the policy quality is unlikely to get any better while more and more people will become less trusting.
This is on the advocates. Why haven’t there been any smart, serious strategies for 20 years and why, after 20 years, are high-placed advocates still BS’ing us about what to do?
Well, they didn’t have the science so they depended upon fear. They still don’t have the science, and still depend upon fear. They’ll likely never get the science, but they’ll surely continue to depend upon fear.
Might as well get used to it.
============================
But I did enjoy Mike Roddy blaming an Indian Ocean tsunami on Pacific Ocean warming.
=========
For politicians it’s never been about global warming or mitigating it. It’s about taking control of the energy economy. With that comes a massive new source of tax revenue to fund massive new bureaucracies to oversee it. It’s a power grab in other words where government gains a greater amount of control over the private sector. Just like nationalized health care is not about health care it’s about government taking control of a large chunk of the private sector. The energy sector is much larger than the health care sector.
Mike Roddy, the Joshua of DotEarth.
Fear is what you need to justify “radical” solutions and much higher taxes. The fear failed, so we’ll see a few more ineffective speeches before the partisans move on to the next justification for higher taxes.
Kerry should be commended for learning some lessons from Al Gore. At least he didn’t make this silly speech while standing in thigh-deep snow in New York.
“But I did enjoy Mike Roddy blaming an Indian Ocean tsunami on Pacific Ocean warming.”
Oh God, did you see that too (pg asks rhetorically). That guy is the quintessential warmist on steroids. Fairly salivating with angry contempt in proportion to his utter cluelessness. I read a comment by him a few years ago in which he claimed that he had special knowledge that the establishment climate scientists were convinced the situation was much worse than they were saying publicly.
Revkin whom I have some respect for, just doesn’t seem to evolve much.
Mike Roddy might have been one of the bitter ones in 2008, when I drank heavily at Andy’s Saloon, who called his place dot.kim. Nobody’s called Judy’s Salon kim etc. yet.
=====================
By the way, I have a great deal of respect for Andy Revkin’s curiosity and intellectual integrity. I think he found much wrong with Kerry’s messaging, and couched it in terms of the venue; more casually to display his concern.
===============