by Judith Curry
Growing realization by the climate establishment that the threat of future warming has been cut in half over the past 5 years.
Summary: The climate “catastrophe” isn’t what it used to be. Circa 2013 with publication of the IPCC AR5 Report, RCP8.5 was regarded as the business-as-usual emissions scenario, with expected warming of 4 to 5 oC by 2100. Now there is growing acceptance that RCP8.5 is implausible, and RCP4.5 is arguably the current business-as-usual emissions scenario. Only a few years ago, an emissions trajectory that followed RCP4.5 with 2 to 3 oC warming was regarded as climate policy success. As limiting warming to 2 oC seems to be in reach (now deemed to be the “threshold of catastrophe”),[i] the goal posts were moved in 2018 to reduce the warming target to 1.5 oC. Climate catastrophe rhetoric now seems linked to extreme weather events, most of which are difficult to identify any role for human-caused climate change in increasing either their intensity or frequency.
The main stream media is currently awash with articles from prominent journalists on how the global warming threat less than we thought. Here are some prominent articles:
- NYTimes David Wallace-Wells: Beyond catastrophe: A new climate reality is coming into view.
- WSJ: Good climate change news is fit to print. Slowly its percolating into the journalistic mind that recent research is upbeat
- NYT Bret Stephens: Yes Greenland’s melting but . . .
David Wallace-Wells is one of the most interesting journalists writing in the climate space. In 2017, he wrote a 2017 New York Magazine article titled “The Uninhabitable Earth”, with subtitle: “Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak—sooner than you think.” Not long after publication of his book in 2019 entitled The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells made this statement: “Anyone, including me, who has built their understanding on what level of warming is likely this century on that RCP8.5 scenario should probably revise that understanding in a less alarmist direction.” DWW scores HUGE number of points with me for quickly adjusting his priors with the growing amount evidence that RCP8.5 is implausible.
Well, the “messaging” around DWW’s latest article is that we are succeeding with reducing emissions (no we are not). The second message is to acknowledge that that warming will be less than we thought, but the impacts of the warming will be worse than we thought (nope). The third message is that advances in science have brought us to this (relatively) happy place (nope)
At the heart of this good news is abandonment of RCP8.5 from UNFCCC policy making. The hero of science behind this abandonment is Justin Ritchie, a recent Ph.D. graduate (whose work has been cited in previous RCP8.5 posts at Climate Etc).
The COP26 and now the COP27 have quietly dropped RCP8.5 (and SSP5-8.5) from their considerations, focusing on the envelope between RCP4.5 and RCP2.6. The grand poohbahs of the IPCC apparently didn’t see this coming (or preferred to keep spinning the alarm), since they instructed climate modelers for CMIP6 to continue a focus on SSP5-8.5, and climate researchers continue to focus on this scenario in their impacts publications. The IPCC AR6 prominently featured SSP5-8.5, although WGI did make this lukewarm statement
“In the scenario literature, the plausibility of the high emissions levels underlying scenarios such as RCP8.5 or SSP5–8.5 has been debated in light of recent developments in the energy sector.”
The second so-called scientific advance is lower values of climate sensitivity. The so-called advance is associated with the IPCC AR6 decision NOT to include values derived from climate models (which have dominated previous IPCC reports). They implicitly acknowledge that climate models are running too hot and that you can pretty much get whatever value of climate sensitivity that you want from a climate model (this has been blindingly obvious to me and many others for over a decade). The IPCC AR6 lowered the upper likely bound of ECS to 4.0oC (from 4.5oC previously); this further acts to reduce the amount of projected warming. The IPCC AR6 also raised the lower likely bound of ECS to 2.5oC (from 1.5oC). Raising the lower bound of ECS is on very shaky ground, as per the recent publication by Nic Lewis
The COP27 is working from a value of expected warming of 2.5oC by 2100. This is arguably still too high for several reasons. IPCC expert judgment dismissed values of climate sensitivity that are on the lower end (that should not have been dismissed as per Nic Lewis’ paper). Further, the IPCC projections do not adequately account for scenarios of future natural climate variability. See these recent posts:
X https://judithcurry.com/2022/01/23/crossing-or-not-the-1-5-and-2-0oc-thresholds/
X https://judithcurry.com/2021/11/21/solar-variations-controversy/
In addition to an insufficient number of solar and volcanic scenarios, the climate models ignore most solar indirect effects, and the climate model treatment of multidecadal and longer internal variability associated with ocean circulations are inadequate. While in principle these factors could go either way in terms of warmer vs cooler, there are several reasons to think these natural factors are skewed towards cooler during the remainder of the 21st century:
- Baseline volcanic activity since 1850 has been unusually low
- Most solar researchers expect some sort of solar minimum in the mid to late 21st century
- Solar indirect effects are inadequately treated by climate models, which would act to amplify solar cooling
- A shift to the cold phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is expected in the next decade, which influences not only global temperatures but also Greenland mass balance and Arctic sea ice.
Once you include alternative scenarios of natural variability, temperature change by 2100 could easily be below 2oC and even 1.5oC. Recall that this warming is with reference to a baseline of 1850-1900; 1.1oC warming has already occurred.
Impacts
David Wallace-Wells provides some “hope” for the climate alarmists with this sentence:
“It’s sadly apparent by now that scientists have underestimated, not overestimated, the impact of warming.”
I just don’t know what further to say here. The IPCC AR6 provides very meager fodder to support DWW’s statement. Apart from sea level rise, which is unambiguously associated with global warming, there is no prima facie reason that extreme weather events would worsen in a warming climate. Observational evidence, provided that you go back at least to 1900, shows that nearly all horrible, recent weather and climate disasters have precedents in the 20th century and hence “detection” is very challenging. Climate models are not fit-for-purpose to simulate extreme weather events, let alone to attribute them to human caused warming. We are then left with back-of-the-envelope simple thermodynamic calculations to infer worsening of extreme weather events, which ignores the overwhelmingly dominant role of atmospheric and oceanic circulations.
Think about the implications of assuming extreme weather and horrible impacts are highly sensitive to a 0.5oC temperature change. If so, this leads to the conclusion that the dominant climate factor is natural climate variability, with year-to-year swings of several tenths of a degree from El Nino and La Nina, a substantial volcanic eruption, and/or multidecadal ocean oscillations. The rationale for ignoring natural climate variability is based on the assumption that large amounts of fossil-fueled warming from climate model simulations spiked by RCP8.5 and high values of ECS will swamp natural climate variability. Cut the warming in half (or reduce even further), and you lose the rationale for ignoring natural climate variability.
So is all this a “victory” for climate science? I don’t think so. But I told you so . . .
And finally Bret Stephen’s article includes this all important figure. Are we to infer that warming causes fewer deaths (well there is a STRIKING correlation)? Well maybe, but the real cause of this decline is increasing wealth, increased warnings, and adaptation to weather and climate extremes.
Extreme weather and climate events are something that needs to be dealt with independently of the AGW issue. The world has always suffered from weather and climate extremes, and it always will; this will not change with further warming or with emissions reductions.
COP27
The policy implications of all this is enormous. Unfortunately I suspect that the COP27 will focus too much on emissions reductions (which aren’t working and wont impact the climate in any event), and not enough on supporting development and adaptation for developing countries and most importantly supporting development in Africa by allowing them to benefit from their fossil fuels (other than by selling them to Europe). With regards to the later, a shout out to Rose Mustiso’s recent Nature publication; Rose is my favorite African activist and thinker on this topic.
THANK YOU
The threat of warming has not abated, the world will end in less than 10 years, haven’t you heard? From climate expert Ocasio Cortez in 2019: warming will “destroy the planet” in a dozen years if humans do not address the issue.”
Give us his full quote, the context and a link.
https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-climate-change-world-will-end-12-years-un-report-1300873
Clyde: the phrase “destroy the planet” does not appear at your link.
From the article Clyde cites: “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like, The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change…”
From the congressperson’s website: “We must treat Climate Change like a serious, existential threat to our planet…”
But let’s quibble about misplaced quote marks.
How would you spin “the world will end in 12 years” conjoined with “the end of human existence?” It seems to me that “destroy” is a reasonable summary.
Richie, Paul’s only misplaced quote mark was the extraneous one at the end. The quote marks around “destroy the planet” were not misplaced. Here’s another news article about the same 2019 event, which quotes AOC as saying that climate change will “destroy the planet” by 2031 (i.e., within 12 years) if not addressed:
https://news.yahoo.com/ocasio-cortez-world-going-end-150517060.html#:~:text=climate%20change%20would%20%E2%80%9C-,destroy%20the%20planet,-%E2%80%9D%20by%20the%20year
David Appell, I don’t know what Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s preferred pronouns are, but I’m pretty sure they do not include “his.”
AOC’s pronouns do not include “his”… Anyway. Judith Curry versus AOC on the climate. Who am I going to believe?
Thanks Judith,
along this line we – Clintel – sent this open letter to the leaders at the COP27:
https://clintel.org/open-letter-to-global-leaders-assembled-at-cop27-in-sharm-el-sheikh-egypt/
Marcel, your letter didnt cite any evidence whatsoever. Nothing. It will be ignored, as it should be. Just whining.
The 3 points mentioned in the letter seemed sensible suggestions, ones that Dr Judith Curry more or less supported in her article above.
As for whining. Isn’t that what everyone does at gatherings?
Yet the United Nations and all the mainstream media claim we are in crisis. So much misinformation. Judy keeps letting facts and data get in the way.
https://www.un.org/en/un75/climate-crisis-race-we-can-win
I think you are being a bit unfair to AR6 WG1 in the above. See for example:
“… However, the likelihood of high emission scenarios such as … SSP5-8.5 is considered low in light of recent developments in the energy sector …” IPCC AR6 Section 1.6.1.4
“… SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 are explicit ‘no-climate-policy’ scenarios … , assuming a carbon price of zero. These future ‘baseline’ scenarios are hence counterfactuals that include less climate policies compared to ‘business-as-usual’ scenarios – given that ‘business-as-usual’ scenarios could be understood to imply a continuation of existing climate policies….” IPCC AR6 Section 1.6.1.4
“The high-end scenarios RCP8.5 or SSP5-8.5 have recently been argued to be implausible to unfold … . However, where relevant we show results for SSP5-8.5, for example to enable backwards compatibility with AR5, for comparison between emission-driven and concentration-driven simulations, and because there is greater data availability of daily output for SSP5-8.5.” IPCC AR6 Section 4.2.2, i.e. this scenario has been included for comparison purposes.
Everyone including the WG1 SPM happily ignored this, but the science consensus had moved.
The President of the US speaks of the climate crisis on every occasion he gets the chance. Dishonesty on the topic is the norm.
Look at the comments of Dave Appell on this site for evidence of mindless alarmism.
Disprove me, Rob. I don’t ever see you doing that.
Biden is right.
DA
I see you are feeling better. Humanity feels a relief. During your long hiatus, many had hoped you took the time to learn the science. Fat chance.
Dave
You claim every Oregon heat wave ( with no reliable evidence of a CO2 link) is due to climate change despite there being objective evidence of similar historical weather.
The climate has and always will change some places will get better weather some places will get worse.
Greta Thunberg let’s the cat out of the bag in her new book where she wants to overthrow capitalism. Then again, she is simply backing her UN puppet masters
The United Nations has been one of the organizations leading the manmade climate change push. The paragraph below, from the February 10, 2015 Investor’s Business Daily article “U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare” seems to state the goal clearly.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
It has never been about ‘saving the planet’:
It’s up to those who claim there’s a climate crisis to prove it exists.
It’s challenging to successfully hype a completely imaginary “crisis,” even with the climate industry’s vast resources. Despite the endless cacophony of climate industry propaganda, an April Treehugger article lamented that, “Few People Care Enough About the Climate Crisis to Make Serious Changes, Poll Shows.”
My comment on that article was:
About Sea Level Rise:
The Atomic Clocks were put in place to measure Time Extremely Accurately, in 1972. Less Leap Seconds were added to the time every decade since that time.
A rising sea level would increase the Inertia of the Earth Crust, Conservation of Momentum would slow the Rotation Rate of the Earth Crust. More Leap Seconds would need to be added more frequently. The Exact Opposite of that has occurred. The last leap second was added in 2016, six years ago.
This is absolutely valid Proof that Sea Level is Lower Now than it was in 1972!
Sea Level has Fallen for Fifty Years, yet they say it has risen and the rise rate is accelerating. If sea level Ever Rises, Added Leap Seconds will be an Immediate Indicator.
Since there is Absolute Proof that they have lied about Sea Level Rise, it clearly follows that the rest of the Climate Alarmism is Also Lies!
I understand the concept, but is it significant, and is it quantified?
By my arithmetic, it would take about 9195 Gt of meltwater (and/or rained-out sublimated ice) from 10,000 km³ of above-sealevel grounded ice, from the Greenland and/or Antarctica ice sheets, to raise the oceans by an average of one inch (disproportionately distributed toward the tropics). By about how much should that slow the rotation of the Earth?
Also, how does that compare to other things which affect the mass distribution of the Earth (like GIA, magma movement, etc.), and which could affect angular momentum (like tidal forces)?
https://judithcurry.com/2022/11/02/the-climate-crisis-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/#comment-981910
Judith … this is the most aggressive I’ve seen you re: climate crisis. Seems like you may have reached … a tipping point. :-)
Good piece!
An excellent and very timely post!!! Thank you.
Does Judith have the spam filter to high again? All comments seem blocked
One of mine with a link to Newsweek just disappeared.
Apparently it was just delayed, and not deleted.
It should be observed that the average yearly temperature at three of the four Noaa’s stations is actually lower for 2021 than in 1980. Mauna Loa -0.5C, Samoa and the South Pole both are -1.1C lower.
NOAA has just four stations? Which are those?
List them. Link to their data.
Show us the four that makes the average come out to 1.5 or even 1.0.
What is so shameful is that there will be no accountable. Maybe we should have an alarmist amnesty, much like the calls for a COVID alarmist amnesty. The answer is hell no. Forgiveness requires confession and recompense. These ideological lies have cost countless lies, robbed the poorest of a higher standard of living, and corrupted our institutions. In case no one has noticed, ordinary people know this and they are quite angry about it all. Winter is coming for these people. You know this by watching the frantic meltdown surrounding Musk buying Twitter. They are frantic because their control of information is the cornerstone of their power.
dpy: Let’s put the deniers on trial first, OK? Let’s start with Anthony Watts. He has a hell of a lot to answer for.
For someone who unceasingly demands evidence from others to back up their claims, you seem guilty of throwing out unsupported accusations yourself.
Denier? Really?
The worst sin was the use of climate alarm to indoctrinate our children with a fear of the future and fill them with animus, all for political expediency. We have all sorts of big challenges ahead but we always have been able to meet them in the past. That should be the message to our youth, and maybe fewer would glue themselves to a museum wall after defacing a Van Gogh or snarl at the UN general assembly standing on a stool, “How dare you.”
Ron: why shouldn’t children be worried about a +3 C warmer future?
That’s half an Ice Age.
What problem has humanity solved that is even at all like this one??
Ron, you’re perfectly free to make whatever message you want to future generations.
So are others.
David Appell asked, “why shouldn’t children be worried about a +3 C warmer future?”
Because it won’t happen, of course — and what will happen is nothing to worry about.
We’ve already had a 50% CO2 increase, generating 58% of the radiative forcing of a “doubling” of CO2, plus we’ve had about half that much additional forcing from other GHGs. Global average temperatures have nevertheless risen only about 1°C (except in the Arctic, where warming is obviously beneficial).
1°C is so tiny that it’s not even noticeable indoors. The hysteresis (“dead zone”) of your home’s thermostat is larger than that, yet you never even notice the temperature fluctuations.
But to get even that very slight warming was a LOT of work! It took two centuries of industrial output to manage it.
Even if you attribute all of that warming to anthropogenic GHGs (which is dubious), to get an additional 3°C of anthropogenic warming would require us to do all that work three more times.
That’s clearly impossible. Even if CO2 emissions were to eventually increase to 50% above the 2019 peak emission rate (which seems unlikely), and even if they were to stay that high for many decades, the atmospheric CO2 concentration would top out at only about 600 ppmv, due to the powerful feedbacks which remove CO2 at an accelerating rate as the level rises. That would amount to only another 600/420 = 42% increase in CO2, generating additional RF equal to 51% of a CO2 doubling, which is less than the 58% that we’ve already seen.
If CO2 emissions increase to 150% of the 2019 peak emission rate, AND if they stay that high for decades, AND if other GHGs also increase in rough proportion to the CO2 RF increase (despite the ongoing decline in CFCs), AND if there’s already another 0.3°C “in the pipeline” due to the current radiative imbalance, then we could get another 1°C of average warming.
Ho, hum. That’s the slight temperature difference you see with a 500 foot elevation change, or a latitude change of about sixty miles. In the American Midwest, farmers can compensate for 1°C of warming by planting about six days earlier in springtime.
For THAT would you “contemplate a roll back of the industrial age?”†
†Lindzen
“What problem has humanity solved that is even at all like this one.”
Are children are also not being taught to be grateful. We are living in a time of the greatest prosperity in history, all due to competitive innovation.
I must admit that I too take for granted satellite technology, the internet, antibiotics, air travel and all the things that are responsible for record low harm from natural disasters and increase in longevity.
Also, as Dave Burton pointed out, the degree of the problem is overblown in comparison to other challenges humanity faces. The Dutch adapted nicely to sea level rise hundreds of years ago.
I look at a larger problem in preventing the decline of vigor in our cultures for modern advancement, personal responsibility and integrity. As civilization moves away from traditional religion we need to be careful not to allow our children to be indoctrinated with new untested religions, like climate extinction and gender fluidity. If we can prevent becoming fat, lazy video game addicts we are more than half way to success.
The problem Appel is that you can’t cite what would be so bad about a world that is 3 degrees warmer. So far there have been few bad effects of warming so far. If anything there are benefits, such as decreasing tornado frequency and severity. As pole to equator temperature gradients decrease, mid lattitude severe weather will get milder, not worse. So far the vertical temperature gradient in the tropics has not increased either (contrary to model projections) and that is what drives tropical storm severity. Sea level is the only real documented negative effect of warming.
https://judithcurry.com/2022/11/02/the-climate-crisis-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/#comment-981875
Sea Level is difficult to measure and difficult to average, they can say anything and it can’t be proved right or wrong.
Time is measured accurately, ice in polar regions vs ocean water around the equator will alter the inertia of the earth crust, basic math and the conservation of momentum will show the honest truth.
Sea level has gone down since 1972, the Atomic Clock will tell us if sea level goes up, don’t concern yourselves with sea level rise when leap seconds are not being added to the clock.
Herman A (Alex) Pope, that is a most interesting & original comment! I understand the concept, but is it significant, and is it quantified?
By my arithmetic, it would take about 9195 Gt of meltwater (and/or rained-out sublimated ice) from 10,000 km³ of above-sealevel grounded ice, from the Greenland and/or Antarctica ice sheets, to raise the oceans by an average of one inch (disproportionately distributed toward the tropics). By about how much should that slow the rotation of the Earth?
dpy6629 wrote, “Sea level is the only real documented negative effect of warming.”
Even that is really mostly hypothetical. Thus far, most high-quality coastal sea-level measurement records show little or no sign of having been affected by global warming. E.g.:
https://sealevel.info/1612340_Honolulu_thru_2022-04_vs_CO2_annot1.png
https://sealevel.info/150-041_Ijmuiden_Netherlands_SL_vs_CO2_1900-2021_annot1.png
https://sealevel.info/9410170_San_Diego_vs_CO2_1906-01_to_2022-06_annot1.png
https://sealevel.info/8443970_Boston_SLR_with_linear_and_quadratic_fits_vs_CO2_1920-01_to_2022-08_smothed3_annot1.png
https://sealevel.info/8516945_Kings_Point_NY_MSL_vs_CO2_1931-08_thru_2021-12_annot2.png
https://sealevel.info/140-012_Cuxhaven2_Germany_SL_vs_CO2_1843-1_to_2018-12_annot1.png
https://sealevel.info/680-140_Sydney_SL_vs_CO2_1921-2021_annot1.png
Under the right circumstances, a warming climate can causes sea-level rise, of course. The ocean rose >100 meters during the last deglaciation, as the great Laurentide, Fennoscandian & Cordilleran ice sheets melted away! But hat can’t happen, now, because they’re already gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbsURVgoRD0
The only significant remaining remnant of those ice sheets is Greenland. Most years it experiences a slight net loss of ice mass, but not enough to cause worrisome sea-level rise, and it does not appear to be significantly accelerating. What’s more, we know that southern Greenland had a milder climate and longer summers during the MWP than it does now, because Norse settlers grew barley there, and the summers are too short to grow barley there now. Yet there’s no historical evidence of remarkable sea-level rise due during the MWP, from Greenland meltwater.
In a warming climate, there are factors which both increase and decrease sea-level trends.
On one hand, ice which is near 0°C can melt, and if it was grounded (not floating) that will raise sea-level. Also, thermal expansion at the ocean’s surface can increase sea-level rise locally, though it doesn’t affect sea-level elsewhere.
On the other hand, warmer temperatures increase snowfall accumulation on glaciers and ice sheets, thereby lowering sea-level, in two ways:
● Warmer air carries more moisture, increasing snow on glaciers & ice sheets. For each 1°C of warming the moisture-carrying capacity of the air increases by about 7%.
● Reduced sea-ice coverage increases Lake/Ocean-Effect Snowfall (LOES) downwind, some of which accumulates on glaciers & ice sheets. (The importance of the LOES is illustrated by the story of Glacier Girl, a P-38 warbird which made a forced landing on the Greenland Ice Sheet during WWII, and was buried by snowfall which averaged about 70 feet/year(!!), but which was nevertheless recovered from under the ice 50 years later.)
The fact that global warming has not been accompanied by significant sea-level rise acceleration strongly suggests that the factors by which a warming climate increases sea-level and the factors by which a warming climate reduces sea-level are similar in magnitude, and largely cancel.
dpy6629 wrote, “Sea level is the only real documented negative effect of warming.”
Then I wrote that LOD shows sea level going down.
Daveburton wrote: that is a most interesting & original comment! I understand the concept, but is it significant, and is it quantified?
It is quantified to the point that it wipes out all of their claimed sea level rise and a little bit in the other direction.
Copy and past this in a browser as a link.
https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-realization/leap-seconds
From Nov 2012 to Nov 2022 – there were 2 leap seconds added.
From Jun 1972 to Jun 1982 – there were 10 or 11 leap seconds added, depending on counting the first one.
That would be about 5 seconds a decade faster spin rate now.
That is not a huge difference but sea level is less now.
This information must be synthesized and presented to our youngest. Currently, they are being indoctrinated in government schools that the world is ending. The truth will show them this is not happening which in turn should allow them to devote more time to STEM studies. It should then follow we have more scientists and engineers to address new energy sources.
We have observed similar crisis management schemes with regards to human emitted CO2 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both crises were regarded as existential threats of humanity’s survival. The major differences observed has been the time line. For COVID-19, time was compressed and the faulty logic revealed within two years. For the catastrophic effect of anthropogenic CO2 and the trace gas transfer hypothesis, the time to debunking has been stretched over many decades.
The issue of intentional false narrative with COVID was the use of face masks, and in particular, the only effective masks, the N-95. Because of the limited availability of the N-95 mask and the desirability of preserving the existing supply for health care workers, eminent scientists including Fauci early on said masks were not important. His insistence flied in the face of the overwhelming evidence that in general, respiratory pathogens are airborne and to one degree or another are transmitted through respiratory droplets. This was not a speculative issue; rather, since the 1930’s with tuberculosis was mask wearing vital to protect other people including family members, but the history of the previous 1918 pandemic reflected the same thing on a practical basis.
For CO2 and catastrophic global events, the messaging has been on the same shrill level only more prolonged. In what appears to be a misguided attempt to alter human behavior, climate scientists enter the public relations realm of impending doom, early on and most prominently espoused by Stephen Schneider and the ethical dilemma revealing the truth and uncertainty with telling scary scenarios. Subsequently, the global news media has been mired in narratives of doom and gloom that are at best, uncertain, and, at worst harmful to the expressions of science itself.
The timeline for COVID’s catastrophe narrative and what we as citizens can or should do about it is truncated compared to the CO2 catastrophe narrative that is still playing out, and, at least as I see it will be a very costly and harmful, ie, opportunity lost cost, public relations fiasco.
I thought the big increase in ECS in the CMIP6 models pretty much offset the dropping of 8.5. Also, probabilistic attribution of extreme events to AGW is based on the difference between model runs with and without supposed human forcing. This makes historical trends irrelevant. Plus the recent IPCC report on extreme events is reported as listing a lot of damage due to AGW (I have not examined it).
Given these factors I see no basis for radical AGW to become more moderate.
For example, Carbon Brief says this about AR6:
“Among its key conclusions is that it is an “established fact” that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have “led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times”.”
https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-what-the-new-ipcc-report-says-about-extreme-weather-and-climate-change/
AR6 put aside the models with a high ECS, and doing attribution by comparing models with and without GHGs tells you nothing about the real world.
Judith – the Climate Crisis never was. .See Figs. 1,2,3 at
https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/
I would appreciate some reply from you to this comment.
Some quotes from the link:
“The Rules of the Lebensraum game with no CO2 Climate Crisis.
SUMMARY
1.The earth has now reached a population level which has generated a battle for Lebensraum, i.e. energy and food resources, when Russia invaded Crimea. The associated covid pandemic, and global poverty and income disparity increases, threaten the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. During the last major influenza epidemic in 1919 world population was 1.9 billion. It is now 7.8 billion+/ – an approximate four fold increase.
The IPCC and UNFCCC post modern science establishment’s “consensus” is that a modelled future increase in CO2 levels is the main threat to human civilization. This is an egregious error of scientific judgement. A Millennial Solar ” Activity” Peak at 1991 correlates with the Millennial Temperature Peak at 2003/4 with a 12/13 year delay because of the thermal inertia of the oceans. Earth has now entered a general cooling trend which will last for the next 700+/- years.
Because of the areal distribution and variability in the energy density of energy resources and the varying per capita use of energy in different countries, international power relationships have been transformed. The global free trade system and global supply chains have been disrupted.
Additionally, the worlds richest and most easily accessible key mineral deposits were mined first and the lower quality resources which remain in the 21st century are distributed without regard to national boundaries and demand. As population grows inflation inevitably skyrockets. War between states and violent conflicts between tribes and religious groups within states are multiplying.
……………………….
5. CO2 -Temperature and Climate.
The whole COP Net Zero meme is founded on the flawed assumptions and algorithms which produced the IPCC- UNFCCC model forecasts of coming dangerous temperature increases.
The “consensus” IPCC models make the fundamental error of ignoring the long- term decline in solar activity and temperature following the Millennial Solar Activity Turning Point and activity peak which was reached in 1990/91 as shown in Figure 1
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is .058% by weight. That is one 1,720th of the whole. It is inconceivable thermodynamically that such a tiny tail could wag so big a dog. (13)
Stallinga 2020 (14) concludes: ” The atmosphere is close to thermodynamic equilibrium and based on that we……… find that the alleged greenhouse effect cannot explain the empirical data—orders of magnitude are missing. ……Henry’s Law—outgassing of oceans—easily can explain all observed phenomena.” CO2 levels follow temperature changes. CO2 is the dependent variable and there is no calculable consistent relationship between the two. The uncertainties and wide range of out-comes of model calculations of climate radiative forcing (RF) arise from the improbable basic assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is the major controller of global temperatures.
Miskolczi 2014 (15) in “The greenhouse effect and the Infrared Radiative Structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere “says “The stability and natural fluctuations of the global average surface temperature of the heterogeneous system are ultimately determined by the phase changes of water.”
Also See AleksandrZhitomirskiy2022 Absorption of heat and the greenhouse gas effect. https://independent.academia.edu/AleksandrZhitomirskiy (16) which says:
“The molar heat capacities of the main greenhouse and non-greenhouse gases are of the same order of magnitude. Given the low concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, their contribution to temperature change is below the measurement error. It seems that the role of various gases in the absorption of heat by the atmosphere is determined not by the ability of the gas to absorb infrared radiation, but by its heat capacity and concentration. ”
Zaichun Zhul et al 2016 (17) in Greening of the Earth and its drivers report “a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated Leaf Area Index (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area from 1982 – 2009. ………. C02 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend.”
Policies which limit CO2 emissions or even worse sequester CO2 in a quixotic attempt to greenwash or mitigate these natural cycles would decrease agricultural food production and are antithetical to the goals of feeding the increasing population and bringing people out of poverty.”
The millennial +/- cycle is obvious by simple inspection e.g. the Roman warm period the Dark ages and the Modern peak.The amount of CO2 in the atmusphere is so small that its effect on temperature is too small measure.
The climate science community in the USA and UK in particular
are victims if the “CO2 Derangement Syndrome” .The symptoms and history of the dread disease can be found at
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/820570527003668244/349159438549945844
> Circa 2013 with publication of the IPCC AR5 Report, RCP8.5 was regarded as the business-as-usual emissions scenario, with expected warming of 4 to 5 oC by 2100
Really? 4 to 5 C were “most likely” in that report? (Which is a reasonable interpretation of “expected”). Are you sure about that?
And I love how you completely neglect to mention a key aowxf of Stephens’ article, which was his walk back from being a “skeptic” and, an (welcome, imo) embrace of a low probability/high damage risk approach to policy development. For such a prominent self-identified “conservative” to talks that step is, imo, a hopeful indication, and yet you ignore it?
And as someone who so regularly whined about “denier” your constant reliance on the pejorative label of “alarmist” is unfortunate indeed.
I should have said, And *in particular* as someone who whined about “denier”…
As with the pejorative of “denier,” it would be unfortunate regardless – but your frequent umbrage-taking at the use of “denier” just makes your liberal use of “alarmist” just that much more conspicuous.
Judith has provided “dissenter” as an acceptable label for those supporting the climate alarm to use for her. I think it would be fair to ask what is your suggested label dissenters use for authorities sounding an alarm for catastrophic effects of humanity enhanced CO2 emissions. Thanks.
Ron.-
UK sure that you or Judith or anyone else could chime up with a non-pejorative way to describe those who evaluate the risk from aco2 emissions as higher than you.
I’m certainly not limited to “denier” as a term for those who prefer a different policy approach to the risks than I do, and if I choose to use “denier” thdn I’m sexoloxtly signaling I’m more focused on being antagonistic and tribalism than on promoting dialog.
Irs anyone’s right to use pejorative labels, but I do think it’s a bit rich coming from people who take offense at pejorative labels.
Why should we provide an “authority” when Judith has presented ample evidence. I noticed you did not respond to that evidence, perhaps because as a non -scientist anonymous ankle biter you are unable to do so.
“Alarmist” is purely descriptive: someone who is alarmed. It is not an allusion to Holocaust deniers.
The spectrum runs from alarmists on the Left, through lukewarmists in the Center, to realists (skeptics? optimists? sanguinists?) on the right?
There are also some real crackpots out there, like the Principia Scientific nuts on the right (but nobody of consequence pays them any attention), and the Guy McPherson / XR crowd on the left (who unfortunately dupe many gullible people, especially children).
Joshua, I agree with you that using pejoratives is not constructive toward a healthy debate. That is why I asked you for alternatives terms to what you took offense to. But you couldn’t think of any or for some reason failed to respond. I would assert that healthy debate is enhanced by acknowledging adversarial points rather than ignoring them.
For a label to be defined as a pejorative I would think the assumption would be the label is being made in bad faith. The label climate denier infers a backward-culture-driven mental block to acknowledging truth.
The test to see if any viewpoint is driven by ideological skew is to see whether or not those holding the viewpoint are willing to engage in a point by point forensic analysis of the topic or would prefer to control the media so that they could censor (or strictly moderate) discussion in the name of “misinformation” suppression. Because, as former Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis concluded many decades ago, the answer to false speech is more speech.
Why don’t we see more climate scientist that are concerned about the impending doom visit this site to help us engineers and scientists get over our skepticism? Why do they instead just lend their authority to radical broadcasts that I’m sure even you agree inside are untruthful propaganda?
Ron –
There are basically an infinite number of non-pejorative ways that you could describe someone who’s more concerned about aco2 emissions than.you. I actually think that once you dip into grouping people along that axis you start running into trouble. In my experience, once the grouping and labeling comes into play so does the identity-aggressive and indentity-defensive reasoning.
But sometimes it is useful to group people along that axis to further discussions, and I think you should use whatever non-pejorative label you think works best. I could certainly suggest one, but I wouldn’t really care which you used. It doesn’t matter. In the long run, any suggestion I make in this blog would have zero impact. But if you want to try one out, I’d be happy to give my feedback.
Dave –
> “Alarmist” is purely descriptive.. :
That’s exactly what people on the other side of the climate change divide say about the term “denier.” Out of context each term could be considered innocuous and simply a statement of fact. But just like “denier” has the overtone of someone who simply “denies” inconvenient facts, “alarmist” has overtones of a chicken little who exaggerates risk. And along with those pejorative connotations, comes motive-impugning and any number of other features associated with the fundamental attribution error. The usage of those labels are overwhelmingly used as group-level pejorativea in service of identity-oriented cognition, and both you and I know it.
A good signal of what I’m describing is how both sides pretend the use is non-pejorative, and use the terms peevasocsly, even when they (1) know its generally interpreted as a pejorative by those to whom it is applied, and (2) overwhelming used in the context, very explicitly, of denigrating the targeted by those who are applying the label?
Why would anyone insist on using a term for people who make it clear they think the term is a pejorative when the goal is good faith engagement?
It’s certainly your right to denigrate those who view the risk of aco2 emissions differently than you. But why pretend you don’t use the term you’re using as a pejorative? Just own up to it. Be proud of who you are.
Joshua, the pejorative term “denier” does not merely suggest “someone who simply ‘denies’ inconvenient facts,” it likens them to Holocaust deniers — who all decent people know are utterly contemptable. I suggested four possible non-pejorative alternatives.
If you think “alarmist” is offensive, then how about suggesting a few alternatives? How would you prefer that I refer to people who worry too much about climate change, and/or who try to convince others to worry too much about climate change?
Dave –
> the pejorative term “denier” does not merely suggest “someone who simply ‘denies’ inconvenient facts,” it likens them to Holocaust deniers — who all decent people know are utterly contemptable.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Many people who use “denier” say their intent is to describe someone who is merely “denying a fact.” But we all know “denier” often received as having a pejorative meaning. In that, it’s just like the use of “alarmist.”. The claims that the terms are just “descriptive” don’t hold water because those the label is applied to, often object to the pejorative overtones. So persistence in using those terms despite the pervasive pejorative connotation in context effectively proves the pejorative intent. The claims the terms are merely “descriptive” are bogus.
So pick whatever term you want. There are an infinite variety you could use that wouldn’t gave a pejorative connotation. Or continue to use “alarmist” despite the pervasive connotation of you so desire.
But imo, people who continue to use the terms should just own up to their intent to use pejorative terms, and not clutch at their pearls when someone uses a term to describe them which likewise had a pervasively pejorative connotation.
I’m not offended if you use “alarmist.” because I’m not an alarmist, and if you use that term to describe me its merely an indication of ignorance on your part.
Pick whatever non-pejorative term you want. I’m sure you could come up with one if you tried. No reason why you’d need me to suggest one.
I use “alarmist” because most of the alternatives that I can think of seem impolite, and “people who worry too much about climate change, and/or who try to convince others to worry too much about climate change” is too long for Twitter. So please suggest a concise, polite, accurate alternative term.
Dave –
> I use “alarmist” because most of the alternatives that I can think of seem impolite,
Lol. OK. You use an overtly pejorative term ’cause you don’t want to be impolite. Thanks for that explanation. It’s perfect.
Ron –
> what is your suggested label dissenters use for authorities sounding an alarm for catastrophic effects of humanity enhanced CO2 emissions. Thanks
I think that’s a leading question that gets to the heart of what would be necessary to consider when coming up with a non-pejorative term to replace “alarmist.”
Let me turn it around for you, as a way to illustrate.
Let’s say I wanted you to offer a suggestion for a non-pejorative term to replace “denier” and asked you what term I could use for someone who rejects the very possibility that aco2 could have any effect on the climate, and who thinks that anyone who does think carbon emissions affect the climate to any extent is part of the global cabal to install a totalitarian one-world government to deny everyone of any freedoms.
Would that work as a way to find a term for everyone who has been labeled as a “denier?” Say Pielke Jr.? If you think it wouldn’t, then please rethink your question.
Your very question suggests to me there’s more work to be done before you can find an alternative term.
No, Joshua, I use “alarmist” because, as I said, it “is purely descriptive: someone who is alarmed.”
Well, it does suggest that they are unduly alarmed. But that’s merely an assertion that they are mistaken. If that’s “pejorative” then arguing, itself, is also pejorative.
Would it be better to say, “people who are unduly alarmed by climate change?” Do you think that would be less pejorative?
What do YOU call them (when you’re trying to be polite)?
Dave ‘
Not only is the pejorative connotation clear from looking at any dictionary, all you need to do is look at the discourse context of how the term is used, say, here at Climate Etc., to see the pejorative connotation clearly. It’s obvious the term is almost uniformly meant to be deliberately and explicitly derogatory. Like the similar but less popular “warmista.” Calling someone “alarmed” (which also can imply unreasonable) is different than calling someone an “alarmist.” There’s a reason why your counterparts don’t call themselves “alarmists, ” just as there’s a reason folks here don’t call themselves “deniers.”
And once again, the argument about “denier, that “it’s just descriptive” is commonly found just as transparently incongruent with how it’s pervasively used, on the other side of the divide.
Use it if you want. It’s you’re right. Pretend it’s not a pejorative if you want. That’s your right also. But you and I both know it most certainly is.
Joshua, your acknowledgment that labels matter is constructive. Your offer for anyone to use any label they like (as long as you approve) is not as generous as it sounds. Though I will take you up on it and offer my suggestions. Here are some suggested Twitter length tags:
LW — Lukewarmer with a presumed ECS 1.5-2.5
LW+ — Lukewarmer with a presumed equilibrium climate sensitivity of 2.0 to 3.0
LW- — ECS 1.0 to 2.0
Skeptic — ECS of .5 to 1.5
SD — Skydragons who believe thermodynamics prohibits the enhanced greenhouse effect.
CCES — Climate change establishment scientists with ECS 2.5 to 4.0
CCPA — Climate change political activists with ECS 3.5 to 4.5
LCBP — Leftwing climate baiting politician with beachfront property.
All group labels are wrong but some are useful.
Ron, Prof. Richard Muller has some suggested labels, here:
https://www.quora.com/How-many-climate-change-denialists-are-there-in-the-US/answer/Richard-Muller-3
Note#1: I don’t agree with his labels.
Note#2: I commented on that, but if you don’t have a Quora account you won’t be able to see my comment.
Joshua, Prof. Muller divides those who are unduly alarmed by climate change into “alarmists,” “exaggerators,” and “warmists.” What would you call them?
Sigh… the difference between alarmed and alarmist is the difference between someone who experiences a feeling close to fear and someone else who is trying to instill that feeling in others.
There are plenty of both in the climate conversation. Joshua is perhaps in the right to call for more precision in our use of language. He is perhaps less right in overlooking the bad examples of language usage set by both the alarmed and the alarmists.
What with the more recent guesstimates of climate sensitivity on the way down, not only is the probability of catastrophic global warming less, so also the chance of high damage is lower.
I’ve seen no convincing evidence that global warming will produce high damage, for that matter.
Did you read Stphens’ piece?
I will gladly read it if someone supplies a link.
Where My Climate Doubts Began to Melt https://nyti.ms/3SLHmds
I’m not a member of the club, so can’t read it.
Sometimes if you go in through Google yuoi can get to it Or try incognito mode. Or try the wayback machine.
Joshua,
I tried getting access to the NYT Stephens article but I could not get any of your methods to work. I ended up watching a Youtube video describing Stephens as a climate denier who falsely claimed to have an awakening when brought to Greenland and shown the melting in person.
Do you think that Stephens is a denier and now disingenuously embracing the climate alarm for the sake of his NYT leftwing readership? Do you think that going to see melting or wildfires or hurricane damage firsthand is the effective way to wake up climate deniers?
Here is the Youtube video documentary that followed the one about Stephens, which tries to wake people up to the alarm by focusing on personal stories of climate harm. Is this objective reporting and analysis or propaganda? You tell me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vm_gabtIA8&ab_channel=CNBC
Ron –
> Do you think that Stephens is a denier and now disingenuously embracing the climate alarm for the sake of his NYT leftwing readership?
Not going to bother watching that video as I don’t have any mind-probing skills.
I think he made a coherent argument (key elements of which I don’t agee with) and see zero reason to suspect it was disengenuous. In my experience, many people over-estimate their ability to suss out disengenuity,.and when they selectively identity disengenuity in ways that align with their ideological preferences, its highly suspect.
Elsshwre in this thread there’s another suggestion for getting around the paywall. Apparently it worked for Jim.
Dave –
Seems pretty obvious to me that Muller’s taxonomy would do absolutely nothing to reduce the degree to which tribalism and antagonism corrupt discussions over policies in response to ACO2 emissions.
Seems to me that if your goal is to continue to battle it out along tribal lines, his taxonomy would work just as well as “denier” verses “alarmist”
We have observed similar crisis management schemes with regards to human emitted CO2 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both crises were regarded as existential threats to humanity’s survival. The major differences observed has been the time line. For COVID-19, time was compressed and the faulty logic was revealed within two years. For the catastrophic effect of anthropogenic CO2 and the radiative transfer trace gas hypothesis, the time to debunking has been stretched over many decades.
The issue of intentional false narrative with COVID was the use of face masks, and in particular, the only effective masks, the N-95. Because of the limited availability of the N-95 mask and the desirability of preserving the existing supply for health care workers, eminent scientists including Fauci early on said masks were not important. His insistence flied in the face of the overwhelming evidence that in general, respiratory pathogens are airborne and to one degree or another are transmitted through respiratory droplets. This was not a speculative issue; rather, since the 1930’s with tuberculosis, was mask wearing vital to protect other people including family members, but the history of the previous 1918 pandemic reflected the same mask issue on a practical basis.
For CO2 and catastrophic global events, the messaging has been on the same shrill level only more prolonged. In what appears to be a misguided attempt to alter human behavior, climate scientists entered the public relations realm of impending doom, early on and most prominently espoused by Stephen Schneider and the ethical dilemma that is raise regarding revealing the truth and uncertainty as opposed to telling scary scenarios to the public. Subsequently, the global news media has been mired in narratives of doom and gloom that are at best, uncertain, and, at worst harmful to the expressions of science itself.
The timeline for COVID’s catastrophe narrative and what we as citizens can or should do about it is truncated compared to the CO2 catastrophe narrative that is still playing out, and, at least as I see it will be a very costly and harmful, ie, opportunity lost cost, public relations fiasco.
Almost all comments are delayed before posting.
The narration filter also acts in ways that dem random.
Don’t take it personally.
One other important reason why RCP8.5 is unrealistic (really impossible) is that it relies on a world population of 12 billion in 2100. This is extremely unlikely. Even the U.N. projects a population of 10.4 billion in 2100: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
This article has a table that shows fertility in 1950 to 2021 for each country. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate
The rate is below replacement (2.1) in many large counties. Europe as a whole is at 1.48, Brazil at 1.64, United States at 1.66, China 1.16 (perhaps partly due to COVID), Africa as a whole at 4.30
China likely will actually start losing population within this decade, and by the end of the century will lose at least 300 million and possibly 800 million if fertility does not increase soon.
A reasonable estimate of world population in 2100 is in the range 7-9 billion. And it will be much older than now. This means that the amount of CO2 emissions will be much less than those used for RCP8.5.
Roland F Hirsch wrote:
One other important reason why RCP8.5 is unrealistic (really impossible) is that it relies on a world population of 12 billion in 2100. This is extremely unlikely.
Is it? Not clear, Elon Musk says we need more people.
In any case, RCP8.5 was a scenario. Not predicted to be the truth. (No projection is.) It served a necessary purpose.
Elon Musk is not going to father 1.6 billion people.
If a scenario is improbable, it serve little purpose, let alone a necessary one.
Clyde: Tell us why RCP8.5 was improbable when it was conceived.
You don’t understand that the purpose of a scenario is to not to be a prediction of the future.
Predicting the future us impossible anyway,
Tell me you don’t understand that.
David, it is quite legitimate to look at a scenario like RCP8.5 and say that won’t happen, which is pretty much what its original authors said (they were told to produce something that got to 8.5 W/m2).
Now what happens in modelling world is if your assumptions are “not likely” or “implausible” (AR6 WG1) then so are any projections that come out of the modelling.
So remind people of this every time they project disaster based on RCP8.5.
RCP8.5 was improbable at “the time it was conceived” because they did a simple-minded extrapolation of then present rates of emission without considering whether there were sufficient resources to support “business as usual.” Not unlike someone proposing to drive across the Outback in a little car with a 10 liter gas tank and no money to buy any gasoline should they be lucky enough to find some for sale — or calculating how long it would take to exceed the speed of light by a rocket accelerating at its current rate — a meaningless, calculation.
You’re right, Clyde.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303621100_The_implications_of_fossil_fuel_supply_constraints_on_climate_change_projetions-A_supply-side_analysis
Appleman’s comment – “In any case, RCP8.5 was a scenario. Not predicted to be the truth. (No projection is.) It served a necessary purpose.”
Except for the fact that activists promoted RCP8.5 as the most likely scenario – you are correct
The problem with RCP 8.5 is not the fact that it exists. As Mr. Appell notes, it is just a what-if scenario.
The problem with RCP 8.5 was its instant wide adoption by the alarmist brigades, despite the fact that several of its core assumptions having been invalidated by the time of its issuance.
Not only should the lower bound value not been thrown out, they are more probable than values above than the central value.
Lucas Bergkamp
COP27 recommendations:
“1. Depoliticize climate science, discarding computer models that do not match reality, focusing
instead on real-world climate observations and the latest climate science, listening carefully to objective interventions from independent experts.
2. Change climate policy from the senseless mitigation approach to the successful adaptation
method. Mitigation is prohibitively expensive and has never saved a single human life and will do very little to alter an ever-changing climate.
Adaptation, on the other hand, is affordable, can be precisely focused and has already saved millions of lives. Adaptation is without a doubt the way to go in climate policy.
3. Invest in extending and replenishing the world’s oil & gas reserves. Be realistic, the world will still need oil and gas for several decades.”
https://clintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/COP27-letter-def.pdf…
I’ll add:
4. Embrace the Green Paradox!
🧵
Climate Activists should use the Green Paradox to their advantage to get people on board and accelerate transitioning to a less carbon intensive future. But it requires accelerating fossil fuel use in the short/medium term, which is scary.
https://mobile.twitter.com/aaronshem/status/1575455343970324480
a corollary to 3 and 4- be relevant and honest. 100% renewable “plans” for western nations are fairy tales and every government needs advice on energy right now from real scientists, not activists cosplaying.
It is indeed a good thing that we can now rule out RCP8.5.
But in my opinion sea level rise is at least a big a problem as climate change extremes. It is here, very long-lasting, it is increasing (accelerating), and is inexorable. Governments are already spending money to bail people out and will be spending many trillions of dollars in the coming years.
Bangladesh flooding 2022 is only a glimpse of what is to come.
02
The only place it’s accelerating is in your brain. Tidal gauges show no significant acceleration. The rest of the century will be a repeat of the last.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/680-140_meantrend.png
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/120-012_meantrend.png
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/170-011_meantrend.png
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/9410660_meantrend.png
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/plots/1612340_meantrend.png
David
40 years ago EPA made a huge error when it said in several decades sea levels could be 10 feet higher. What a whiff. Actually it’s been 4-5 inches. Do you think you are wrong for the same reason that the EPA was wrong?
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2019-02-15190822_shadow.jpg
Bangladesh flooding
“ Flooding is a natural annual phenomenon of a river system which occupies a unique position in the culture, society and economy of Bangladesh. There are 257 rivers in Bangladesh, from which 59 rivers are transboundary rivers. All of these rivers play a prospective role in the economic development of the country. The deltaic floodplains of the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna Rivers Delta are undergoing rapid hydro-morphological changes due to natural and anthropogenic causes. Historically, these three rivers have played a strong role in formation of deltaic floodplains and wetland ecosystems in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) Rivers Delta. The GBM rivers system is continuously developing the active deltaic floodplains in the coastal region of Bangladesh. The deltaic wetlands are under threat due to extension of agricultural land use, shrimp cultivation, and saline water intrusion in the tidally active delta region. The main reasons of ecosystem degradation are the settlements development, urbanization processes and substantial uses of deltaic natural resources.”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40899-016-0047-6
Average rainfall 6 feet
https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-coastal-research/volume-32/issue-5/JCOASTRES-D-14-00232.1/Evolution-of-the-Bengal-Delta-and-Its-Prevailing-Processes/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-14-00232.1.full
“ …the mean reconstructed discharge over the full reconstructed period between 1309 and 2004 C.E. was significantly higher than the instrumental mean between 1956 and 2011 C.E.”
“… our reconstruction suggests that the instrumental period that informs our current baseline assessments of flood hazard in the region is actually one of the driest periods over the past seven centuries.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19795-6
“It is here, very long-lasting, it is increasing (accelerating), and is inexorable.”
Yes, it has been present for about 12,000 years, and at the current reduced rate for about 6,000 years. Some have suggested it is accelerating, but there have apparently been short-lived up-turns of similar magnitude previously. Only time will tell if it is a blip, or inexorable.
Clyde Spencer wrote:
“It is here, very long-lasting, it is increasing (accelerating), and is inexorable.”
Yes, it has been present for about 12,000 years, and at the current reduced rate for about 6,000 years.
Totally unscientific bullsh!t.
In the 5000 years before the industrial sea level rose about 1 m — an average of 0.2 mm/yr
SL is now rising at > 4 mm/yr
and accelerating:
https://www.globalchange.gov/sites/globalchange/files/seal_level_rise_052021.png
David, your point on sea level rise is one I can agree is a challenge for humanity. I do not see much acceleration in the chart you provided. In fact it looks to me as if SLR would be a problem in any case except perhaps in another Little Ice Age.
I think that the main problem with SLR could be largely mitigated if coast lines were protected from tropical cyclone induced storm surges. We may even try to disarm tropical cyclones in the future. Though cyclone are large when they cause damage they are more delicate and would be vulnerable to disruption at formation.
Humanity has limited resources, so the policy question is how to best make progress. I say put it in to technical solutions research, not like trying to suck CO2 back out of the air but ones like targeting specific dangers, regardless of CO2 warming. I think it is called adaptation.
I remember Nobel laureate physicist Freeman Dyson suggesting we should figure out how to enhance Greenland and Antarctica precipitation to counter sea level rise.
I was very pleased to see Zeke Hausfather join the Breakthrough Institute that follows the philosophy of innovation over climate politicization. https://thebreakthrough.org/people/zeke-hausfather
Ron there is obviously an acceleration in sea level rise in the data that make up this graph.
Obviously.
Download the data and calculate it, if you can.
If you can’t, you don’t get an opinion on the issue.
Ron, Freeman Dyson and Zeke H have nothing to do here.
The data are the data. Calculate, dude.
Freeman Dyson did not receive a Nobel prize.
This should be one big comment, but I got the infamous “invalid security token.” error when trying to post it. So I’m going to try to post it in parts…
Part 1 of {?}
A problem with that composite sea-level graph is that they’re effectively splicing together different measurement records, in different places, for different time periods. That can create the illusion of a large acceleration which is not evident in the great majority of the best long measurement records.
Fortunately, we have quite a few excellent, long, individual sea-level measurement records, so there’s no need for such splicing. Most show little or no sea-level rise acceleration.
There are a few exceptions. For instance, the southeastern U.S., where the Gulf Stream (part of the AMOC) skirts the coast, from Florida to North Carolina, has (uniquely) seen a surge in sea-level rise over the last decade or so, apparently caused by a (presumably transient) acceleration of that part of the AMOC.
See how the Gulf Stream follows the coastline, from Florida to North Carolina:
https://sealevel.info/Gulf_Stream_wikipedia_200pct_with_NYC_Wilmington_Key_West_labeled.png
It should not surprise you that that section of coastline is affected by variations in the Gulf Stream:
https://sealevel.info/Jackson2022_FIg2bc_annot.png
(Those graphs are part of a figure from Jackson et al 2022, which cites Desbruyères et al 2019 as the source.)
The correlation is obvious:
https://sealevel.info/SL_Charleston_234_1930-1_to_2022-1_annot1.png
The U.S. East Coast has long been known for such sea-level trend fluctuations. Zervas (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854 – 2006, says:
I suspect that Gulf Stream variation was probably the cause of those earlier east coast sea-level variations, too.
Part 2 of {?}
In most other places there’s little or no sign of sea-level rise acceleration. For instance, here’s Honolulu, which arguably has the world’s best-sited sea-level measurements:
https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Honolulu (interactive version)
https://sealevel.info/1612340_Honolulu_thru_2022-04_vs_CO2_annot1_1186x621.png
Linear trend = 1.547 ±0.204 mm/yr (6″ per century)
Acceleration = 0.000703 ±0.013448 mm/yr² (zero)
An acceleration of 0.000703 mm/yr², if it continued for 200 years, would add a grand total of 14 mm = 0.55 inch to sea-level.
You might wonder why I think so highly of the Honolulu sea-level measurement record? There are quite a few reasons:
● Unlike the U.S. east coast, Hawaii is not affected by variations in the AMOC.
● Honolulu has 117⅔ years of continuous, top-quality measurements, from the same location, with no gaps.
● Honolulu’s location near the middle of the Pacific is nearly ideal.
The Pacific Ocean “sloshes east” during El Niños, and “sloshes west” during La Niñas, but Hawaii is near the “teeter-totter pivot point,” so, unlike the other long Pacific measurement records, Honolulu is scarcely affected by it.
● Oahu experiences only small tides, and almost no vertical land motion (though it does move horizontally, about 3″ to the northwest, each year). Oahu is an old, tectonically stable island (several million years old, which is about 4× the age of the Big Island), and the volcanoes on Oahu are believed to have been inactive for well over a million years. So Honolulu’s sea-level trend is typical (about the same as the global average, i.e., about +1½ mm/year = 6 inches/century), and it is not appreciably distorted by vertical land motion.
● Unlike the north Atlantic and Baltic, Hawaii is not appreciably affected by Greenland’s slowly changing gravity field.
There are other sites with measurements going back even further than Honolulu’s, but all of them have either gaps in the records, or less-than-ideal locations.
Part 3 of {?}
For instance, the Dutch have done a superb job of measuring sea-level for a very long time (for obvious reasons), but The Netherlands is close enough to Greenland that if Greenland’s ice melt were to accelerate (which is the potential source which is most plausible to cause sea-level rise acceleration) the Dutch would see a reduced effect.
So, even though the Dutch measurement records are very, very good, they aren’t the best records to use for detecting possible acceleration from Greenland meltwater.
Here’s a Dutch Report, based on those data, which concluded that climate change has not, thus far, caused accelerated sea-level rise:
https://www.deltares.nl/nl/nieuws/nauwkeuriger-inzicht-huidige-zeespiegel-langs-de-nederlandse-kust/
Here’s the full Report:
https://www.deltares.nl/app/uploads/2019/03/Zeespiegelmonitor-2018-final.pdf
Unfortunately I do not understand Dutch. But the Google Translation of the web page is quite clear.
https://sealevel.info/nauwkeuriger-inzicht-huidige-zeespiegel-langs-de-nederlandse-kust_en_excerpt1_annot1.png
I love this photo of a Dutch dike, next to a farmhouse, juxtaposed with a Dutch sea-level measurement record, because it so nicely puts the sea-level issue into perspective:
https://sealevel.info/Dutch_dike_vs_Harlingen_sea-level_trend_1880x940_v06.png
Part 4 of 4
(I think I found what triggered the “Invalid Security Token” problem: I had an explicit nbsp in my comment. I have a vague memory that those cause problems on this blog.)
The highly linear trend measured by Honolulu’s tide gauge is typical of most coastal measurement records, which have seen little or no acceleration for at least nine decades. The average amount of measured acceleration reported in studies of long tide-gauge measurement records has varied from negligibly positive to negligibly negative. This table from Houston (2021) summarizes the findings of ten of the best such studies:
https://sealevel.info/Houston2021_Table2_annot1.png
I drew a pink box around the greatest acceleration reported by any of those studies: a mere 0.0128 ±0.0064 mm/year². A sea-level acceleration of 0.0128 mm/year² continued for 100 years would add a negligible 64 mm (2.5 inches) to sea-level — obviously not worrisome.
Global sea-level rise is so miniscule that in many places it’s dwarfed by local factors, like erosion, sedimentation, and vertical land motion. As you can see, Greta Thunberg’s hometown of Stockholm is one such place:
https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Stockholm&boxcar=1&boxwidth=3
https://sealevel.info/050-141_Stockholm_Sweden_1889-2020_smoothed_vs_CO2_annot1.png
At Stockholm, the land is rising about 3× as fast as the ocean, due to PGR.
Unfortunately for the Swedes, global sea-level rise is too slow to much reduce Stockholm harbor’s dredging expenses.
https://www.dredgingtoday.com/2014/03/07/sweden-stockholm-harbour-to-initiate-dredging-project/
Javier, my mistake. Dyson never got the Nobel Prize nor did he ever claim to, unlike a certain climate activist we all know.
David, the graph you supplied is of sea level change, not rate of change. Therefore an acceleration would appear as a curve in the plot, which I believe I can faintly detect. But if you see any correlation to the plot of global mean surface temperature since 1880 let me know. If not, my point stands that CO2 enhanced global warming has very little connection to the problem of SLR.
Why is there no confidence interval on the satellite data at the link you provided? I’d call that “unscientific.”
Note that your cited data shows a recent abrupt downturn in the tide gauge data!
https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png
Land accumulation of water offsets sealevel rise.
Talk about burying the lede: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1704665115
“ Land water storage trends, summed over all basins, are positive for GRACE (∼71–82 km3/y) but negative for models (−450 to −12 km3/y), contributing opposing trends to global mean sea level change.”
Goes well with https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20716 and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331500354_A_Global_005-Degree_Product_of_Solar-Induced_Chlorophyll_Fluorescence_Derived_from_OCO-2_MODIS_and_Reanalysis_Data
Isn’t the satellite data adjusted up in recent decades to account for the bottom falling out of the ocean?
aaron asked, “Isn’t the satellite data adjusted up in recent decades to account for the bottom falling out of the ocean?”
Yes.
Aviso adds 0.3 mm/year to all “measured”[sic] sea-level trends. It is the (completely unverifiable) estimate which they chose to use to represent the amount by which they think sea-level would be decreasing due to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment, were nothing else happening to the oceans. I.e., it represents the presumed effect of the presumed ongoing sinking of the ocean floor, due to meltwater load from the last deglaciation, prior to about 5000 BC.
Of course, that means the rate sea-level rise which they report isn’t really a rate of sea-level rise. It’s what they think the sea-level trend WOULD BE without presumed ocean floor subsidence. Calling it “sea-level” is misleading.
“it… means their ‘mean sea level’ is now floating, phantom like, above the waves.” – Greg Goodman
The addition of that 0.3″ fudge factor used to be optional on the Aviso website, but they removed that option. When I noticed the change I wrote to them and asked them to restore the feature. They politely refused. Here’s our conversation:
Note: As you can see (above), Aviso told me, “We do include the corresponding uncertainties in our total uncertainty assessment of 0.5 mm/yr (PGR participates by 0.05mm/yr at 90% CL).”
But to the best of my knowledge Prof. Peltier and his colleagues have not published uncertainty estimates for their 0.3 mm/yr ocean basin GIA estimate (nor for any of their other GIA / PGR figures). Tamisiea, 2011 gives a much broader range: 0.15 to 0.5 mm/year.
I wonder whether Aviso just assumed that they could approximate Peltier’s uncertainty by using half of his last (only!) significant digit? “±0.05mm/yr” seems very optimistic compared to Tamisiea’s 3.5× larger interval: 0.325 ±0.175
Unfortunately, that’s not the only adjustment which is made to those measurements. Measurement of sea-level by satellite radar altimetry has many, many sources of error, resulting in many, many judgement calls about how to adjust for those problems. There are many different factors [2] which can affect reported trends, but which are difficult to ascertain with certainty, and are subject to substantial and often mysterious corrections.
That makes the “measurements” extraordinarily malleable. Depending on how they are adjusted and corrected, the same data can be made to show acceleration, deceleration, or near-perfect linearity!
In fact, here are charts showing all three, from Anny Cazenave’s group at Laboratoire d’Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiale (LEGOS):
https://sealevel.info/Cazenave_2014_and_2017_satellite_altimetry_sea-level_showing_deceleration_linearity_and_acceleration_2200x710v2.png
For more about the use (and problems with) satellite radar altimetry to measure sea-level, see:
https://sealevel.info/satellite_altimetry.html
Dave Burton,
Thanks. These comments would make an excellent guest post.
Clyde Spencer wrote:
Only time will tell if it is a blip, or inexorable.
What theory suggests it is only a “blip?”
No “theory.” Just the observation that the time-series is not a straight line and there have been previous deviations from the regression line. Your link even shows a recent decline in the tide gauge data.
Unclear if I’m replying to the comment or the thread…. Those uncertainties are insane. Whoever thinks they can resolve sea level to a fraction of a mm is not very good at science.
UAH monthly update for Australian lower troposphere temperature anomaly version 6.0 continues the plateau of no linear warming trend for 10 years and 4 months. Starts August 2012, ends today or so.
In the context of the alarmist RCP 8.5, with so much publicity pumping up non-existent extreme events for the feared future, allegedly to be caused by CO2, where is the balance?
Why cannot Australian pre-teen school children be taught what the UAH graph shows, that none of them on average has been exposed to global warming, let alone harmed by it?
Why are these misanthropes legally allowed to continue the myths that frighten children when evidence exists for a more benign narrative? Is it not time to start prosecutions of people who have ruined the early years of childhood of so many? These people cannot merely state their innocence by the old “We simply followed orders” escape clause — overall, these activists are old enough and wise enough to understand reality in data. For many, they know they are being deliberately malicious and destructive of a beautiful gift, the wonder of childhood that is given only once.
Geoff S
Congratulations, Judy. Your great article is in itself evidence of a change in the climate crisis perception from those that do not believe the existence of a climate crisis has been proven. There is nothing like a real crisis to point the nakedness of an imaginary crisis.
In IEA’s World Energy Outlook from October 2022 it says:
“A high point for global energy‐related CO2 emissions is reached in the STEPS in 2025, at 37 billion tonnes (Gt) per year, and they fall back to 32 Gt by 2050. This would be associated with a rise of around 2.5 °C in global average temperatures by 2100. This is a better outcome than projected a few years ago: renewed policy momentum and technology gains made since 2015 have shaved around 1 °C off the long‐term temperature rise.”
It is impossible to have high emissions if fossil fuels are in short supply, and if they are indeed in short supply the last of our problems is a climate showing a modest warming.
The only thing in the article I didn’t agree was:
“Most solar researchers expect some sort of solar minimum in the mid to late 21st century.”
I thought we had agreed consensus scientists’ opinions do not constitute science. The data already says every scientist that predicted a SC25 with significantly lower activity to SC24 was wrong. Equally, there is no valid scientific reason to expect a 21st century with low solar activity. I see no difference between expecting +4.5ºC by 2100 or expecting a 21st century Grand Solar Minimum. Both are very non-conservative predictions that ignore past knowledge and thus highly unlikely to happen.
Attention Dummies:
President Biden has the worst energy policy since Jimmy Carter, so it was probably inevitable that he would disinter one of Mr. Carter’s worst ideas—a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies. Doesn’t he know that when you tax something, you get less of it?
…
The reality is that their profits owe more to his Administration’s war on fossil fuels than Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion. Oil prices surged at the start of the war amid uncertainty about the impact of Western sanctions on Russian supply. But prices have moderated as China and India have continued to buy Russian crude at a discount, while markets have downgraded global economic forecasts amid central-bank tightening and Chinese lockdowns.
But gasoline prices remain relatively elevated because production, especially in the U.S., isn’t keeping up with demand. Recent refinery shutdowns in the U.S. and Europe have created a supply bottleneck, boosting refiners’ normally narrow margins. It’s no small irony that government policies and investor pressure to reduce production have inflated Big Oil’s profits.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy-policy-for-dummies-windfall-tax-oil-companies-joe-biden-11667339340
The Biden regime has instituted numerous regulations and policies attempting to exterminate the use of fossil fuels. Why would a company make long-term, expensive capital investments in new fossil fuel production? Makes better financial sense to simply ride events out while making a large pile of money.
@POTUS, then set a floor for ten years on oil prices for domestic produces so they can confidently invests in the production needed to pressure OPEC+ to produce more now.
https://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/opec.html
https://mobile.twitter.com/aaronshem/status/1582895706104532992
Not sure why Stephens’ alarmist article and cherry-picked claims aren’t linked to, perhaps because it’s behind a “read one for free paywall.” You can read his hysterical editorial in full here: https://archive.ph/OoBa0
Thanks for that link. I’ve made a quick pass, but will have to do it this weekend due to the length.
The Stephens article is actually pretty good after you get past the first page of obligatory climate alarmism his employer expects of his paid trip to Greenland. The facts, as Ckid pointed out are wrongly reported about sea level tripling its rate in the last 30 years. It’s been pretty steady for as long as there are records, which goes back to pre-fossil fuel use.
He points out that the arctic is warming 4 times faster than the global average. He does not mention that Antarctica is not, which does not make sense as far as support for the EGHE, which predicts both poles to warm more than average due to inhibited radiative cooling.
But in the rest of the article Stephens falls back to being pretty reasonable and balanced, mentioning Pielke’s work and Coonin. He even points out Germany’s failure and supports fracking, not allowing the perfect (renewables) be the enemy of the good (natural gas).
Thanks for the link JK and for pointing to the article, Joshua.
> Not sure why Stephens’ alarmist article and cherry-picked claims…
Yeah. Well what can you expect from a librul hippie?
“… The average rate at which sea level is rising around the world, he estimates, has more than tripled over the past three decades, to five millimeters a year from 1.5 millimeters.”
And yet looking at the tidal gauges it should be obvious after 30 years? It’s not. The 7 or 8 feet seems to be destined for the same place that the 10 feet that EPA missed on. IPCC6 has 0.06m for 2.6 and 0.08m for 4.5, by 2100 for contribution from Greenland. Melt away.
Thanks for the link.
Western nations are in unprecedented levels of debt that did noting but buy them inflation. Hundreds of billions spent on “renewables” did nothing but leave them without energy.
The activists they thought would help them drift their nations slightly left politically are either unpopular nuts glued to art or babbling about communism.
Now the lab-coat team that propped up “existential threat” has been caught exaggerating so often they have to formally begin backtracking.
I’d say it may be a long-long time before governments trust this gang again, but The Population Bomb was even more obvious and didn’t stop anyone finding an ear in the halls of government.
The good news is that, with every utter failure, the appeal lessens and the wariness increases.
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“””
DWW scores HUGE number of points with me for quickly adjusting his priors with the growing amount evidence that RCP8.5 is implausible.
“””
Why is that? He seems to be just one of those guys who did not do his homework in the first place, but made good money for it.
What is so exceptional if a wrongsayer changes his course?
And did he?
“””
David Wallace-Wells provides some “hope” for the climate alarmists with this sentence:
“It’s sadly apparent by now that scientists have underestimated, not overestimated, the impact of warming.”
“””
Rather not, it looks more like he found a different way to milk the cow! I see a new book by him in the making..
Frankly, I am disgusted by such behavior (not you, but DWW)!
“Most solar researchers expect some sort of solar minimum in the mid to late 21st century”
Yes this idea is popular with those who associate the cold AMO in the late 60’s and 70’s with low sunspots, which is patently backwards as the AMO is warmer during centennial solar minima. It’s the wrong correlation, the mid 70’s had the strongest solar wind states of the last 50 years.
We are in some sort of centennial solar minimum now, 130 years since the last one, so we could expect the next one to start maybe 20 years before than the mean of 108 years after 2014. The current minimum is very short, at just two sunspot cycles, and the mildest for over 1000 years.
“Solar indirect effects are inadequately treated by climate models, which would act to amplify solar cooling”
But the AMO warmed from 1995 because of weaker solar wind states since then. Stronger solar wind states in the mid 1970’s, mid 1980’s, and early 1990’s, drove the colder AMO anomalies via positive NAO regimes.
“A shift to the cold phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is expected in the next decade, which influences not only global temperatures but also Greenland mass balance and Arctic sea ice”
And increased low cloud cover in the mid latitudes.
to quote Yogi Berra; “The future ain’t what it used to be”.
Appears as applicable to Baseball as Climate “Science”.
Thanks for playing the future catastrophe game, better luck next time.
Cheers, KevinK.
Leftists have a lot of anxieties and nothing makes them more anxious these days than what the weather will be in 30 years and how it will be really bad if we won’t listen to them.
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COP27 says extremes are getting worse due to climate change. This just in:
“Experts say climate change is making drought and flooding worse across the globe”
https://twitter.com/i/events/1587087406913572865?cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email
Experts should be more honest.
Is anyone even in agreement as to what the global average temperature was in 1850, in a meaningful and precise way that would let us compare warming from 1900 or 1950 to the arming from 1850 to 1900? That’s an era in which the 5th largest continent was unexplored let alone measured.
They want to focus on temperature anomalies and “preindustrial era” vagueness because if the topic were the actual global average temperature and at what year, none of these so-called scientists would agree.
I have my doubts about 1850 temperatures. Look at the graph on the right depicting coverage in the Southern Hemisphere. Regardless of the mathematical machinations used, when there is only 12% coverage for half the globe during that period, you have to have some questions.
The coverage of the oceans during the 19th century is equally problematic.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data_v3/
CKid,
You are concerned about temperatures before 1850.
Others like me are concerned about temperatures before 2000.
Reasons for Australian data, a fair part of the Southern Hemisphere, are here. We show that data represented as “raw” are often already “adjusted”. And more.
There is a need for those in other countries to look at their own data. We have provided a framework. Geoff S
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/14/uncertainty-of-measurement-of-routine-temperatures-part-iii/
We have some idea.
🧵 https://mobile.twitter.com/aaronshem/status/1562410622637248512
Roger Pielke Jr. says:
The Most Important Climate Paper I’ve Read this Year
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-most-important-climate-paper?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=119454&post_id=82486049&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Equity Assessment of Global Mitigation Pathways in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
https://osf.io/p46ty/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Good post, Dan. It’s like Toto pulling back the curtain.
Since we do not have high resolution data (and even if we did so we do not have sufficient computer power to process it) it is hard to believe that climate science and meteorology in general is on its game with alarmism. Even if carbon dioxide proved to be a warming gas at sometime in the future (which I very much doubt) then why a policy that relies of ever greater emissions to produce the articles (solar, wind etc) which, so it is claimed, will at some point in the future produce all our energy.
Once we find (future tense note) a way to store renewable energy reliably and efficiently would have been the time at which to do sums about costs of building solar and wind sites, the effects of building them on the environment, life time of each site, the fossil fuels required to build, install and transport them and the additional costs of delivering that power to a storage facility which can reliably be grid managed. We are nowhere near such a point in time and yet we were told many decades ago that fossil fuel wasn’t forever and that nuclear offered opportunities that should not be passed by. We did largely pass the opportunity by and despite the alarm bells we still find more and more stores of accessible fossil fuel. We have also, over that same period seen climate change just as it always has done, and there has been neglible warming in areas even where we have adequate data resolution let alone around the globe as a whole. There has been little sign that, since measurements began and contemporary meteorology was born, the planet is doing anything unusual. It rains, it pours, it is cold, it is hot, it is sunny, it is windy, there are periods of storm and periods of calm.
Why the panic? Why the poor choices of alternatives when nuclear was alive and well throughout and could by now be producing the vast majority of all energy on the planet? Who is seriously kidding us that solar and wind are not one of the poorest choices of energy source and biggest mistakes humanity has made in a long time. Is this because you do not produce effective and reliable leaders in a system which rewards those who do what they told no matter if it is right or wrong to do so? We are ruled by people who have deep sun tans, who blow in the wind and it appears there is not one of them who is really bothered about thinking for themselves because they no they’ll be poorer if they do so.
There are tremendous pressures on politicians today. It seems they are always in campaign mode, as it takes ever larger sums of money to run elections, thus they need to spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising. Those with money to give, or those with access to the moneyed, are then in positions of power versus you and I.
If a politician refuses the big money streams, they are painted as extremists. And their lives are dissected to find ammunition for personal attacks … or ‘legal’ attacks through lawfare.
In addition, most citizens of the West seem to allow our politicians extreme leeway. We go along with their policies, and when things go bad, it’s almost if we shade our eyes, look away and hope that the term ends quickly.
Yet … eventually the voters get it right. Or should I say occasionally? For the USA, talk to me after Tuesday next …
Bjorn Lomborg comments on the Lancet report that climate change increasing heat is causing deaths.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lancets-heat-death-deception-united-nations-cop-27-cold-study-population-growth-technology-energy-climate-11667580996?st=ib27cboxsqgv4m7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Willard, it seems to me that you play the “cry wolf” game (a 4 K warmer world) without much certainty ( if you read the Lewis (2022) paper it is indeed very unlikely) and then call to others: “How do you handle those circumstances?” I wouldn’t replay ;-)
best Frank
Frank,
It seems that if you pretend to be the Very Scientific commenter, you should stay in your Very Scientific lane.
Also, I am not Bill.
Bill F,
There is next to no evidence that heatwaves are becoming hotter, longer or more frequent where we live in melbourne Australia.
Here is a short part of analysis.
I cannot see how increasing heat deaths are related to increasing heatwaves when there is no change in heatwaves.
Similar results apply more most Australian big cities.
Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/melbheat.docx
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The problem with But RCPs is not that it exists as a Bingo square:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2020/02/09/but-rcps/
The problem is that contrarians seldom take the opportunity to tell how they would feel about a 4C world or to look at the Wiki definition for alarmism.
Sorry, posted reply in the wrong spot. See below.
Bet it won’t happen?
Thank you for dodging the question so elegantly, Hans.
Give me some odds and some terms and I will forward your offer to James Annan.
Hey Willard …
How would I feel about a +4C world? Well, probably about the same as I would a -4C world. I’d get up in the morning and put my pants (maybe liter, maybe heavier material) on the same way. If you’re income goes up or down, you adjust. If your health goes up or down, you adjust.
If I told you that you had to go and live in Phoenix in the summer and McMurdo in the winter … you’d adjust.
It’s interesting to talk about future climates, but transferring those predictions to policy and finite resources that affects present needs is not prudent.
By that logic one could argue that a 6C world is not much problem either, Bill. Same for a 8C world. All you would need is the opposite of a coat. The difference between the last ice age and us is something like 5C. What would be the opposite of an ice age?
It is fun to minimize all these things on a blog, but Canada already has a 2C differential and it brings its toll on crops and insurance premiums. While we can afford to adapt, the same cannot be said of those who live nearer the tropical belt. A belt that in fact actually grows.
A friend makes lots of money these days studying how tropical diseases expand to places like Florida, so it would be unfair to say that everybody will lose.
Just order cable in your fridge, Willard, and go with UberEats for delivery.
Easy peasy.
Willard …
Of course if those conditions come to pass you’re right that they will be not pleasant, to say the least. Yet, we are only speculating … not just how much warmer, but what the actual affects of the warming may be (bad or good) and what our ability to adapt may mitigate. I’m sure you can point to observations that would support your position, and I could do the same.
What I think is more interesting is how individuals and groups seek to leverage what is essentially a belief (no disrespect, but using belief in the sense that hypothesis and theory are not fact and we are talking about the future) into action. This action requires others to support, or live with, via an acceptance of personal assurance. And that’s not rare. We take personal assurances of those we believe are more versed in areas that we know little or nothing about and make our decisions with those assurances amongst other information.
The common factor is we, or I, make those decisions. Not the people who publish assurances. So I have to do something much like what Tim Palmer calls high intensity and low energy thinking. If you read ‘The Primacy of Doubt’ you’ll know what I mean. If not let me briefly say that high intensity thinking requires high usage of energy when our focus is on difficult problem solving. Low energy thinking covers autonomous reactions up to calm consciousness. Palmer gives examples how low energy thinking helps solve seemingly intractable problems which relate to his theory of chaos/fractals/quantum computing/noise, etc. Very interesting.
What he doesn’t mention is that low energy thinking, aside from assisting intensive thinking towards a goal, can also give us pause as to the direction of our thinking. You see, as a scientist he is (actually must be) convinced that the direction he takes in his intensive thinking is correct … until it is proven wrong. Obviously. But a guy like Palmer, when he thinks intensively, brings a lot to the process. So much so, that he can occasionally get way out over his skis. Example: In chapter 9 he wants to use ensemble methods with Deadly Conflict and the Digital Ensemble of Spaceship Earth. He writes, “Could we extend the concept of an agent based model of global society with our 8B inhabitants?
Now someone who digitizes millions and billions of pieces of information for a living to make predictions probably doesn’t think of the downside of having/maintaining such information of what each of us is doing with our lives. That is until he has a moment of low energy thinking where the implications become clear.
Tim Palmer, I’m sure, is a nice guy. And he certainly is someone I would take assurances from … on some things. But like any decision I make, those assurances go into a pot … call it an ensemble … of disparate, sometimes chaotic information, not to mention feelings which are the brew of how I conduct my life.
I have a feeling, on some level, Tim would agree.
Beliefs are what makes you go to the kitchen, open the tap, fill your kettle, boil water, wait for four minutes, and prepare yourself tea, Bill. Collective decisions afforded you with the resources to make that tea, all based on beliefs too. Nobody had to forecast that you would make yourself tea at 21:00 on a Saturday evening to anticipate the need for water, electricity, appliances, and a shipping circuit from the Blue Banana to your doorstep.
Climate models only provide a rough ballpark. They are not telescopes into the future. They help rule out scenarios that fall under the limits of justified desingenuousness. The decisions they will afford are not yours to make. At least not directly. Me and We are very different under social circumstances.
I am not here to convince you of anything. As Scott Denning once said to the Heartland Institute, if reactionary forces do not cooperate, the caravan will move on without them. Think for instance how the insurance industry washed their hands over Florida men after Andrew and how the State became an insurer of last resort:
https://radiolab.org/episodes/weather-report
If socialism is a concern to you, that should raise alarm bells.
There is also a mention in that episode of the guy who created the meteorology biz. A swell guy. Not a very truthful guy, but a very charming one.
Science is a web of beliefs.
Good morning, Willard.
> Climate models only provide a rough ballpark. They are not telescopes into the future. They help rule out scenarios that fall under the limits of justified desingenuousness. The decisions they will afford are not yours to make. At least not directly. Me and We are very different under social circumstances.
I think you may have hit the bulls eye. Since climate models don’t produce decisions (I agree), upon whom do they confer this ‘affordability’ to make decisions that are not mine (we?) to make? What makes a person/group think they are justified being disingenuous? Is it their belief, as we seem to agree there is no proof, no crystal ball?
Your question might be better answered by a Very Scientific commenter like Frank, Bill. He is the one who keeps pushing for Nic’s peanut while disregarding that Mr. T is a designated hitter for both teams. I am more of a more-Modulz-the-merrier myself because I believe diversification is the Holy Grail in all things. You can also ask yourself why you would believe 2.6 more plausible that 4.5.
I think justified desingenuousness becomes unjustified when a contrarian megaphone sells a preprint as the best paper of 2022, when he it is about stuff he should have known already. This leads me to ask myself if those who like his editorials really appreciate carbon justice. Your insistence on your own agency makes me doubt it. The idea still deserves due diligence:
https://www.undp.org/africa/blog/carbon-justice-all-how-carbon-markets-can-advance-equitable-climate-action-globally
Not the kind of decisions we should expect to appear in our climate projections, don’t you think?
But at the end of the day, whether you prefer 2.6, 4.5, it does not matter much. Add a few decades and, ceteris paribus, we will reach 6C. The physics is clear on this.
Cheers.
“They help rule out scenarios that fall under the limits of justified desingenuousness. The decisions they will afford are not yours to make. At least not directly. Me and We are very different under social circumstances.”
Willard, you have isolated the central, and I think most consequential issues here. The climate affects every person and living creature, and thus all have a legitimate interest in its conservation management.
But if one can’t build a consensus on the priority of the problem or even prove the problem exists, does one have the right to force others to go along with financing one’s
solutions? If not then only the responsible actors are saddled with the costs of paying for the common good. This is sort of like socialism: from each according to their means, to each according to their need. Allowing personal liberty to finance the common good is a tax on responsibility just as socialism is a tax on industriousness.
The democratic answer then is obviously to build a voting majority for what constitutes responsible action and then mandate it through legislation. But what if you can only build local majorities? Then places like California are being taxed disproportionately as residents of the USA just like places like Germany took on disproportionate burden for the world. The unfairness of that dynamic drives those places to have their populations become split. One faction becomes radicals bent on coercive measures on those not acting in kind. Another faction protest its own government against the tax as ineffective and unfair. And the remainder are satisfied to have personal pride in the superiority of their culture of global benevolence.
We saw this dynamic unfold in high speed during the pandemic.
The answer to what is the correct policy hinges on information accuracy about the nature of the problem and the effectiveness of the countermeasures. But what happens when we don’t have trustworthy information?
> if we can’t build a consensus
It might not be the best of times to sell the necessity of a One-World government, Ron. I always wondered why Freedom Fighters relish in bashing central planning when they root for corporations that naturally do exactly that. Could be related to a deep desire of being dominated by a True Leader like teh Donald, whom is neither true nor a leader.
Let me assure you right away: we do not need any consensus to trade. At least not that kind of consensus. All we need is interests to align and the means to do so. Interests do not need to completely overlap. In fact they cannot, if we are to believe an old theorem to that effect.
Your interest in modulz looks superficial. Have you ever looked into one? After almost a decade of despising them, do yourself a service and deep dive into one. You will be surprised by what you may find. Granted, you will need more effort than what you put in dismissing Brett’s Damascus moment,
Did you know that the Mississippi River is currently dredged because it’s waters are too shallow for its barges to circulate? This is a really big problem that affects the prices of wheat, corn, coal, metals, and other commodities. Traders do not need for any damn modulz to see what the weather brings. They see it when the spot price jumps from 15 a ton to more than a hundred.
Since the theme of this thread is Africa, let me plug this old piece about how we grace the continent with our clothing trash, because, you know, we really care about them:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/fast-fashion-turning-parts-ghana-into-toxic-landfill/100358702
Yes, the C word again. Oh noes! I think imma faint.
Willard …
> Your insistence on your own agency makes me doubt it.
Not sure if you meant that for me. No matter, it is another central point. If we don’t have our own agency, what do we have?
> I always wondered why Freedom Fighters relish in bashing central planning when they root for corporations that naturally do exactly that.
Another great point. Socialist central planning (is there any other) does not have a particularly good track record. However, some have done better than others … China uses a modified capitalist model. Yet, it still isn’t as good as what you are calling ‘corporate central planning’. The freedom to form a corporation, to risk one’s gains, to compete against others … is far different, more successful, more liberating (if I could use the word) than anything socialism has given us.
> Let me assure you right away: we do not need any consensus to trade. At least not that kind of consensus. All we need is interests to align and the means to do so. Interests do not need to completely overlap. In fact they cannot, if we are to believe an old theorem to that effect.
The means. What are those means? This is where the left leaves behind any pretense of ‘for the good of humanity’. And maybe that’s why the more revealing statement is ‘for the good of the planet’, as it does not anymore have to do with the good of the people. It’s more about those who believe (yes, that word again) in something so passionately that they can not contain themselves with the reality that others, advocating their own agency, do not agree with that belief. Undeterred, the ‘believers’ will use any means to bring about their desired ends. I’m not saying that is you, Willard. I am saying to be careful.
The means, Bill? You really are asking what means? THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION, of course! Karl was a great capitalist. He invented to word, right?
The setup was too nice :-)
By means I am referring to more than that, of course: resources, rights, extraction and transformation processes, shipping, handling, selling, advertising, taxation, etc. Add to that the whole gamut of conditions: weather, geopolitics, etc. And of course externalities, if only to please Joshua.
Agency is a good thing, but without the means to express it, it amounts to little. Speaking of which, you might like to know that there are ways to invest in conservation efforts. Here is a guy who restore ranches and rivers and forests thus wildlife:
https://mebfaber.com/2022/08/01/e432-robert-keith/
Returns ain’t great, but at some point in life leaving a legacy matters more than getting a few more bips. If you want something more riskier, one can invest in land via platforms such as Acre Trader.
There are limits to what individuals can do. These limits tend to increase when fascists come to power. Your country will soon be tested to that effect.
Best of luck.
LOL!!! You dodged out of that one well. Karl, Freddy and I go way back. Indeed, I think they would be very happy with the intelligentsia of today. After all it was their favorite group all along. They knew the workers wouldn’t sustain radicalism for long. They’re too human for that.
Don’t worry about Joshua … he makes himself happy.
And stop trying to jinx us white supremacist/racist/unkind people on the vote for Tuesday. Don’t go by the media, bro. I have a feeling it will be very close.
Enjoy your evening.
“One-World government…”
I was not advocating for even if it had Madisonion checks and balances. I was simply outlining the dynamics of what makes global problems difficult to address. There are inherent political pitfalls. I am not sure they go away with larger governments. The USA is not all that cohesive politically at the moment, for example. One of the checks in the USA is the state governments. Although theoretically the country would be governed more efficiently without states, in practice this would be far from most peoples expectation that have witnessed the federal government versus local (CA excepted). The states though do come together for common interest.
The world could come together for common interest. We just need patience. The thing that I am most amazed with is the amount of people who think that coercion or dishonesty for any cause (short of war) is productive. It is in fact these very things that erode trust and spiral nations into war.
I agree, Ron. There is nothing production in your lack of honesty.
Willard, we know you have tongue in cheek.
See, Ron?
I told you – dishonesty is *never* constructive.
Sorry Willard but this is pseudo-scientific drivel. If average temperatures warm by 2 degrees, they will probably warm 1 degree in the tropics and 3 degrees at high lattitudes. This will result in more equitable temperatures, increase arable land area, reduce heating energy use, and generally result in milder weather. You don’t get credit for posturing here. And of course plants will become more drought resistant and our ecosystem will become more prolific resulting in better crop yields.
Don’t be sorry, David Young. Be relevant:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/05/africa-climate-crisis-cop27-drought-flooding-support
W
What is that supposed to prove? That region is susceptible to droughts just like Bangladesh is susceptible to floods. I would hate to think you know as little about the science as Appell does. You’re better than that.
If like David you think that farmers near the equator really need higher temperatures, Kid, then I suggest you stick to teh Goddard’s crap.
The coffee belt is moving as we speak:
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261976
Commodity traders all around the world applaud David’s Very Scientific outlook.
Nay not worry. I already adapted. I’m a tea nut.
There’s no evidence that climate change has worsened droughts: not in Africa, not in the United States, and not globally.
https://sealevel.info/learnmore.html?0=droughts#droughts
On the contrary, in fact, it is well established that higher CO2 levels mitigate drought impacts, by making crops and other plants more water-efficient and drought-resistant.
https://sealevel.info/learnmore.html?0=madrasfamine#famine
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168192310003163
Chun, et al, 2010. Effect of elevated carbon dioxide and water stress on gas exchange and water use efficiency in corn. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2011.
Excerpt:
“There have been many studies on the interaction of CO2 and water on plant growth. Under elevated CO2, less water is used to produce each unit of dry matter by reducing stomatal conductance.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26929390/
Fitzgerald GJ, et al. Elevated atmospheric [CO2] can dramatically increase wheat yields in semi-arid environments and buffer against heat waves. Glob Chang Biol. 2016 Jun;22(6):2269-84.
Elevated CO2 is highly beneficial for nearly all crops. Here’s a USDA survey paper:
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/53689/PDF
Final sentence: “Thus, it appears from the analysis of the prior data that agricultural yields will increase overall by about 33% with a doubling of the earth’s C02 concentration.”
Sub-Saharan Africa is among the regions which have benefited the most from rising CO2 levels. Here are a couple of articles.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160413120341/https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17523610-300-africans-go-back-to-the-land-as-plants-reclaim-the-desert/
Vast swaths of North Africa are getting noticeably lusher due to warming temperatures, new satellite images show, suggesting a possible boon for people living in the driest part of the continent.”
https://sealevel.info/Owen2009_Sahara_Desert_Greening-NatGeo30639457.html
Excerpt: “Vast swaths of North Africa are getting noticeably lusher due to warming temperatures, new satellite images show, suggesting a possible boon for people living in the driest part of the continent.”
https://sealevel.info/greening_earth_spatial_patterns_Myneni.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwHT8yS1XI
As with any highly politicized issue, if you want to understand climate change you need balanced information. Visiting Dr. Curry’s blog is a good start; here are some additional resources:
https://twitter.com/ncdave4life/status/1432810945017962505
Anecdotal BS Willard and you know it. Lying does nothing to convince anyone and shows you to be a charlatan and despicable propagandist. But that is your track record.
Anecdotes beat preposterous pomtificstion, David Young, and I doubt 700M people is an anecdote.
Please stick to your favorite Millenium Prize problem.
Apparently there is a danger that Canada and Siberia might become habitable. That has to be stopped at all costs! Imagine a 20% of Canadians living more than 100 km north of the US border.
Apparently our curious contrarian has never been in the North, so we might forgive him if he ignores the prices of building an infrastructure there. It has been above 20C all this first November weekend, so who will complain?
Half of the people on Earth lives in what we call the Valeriepieris or the Yuxi Circle:
http://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2022/02/the-yuxi-circle.html
(Sorry Bill, when I said Blue Banana earlier I was referring to this circle. Tea has yet to come from Rhineland.)
Migrants from there will definitely appreciate the Northwest Territories ice roads:
https://spectacularnwt.com/story/15-strange-and-dangerous-places-canadas-northwest-territories
More so when they melt.
DaveB,
Noticed your comment yesterday. Added two lines to the relevant Bingo square:
http://tinyurl.com/but-extreme-events
As you can see, your first two claims are false. Your But Greening and But Plant Food squirrels are already covered in other pages.
Thanks!
Bill –
> Don’t worry about Joshua … he makes himself happy.
????
Cheap shot?
(Can’t quite tell as I’m not sure what it means).
Say it ain’t so!
Thank you, Dr Curry for a good post. The article you linked to in Nature concerning the issues faced in Africa prompts these thoughts:
It seems that RCP and ESC values are becoming more realistic, but not too realist, otherwise the crisis would not exist. That takes me to the situation proposed by Wijngaarden & Happer. I note that saturation is rarely, if ever, discussed here. I believe that it is generally accepted that the bands are saturated, but many who believe in warming as usual will explain that band broadening ensures that warming continues. I accept the existence of band broadening by pressure, doppler or whatever, but I see it as a limited extension of absorption, not a free pass to ignore saturation. I accept that absorption will never reach zero because of the asymptotic nature but again, that is not the point.
There may be other reasons for rejecting the W & J work but they make a strong case and it deserves proper consideration.
Returning to the nature article, a sort of AGW-Lite prevails with all the same issues about emissions and decarbonisation mixed in with practical needs such as heating, cooking light and energy in general. Confirmed effective saturation of CO2 absorption bands would be a game changer.
Thank you, daveburton, for you respond.
“Note: a slowly-rotating planet would, at any given time, have two sides of different temperatures, but the dark side would be warmer than 0K, the lit side average temperature would be cooler than 400K, and the avgₘ mean temperature would be somewhere between the avgₘ “average” temperature of planet #1 (200K) and the avgₚ temperature (336.358566K).”
–
For two rotating planets, the faster rotating will be warmer.
Earth is warmer than Moon, because Earth rotates 29,5 times faster.
–
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
this was written:
Growing realization by the climate establishment that the threat of future warming has been cut in half over the past 5 years.
There has never been a threat of future warming. Not from Nature.
There has only been a theoretical threat of warming. From theory that was collected in a consensus long before enough was known to form the opinion, the theory. If you cut an untruth in half is it half truth or still just a fabrication.
Joshua,
If I remember correctly sceptics gravitated towards using alarmist instead of warmist after a few people complained (without justification) that warmist was pejorative.
I prefer affirmationists, as they affirm they know the answer without having the evidence.
In many of the great scientific disputes of the past it is easy to see who were the deniers and who the affirmationists, like in the dispute between Galileo and the Inquisition.
Such great deniers in the history of science. We should be proud.
N –
It’s my recollection that the term “alarmist” became common parlance among “skeptics” as they sought a way to express their identity-oriented aggression towards people who assess the risks from ACO2 emissions as being higher than they do in their own assessment. And of course, it was an identiry-defensive reponse against those who call them “deniers.”
I think there’s relatively little to understand about the rhetorical language of the climate wars that can’t be seen with how language manifest antipathies in.so many other axes of identity-oriented struggle. It’s like using “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” or “America’s taliban” instead of the “Tea Party.”. Climate change has become effectively just one more proxy for larger-scale social tribalism. If we were to predict what would happen linguistically for any give axis where social tribalism would play out, we would predict the widespread use of such derogatory and pejorative terms for the “other” (and conversely, complementary terms describing onevs own group).
Much of this is about virtue signaling to one’s own group and a great way to do that is to use insulting terms to describe members of the outgroup.
I read the Bret Stephens article.
He is relatively moderate in his views.
He bases his shift from skeptic to believer on limited “evidence,” Greenland. Like everywhere else, it has its own unique influences from land, ocean, and atmosphere. Given it is a single island continent, I can’t infer much about climate from it. I am not impressed.
I also was not impressed with his list of high-impact, low-probability events. While any loss of human life is tragic, one must put the events he listed in context. Some examples are listed below.
The Great Famine of 1315–1317 lasted for years and killed millions of people, an estimated 10-25% of the population.
The Black Death killed 75–200 million people.
WW I resulted in 15 million deaths and millions of homes, factories, and other buildings were destroyed over the course of a few years.
WW II cost governments about 1 trillion dollars and 60 million people, with the attendant huge losses of infrastructure.
It is important to note that homes, factories and other buildings damaged from the wars have been replaced.
Compared to these actual high damage events, any purported damage from global warming is proceeding at a snails pace and is not particularly notable.
Even if sea level rise continues at its molasses-like creep, there is plenty of time to adapt to it. Maybe something like a sea wall, or more creative, turn New York city into New Venice. However, sea level could actually cease or reverse course.
Insurance only makes sense if it doesn’t cost more than the damage it insures against. Spending trillions to prevent the purported effects of global warming just doesn’t make sense.
I agree with your take.
One thing about flood insurance, it’s not only about the Insured. The insurer has to be able to change a rate that enables them to make a profit. That wasn’t happening in flood plains and along shorelines. In the USA the feds subsidized the coverage. That has changed to a large degree and the time may come soon when the feds will be out of it completely, which is what it should be. Not only is that unfair to those who don’t live by the water, it acts as a disincentive to adapt to changing conditions.
jim –
> . There are a lot of people who subscribe to the precautionary principle, so you aren’t alone.
Except I’m not arguing about burden of proof. We could say that you’re arguing about burden of proof, and thus in fact that you’re the one who’s subscribing to the precautionary principle here more than I.
I’m saying that the questions regarding policy should be viewed in a risk assessment context amidst uncertainty – less so than arguing that precautions should be implemented. What was interesting to me was that Stephens moved beyond a zero sum framing of this issue, one that hinges on “proof,” (which doesn’t exist either way), as you have argued, and into one that looks at it as policy development in a context of uncertainty. It’s that embrace of the uncertainty which I applaud, even if there’s much I disagree with Stephens on re policy development.
.
Re “high-impact, low-probability events”.
Reading jim2’s post and a bit of surfing on the matter; (see breakdown here https://c3newsmag.com/bret-stephens-climate-change-greenland/ )
For high impact, year 536ce was such a one; (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/536 ) and the LIA was somewhat similar.
But they were not ‘Low probability’ but quite a regular event. They follow the Eddy cycle and are cycle roots. So was the 4k2 event. Eddy cycle peaks were also times of major change from civilisation peak. (The next peak beckons).
Those events occurred regularly, were ‘very high impact’ but regularly spaced near a millennium apart. Civilisations waxed and waned with that cycle. The problem for today, different from past millennia, is that technical development has increased the risk level, and the risk is of a different kind, but just as lethal for the unprepared. Covid proved we are not prepared. The mentality, to quote Javier above, of “like in the dispute between Galileo and the Inquisition” persists.
Jim –
Not necessarily with Stephens in particular, but I think the important context for understanding the frame of “high impact/low probability” events is w/r/t risk, and specifically risk going forward should we continue to experiment by pumping current levels of ACO2 emissions into the atmosphere. It’s not so much events that have already happened, except to the extent they help us evaluate future risk.
Jim –
And this is another issueb
> Spending trillions to prevent the purported effects of global warming just doesn’t make sense.
This notion of “spending trillions” is uniformly treated in a simplistic way by any “skeptic” I’ve seen addressing these issues.
First, negative externalities from fossil fuel use has to be included in an assessment of “spending.” And those, of course, are not limited to the negative externalities that manifest from climate change. And of course negative externalities (e.g. environmental damage from mining) are relevant for alternative energy sources as well as fossil fuel usage. Positive externalities, also, need to be assessed – both from fossil fuel use as well as alternative energy pathways. That would have to include aspects like access to inexpensive energy as well as jobs and infrastructure development and improvement from new industries.
Just throwing out “spending trillions” is an easy way to confirm biases. I think that Stephens, as a former “skeptic?,” has started to think more comprehensively and that’s part of what has influenced his transformation from being a “skeptic.” I hope one day to see more “skeptics” follow a similar approach even if they don’t change their assessment of the scale of climate change we might expect from ACO2 emissions. In fact, I’d like to see even one do so. That might be a start. Maybe it has happened but all I’ve seen is facile rhetoric like “spending trillions.”
It may be “simplistic” but it is nevertheless true. Spending trillions in a futile attempt to replace fossil fuels with wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia, etc; to replace ICE vehicles with electric; to transfer billions to countries headed up by bloody, hoodlum governments; to stop the use of fertilizers in the name of saving the environment,; to switch from meat to insects; to kill industries by killing fossil fuels; is in fact stupid. That externalities associated global warming and fossil fuels will not be a net positive hasn’t been demonstrated. No! Adaptation! Not mitigation!
Jim –
> . That externalities associated global warming and fossil fuels will not be a net positive hasn’t been demonstrated..
In line, I think, with Stephens embrace of high damage/low probability risk assessment, this isn’t a matter of “demonstrating” something like that, and thinking that it is, is a fundamental category error.
If we were to use your approach, we could just as easily say, “that the externalities associated with global warming and fossil fuels will not be a net negative hasn’t been demonstrated.”
It’s rather like saying you can’t demonstrate that it will be a net positive for me to buy automobile insurance, and therfore not buying any.
Now that’s a choice I might make but on so doing, I’m exposing myself to the catastrophic risk of being financially ruined if I injure someone gravely and they sue me. It’s a choice we as a society might make, but simply saying that buying insurance will cost me more than not buying insurance, and shutting down discussion of the implications of that decision, seems ill-advised to me. I would hope that if you have dependents, for example you’d least consider the ramifications to them of such a simplistic approach.
An attempt to mitigate global warming by killing fossil fuels is in no way related to auto insurance. Whole different ball game.
Jim –
It seemed you might want to discuss the Stephens article. Not some distortion of it.
Sorry if I misunderstood.
Josh – you have to prove the high damage outcome from fossil fuels is low vs non-existent. You have to prove the damage will likely be high vs non-existent or even beneficial. Of course you can make up any scenario you like, imagination is vast, but also not related to reality. I hope you can see I wasn’t swayed by the article.
jim –
> Josh – you have to prove the high damage outcome from fossil fuels is low vs non-existent.
Again, none of this can be “proven.” Either way. No one can “prove” that high damage events will occur and no one can “prove” that eheh won’t.
The best we can do is try to evaluate the range of probabilities. Uncertainty will remain. The goal, at best, is to try to quantify the uncertainties and then on that basis develop policy.
The question of what policies to implement based on the quantification of uncertainty is one that involves subjectivity and values, ao it’s complicated.
The notion that policy-development requires “prodf” is fundamentally unscientific, and the belief that “proof” is necessary to formulate policy is a problem we’re confronting.
> Of course you can make up any scenario you like, imagination is vast,
I’m not “making up” scenarios. Science helps us to model scenarios. Evaluating and discussing what we want to do based on the plausibility of the various scenarios should imo, be undertaken.
> I hope you can see I wasn’t swayed by the article.
I wouldn’t have expected that you would be. I wasn’t “swayed” by the arrocke either. But I found it interesting to read how a “skeptic” transformed from approaching the evidence in a way that’s comparable to your approach, to re-evaluating the issue from a perspective on risk managemsnt in the face of low probability/high damage outcomes.
And so I was curious what your reaction was to his undergoing that transformation. But from what I can tell, you never got past a tribalitic framework when reading the article. I think that’s unfortunate if it’s any kind of representative signal.
Seems to me, that many people (particularly highly “motivated” contributors in blog comments) are focused on “proving” that their views are correct, and perhaps even more operationally, “proving” that “others” are incorrect.
That stems from the identity-driven foundation of engagement in these issues. From that identity-oriented cognition, as so well evidenced by the reflexive grouping and identity-signalingbecidenxe by pejorative terminology for those who have different views, we have phenomena such as a demand for “proof” when we’re dealing with inherent uncertainty. An unrealistic bar to cross is set up, and in that way people can proceed on with the comfort that one’s identity-orientation can’t really be challenged.
Seems to me the trick is to find a way to separate out the identify struggle from the policy development. But it looks like we’re headed the wrong way down that track in that regard.
On the question of Stephens’ “conversion,” I don’t have much of an opinion on it. He has to make judgements based on his life experience and knowledge. For any of us emotions sparked by political or other types of bias can some into play. I can’t get in his head to determine why it happened, but I don’t fault him for it. I also don’t fault you for your opinions, BTW. There are a lot of people who subscribe to the precautionary principle, so you aren’t alone. But by my way of thinking, the evidence for potential harm from fossil fuels is lacking in both quality and quantity. I’m certainly OK with implementing nuclear power for electricity, so for me it isn’t fossil fuels or the highway. Nuclear supplies reliable 24/7 power, with few exceptions. That’s the kind of electricity supply I want for our grid that supplies me, my family, and my friends the power needed for a good life.
I brought up emotions as a source of bias and that got me thinking. Nature touches most of us deeply. Perhaps actually visiting Greenland inspired awe in Stephens. Perhaps he felt sad that, by his lights, Greenland was being ravaged by global warming. So perhaps the emotional experience of the trip tipped his position on the global warming spectrum? Don’t know that that’s the case, just bringing up a possibility.
I stopped following climate blogs years ago but once in a while nostalgia gets the better of me. Your blog is still outstanding. Thank you for doing what you do.
I applaud the fact that you don’t “Moderate” dissenting views as climate alarmist echo chambers usually do. Thank you for tolerating loony trolls like “David Appell”.
Well… Africa is doomed. Since europeans had the glorious idea of sanctioning cheap and easy available russian energy sources it’s clear that the “freedom gas” from the USofT will never be able to replace such availability. We europeans have decades of experience in extracting energy resources from Africa without the fair payment. We do this using bribes. A few africans turn hiper-rich and that’s it.
As for the COParty27 always nice to see they always go for nice and remote luxury resorts! I bet they offset the emissions by planting a couple of trees.
Your link to Ritchie leads to a response from defenders of “fake but true” variety. One can buy into the “business as usual” scenario now deemed improbable. But what about the “millions” of “studies” in journals that assume the 5 degree increase and predict all kinds of decimation on earth. Are those studies going to be retracted, because the are based on an improbable scenario.
“Are those studies going to be retracted…”
There will always be infinite tolerance of bad science as long as it was for a good cause. Shading the truth to enforce consensus is always a low risk scenario. Safety in numbers.
Scientists who fearlessly challenge consensus have a high risk of career cancellation but also a chance to do a service to humanity.
They have my gratitude.
People on this thread might be interested in my review paper, “Is it the end of combustion research and engine combustion research? Should it be?” which has just been published online by Transportation Engineering. It is available at this link:
https://lnkd.in/ew5aGJ-5 and might be of interest to you. I am also attaching a pdf file for your convenience.
Prof. Gautam Kalghatgi FREng FSAE FIMechE, FCI, FISHES
P.S. The abstract of the paper reads –
The dominant narrative in the affluent west is that climate change poses an “existential threat” and very rapid cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and hence fossil fuel use are needed to avoid it. Simultaneously oil, gas, coal, aviation, steel and cement industries and livestock farming have to be largely shut down to eliminate GHG. This review argues that globally all this will not happen by 2050, let alone 2030 because the scale of the problem is too large. Transport is particularly difficult to decarbonize and current policies focusing entirely on battery electric vehicles will not and must not succeed. GHG levels are unlikely to come down significantly in the next several decades and even if they did, extreme weather events will not disappear. It is better to recognize such realities and make societies more resilient to the effects of climate change. Humanity will have to adapt to any further warming as it has successfully done with the previous warming of about 1.1 C over the past century. Combustion research, particularly of fossil fuels and in internal combustion engines is currently seen as unnecessary in many countries. However, it will be absolutely necessary, along with the development of the alternatives in order to ensure that energy use is improved since combustion will continue to be central to supplying global energy and driving transport for decades to come. The gap between current policies and reality will perhaps be bridged as energy security concerns come to the fore.
“it will be absolutely necessary, along with the development of the alternatives in order to ensure that energy use is improved since combustion will continue to be central to supplying global energy and driving transport for decades to come.”
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Thank you, Prof. Gautam Kalghatgi, for it is the right way to see things!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
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Just a reminder to everyone as to why they will fight so hard to keep extreme scenarios. It’s not merely to justify their economic policies, it’s pain avoidance.
If the world accepts the truth – the lower bounds – “global warming” or “climate change” would have been largely solved in the 1970s by the planned nuclear construction in the pipeline.
Instead, “environmentalist” science deniers fought tooth and nail against zero emissions energy and gave us 40 years of burning coal in the west – plus the rapid carbonization of China and India – that didn’t have to happen.
Any climate change from ’80s on was a policy choice forced on the world by Western leftists. Today they want to distract from this fact by pretending they are team “save the planet.”
Still, putting the environmental damage of its growing energy usage in check is an important consideration. In 2015, for example, India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change bolstered air-quality standards with a plan that requires coal plants to scrub 95 percent of the sulfur dioxide from emissions by 2022, setting some of the toughest environmental regulations in the world.
This sounds like a tall order, but Keroulle and his colleagues have a way, relying on a proven process called wet flue gas desulfurization (WFGD). Unlike other methods, such as seawater flue gas desulfurization, this air-quality-control system can be used in any location and costs somewhat less since it relies on easily obtainable limestone. True, this a 40-year-old technology — but GE has taken it to a new level by increasing SO2 removal efficiency more than 99 percent and adding features that reduce emissions of mercury, another climate and health culprit, while saving
https://www.ge.com/news/reports/spring-cleaning-world-scrubbing-coal-power-plants-toxic-gas
Super, Judith. Thank you!
“the COP27 will focus too much on emissions reductions (which aren’t working and wont impact the climate in any event), and not enough on supporting development and adaptation for developing countries and most importantly supporting development in Africa by allowing them to benefit from their fossil fuels (other than by selling them to Europe). With regards to the later, a shout out to Rose Mustiso’s recent Nature publication; Rose is my favorite African activist and thinker on this topic.”
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