What's Coming On Climate Change

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Dardedar
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Post by Dardedar »

This NYT's editorial gives a good summary:

***
At Humanity’s Doorstep

Published: February 4, 2007

Should Congress require any further reason to move aggressively to limit greenhouse gas emissions, it need only read Friday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s authoritative voice on global warming.

A distillation of the best peer-reviewed science, the report expresses more than 90 percent certainty that man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have caused the steady rise in atmospheric temperatures, with the destruction of tropical rain forests playing a lesser but important role.

The report warns that if society keeps to its current course, emissions will increase to twice their preindustrial levels by the end of this century, causing temperatures to rise 3.5 to 8 degrees. The consequences will include rising seas, more powerful hurricanes, disappearing coral reefs and more intensive droughts in subtropical countries.

The report also offers hope, suggesting that what humans have caused, humans can mitigate; that even though the world is committed to centuries of further warming, the process can be slowed and the worst effects averted by swift and decisive action to limit and reverse emissions.

This is the fourth in a series of studies that began in 1990. The first left open the possibility that the warming that began with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and increased in the 1950s was “largely due to natural variability.” The second and third reports detected a bigger human role, and this one lays the whole problem at humanity’s doorstep.

A later paper will address specific remedies. But many climate experts believe the world must embark on a swift and sustained shift in the way energy is produced and used — away from fuels like oil and coal, and toward cleaner alternatives.

That is the objective of the many global warming bills now circulating in Washington. The best of these would put a price on carbon through a mandatory cap on emissions from sources like power plants and cars, thus making coal and oil relatively more expensive while driving the market toward cleaner sources of energy.

As we have learned over the years, talk is cheap in Washington, while meaningful action is almost certain to be expensive. President Bush has brandished those very real costs of moving to a new energy-delivery system again and again to argue against mandatory caps on emissions and to make the case for his own cost-free (and demonstrably inadequate) program of voluntary reductions. Yet what the panel is telling us is that the costs of doing nothing, especially to future generations, will be far greater than the price of acting now.

This is not a report compiled by a bunch of activists or alarmists. It is a consensus document, the inherently conservative product of three years of study and debate among mainstream scientists from 150 countries with often competing agendas. And in its modesty, it is alarming enough.

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Hogeye wrote: The IPCC is a political group with some govt appointed scientists. The scientists don't write the reports, and their comments are routinely edited out or ignored.
DAR
Why am I not surprised you don't have your facts straight again? Here's the reality:

***
The Peer Review Process
The IPCC’s technical reports derive their credibility principally from an extensive, transparent, and iterative peer review process that, as mentioned above, is considered far more exhaustive than that associated with scientific journals. This is due to the number of reviewers, the breadth of their disciplinary backgrounds and scientific perspectives, and the inclusion of independent “review editors” who certify that all comments have been fairly considered and appropriately resolved by the authors. For example, see [2].

To be as inclusive and open as possible, a balanced review effectively begins with the choice of lead authors. By intentionally including authors who represent the full range of expert opinion, many areas of disagreement can be worked out in discussions among the authors rather than waiting until the document is sent out for review.

The first round of review is conducted by a large number of expert reviewers—more than 2,500 for the entire AR4—who include scientists, industry representatives, and NGO experts with a wide range of perspectives. Lead authors are required to consider all comments and incorporate those with scientific merit—a process overseen by review editors (two per chapter) who have expertise in the specific topic covered by a given chapter. All review comments are archived together with the authors’ responses and/or resulting actions, and are available upon request.

If major differences emerge, lead authors are encouraged to organize a meeting with both the contributing authors and review editors to discuss and resolve the differences. The goal is not to reach a potentially “watered-down” compromise that conceals scientific uncertainties or real differences in expert opinion, but to produce a report of the highest scientific integrity, reflecting the state of our understanding fairly and adequately.

The revised draft is then sent back to the expert reviewers and also to government representatives for the so-called government review stage. Each government is entitled to organize any type of review process it deems appropriate. The U.S. government, for example, seeks comments from agencies, scientific experts, and the general public (through a notice in the Federal Register) as the starting point for its comments. Again, lead authors prepare revisions in response to scientifically valid comments, and encourage reviewers and other experts to resolve any remaining major differences by communicating directly. The resulting document is then submitted to the working group’s plenary session for consideration and acceptance.

Representing a Range of Expert Opinions
As mentioned above, one critical strategy the IPCC uses to ensure the scientific credibility and political legitimacy of its reports is to represent the range of scientific opinion on climate change fairly. To this end, the IPCC provides several channels for input from experts along the entire spectrum of opinion, including global warming contrarians.

First, accredited NGOs from all sides of the issue are welcome as observers at the opening plenary session and some other sessions over the course of the report production cycle. In addition, well-known contrarians can and do become contributing authors by submitting material to lead authors, and play advisory roles for their governments by working with government representatives to revise and approve the final SPMs. (See [2].)

The presence of climate change experts from industry and environmental organizations in the assessment process also illustrates the IPCC’s desire to seek input from outside traditional research institutions. Industry examples have included representatives from the Electric Power Research Institute and ExxonMobil. Environmental examples have included representatives from Environmental Defense, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others all over the world.

Climate contrarians frequently claim that the IPCC produces politically motivated reports that show only one side of the issues. Given the many stages at which experts from across the political and scientific spectrum are included in the process, however, this is a difficult position to defend. [3]

Furthermore, according to IPCC principles, lead authors are “required to record views in the text which are scientifically or technically valid, even if they cannot be reconciled with a consensus view.” [4]

Consensus Building within the IPCC
The word “consensus” is often invoked, and sometimes questioned, when speaking of IPCC reports. In fact, there are two arenas in which a consensus needs to be reached in the production of IPCC assessments; one is the meeting of the entire IPCC, in which unanimity is sought among government representatives. Even though such consensus is not required (countries are free to register their formal dissent), agreement has been reached on all documents and SPMs to date—a particularly impressive fact.

Consensus is also sought among the scientists writing each chapter of the technical reports. Because it would be clearly unrealistic to aim for unanimous agreement on every aspect of the report, the goal is to have all of the working group’s authors agree that each side of the scientific debate has been represented fairly.

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Post by Dardedar »

DAR
More evidence regarding today's high temperatures v. the temp of the last 5,000 years:

Source: Ohio State University
Date: June 27, 2006

First Compilation Of Tropical Ice Cores Shows Abrupt Global Climate Shifts

Science Daily — For the first time, glaciologists have combined and compared sets of ancient climate records trapped in ice cores from the South American Andes and the Asian Himalayas to paint a picture of how climate has changed – and is still changing – in the tropics.

Their conclusions mark a massive climate shift to a cooler regime that occurred just over 5,000 years ago, and a more recent reversal to a much warmer world within the last 50 years.

The evidence also suggests that most of the high-altitude glaciers in the planet's tropical regions will disappear in the near future. The paper is included in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Lastly, the research shows that in most of the world, glaciers and ice caps are rapidly retreating, even in areas where precipitation increases are documented. This implicates increasing temperatures and not decreasing precipitation as the most likely culprit.

The researchers from Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center and three other universities combined the chronological climate records retrieved from seven remote locations north and south of the equator. Cores drilled through ice caps and glaciers there have captured a climate history of each region, in some cases, providing annual records and in others decadal averages.

“Approximately 70 percent of the world's population now lives in the tropics so when climate changes there, the impacts are likely to be enormous,” explains Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological sciences at Ohio State.

For the last three decades, Thompson has led nearly 50 expeditions to remote ice caps and glaciers to drill cores through them and retrieve climate records. This study includes cores taken from the Huascaran and Quelccaya ice caps in Peru; the Sajama ice cap in Bolivia; the Dunde, Guliya, Puruogangri and Dasuopu ice caps in China.

For each of these cores, the team -- including research partner Ellen Mosley-Thompson, professor of geography at Ohio State – extracted chronological measurements of the ratio of two oxygen isotopes -- O18 and O16 -- whose ratio serves as an indicator of air temperature at the time the ice was formed. All seven cores provided clear annual records of the isotope ratios for the last 400 years and decadally averaged records dating back 2000 years.

“We have a record going back 2,000 years and when you plot it out, you can see the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA),” Thompson said. During the MWP, 700 to 1000 years ago, the climate warmed in some parts of the world. The MWP was followed by the LIA, a sudden onset of colder temperatures marked by advancing glaciers in Europe and North America .

“And in that same record, you can clearly see the 20th Century and the thing that stands out – whether you look at individual cores or the composite of all seven – is how unusually warm the last 50 years have been.

“There hasn't been anything in the record like it – not even the MWP,” Thompson said.

“The fact that the isotope values in the last 50 years have been so unusual means that things are dramatically changing. That's the real story here.”

While the isotope evidence is clear throughout all of the cores, Thompson says that the more dramatic evidence is the emergence of unfossilized wetland plants around the margin of the Quelccaya ice cap, uncovered as the ice retreated in recent years.

First discovered in 2002, the researchers have since identified 28 separate sites near the margin of the ice cap where these ancient plants have been exposed. Carbon-dating revealed that the plants range in age from 5,000 to 6,500 years old.

“This means that the climate at the ice cap hasn't been warmer than it is today in the last 5,000 years or more,” Thompson said. “If it had been, then the plants would have decayed.”

the rest...
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Image

On February 8, 2007, climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) announced that 2006 was the fifth-warmest year in the past century. GISS scientists estimated that the five warmest years on record were, in descending order, 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2006. Other climatology groups ordered the years somewhat differently due to different measuring techniques, especially in areas with sparse measurements, but they also considered these years to be the warmest. According to NASA GISS director James Hansen, 2007 is likely to see warmer temperatures than 2006 and could prove to be the warmest on record, thanks to an El Niño and continued emissions of greenhouse gases.

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Post by Hogeye »

“We have a record going back 2,000 years and when you plot it out, you can see the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA),” Thompson said.
Many/most climatologists recognize the MWP. Only a few hardcore alarmists seem to deny it.

So the official result is in: 2006 was cooler than 2005. And 2006 was even an El Nino year! The peak years still appears to be 1998, although NASA likes to claim 2005 tied with 1998.

Here's an article: Al Gore Comes to Oslo in December? An excerpt:
Jyllands-Posten , known for printing upsetting cartoons. Gore and his staff, however, had a problem with the interview. The problem was that the interview involved Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist .Al Gore chickened out .

Dr. Lomborg has criticized Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth for not being so true, or at least not being the whole truth. It seems most environmentalists, if not all, can’t stand normal discourse, where real discussion takes place. If you open your mouth and give the slightest sign that you are not aligned with the climate orthodoxy, you are likely to be made subject to name-calling. Opposition to the climate orthodoxy is almost treated like the opposition is treated in times of war.

...

According to Dr. Lomborg, the highlight of Gore’s movie is when the former vice president tells us that future generations will condemn us for not having implemented the Kyoto Protocol. Lomborg replies [ translated from Norwegian ]:

"More likely, they will wonder why Gore – in a world full of unpleasant truths – chose to direct attention to the one where there was the least to accomplish for the highest cost."

Will future generations forgive those of us who were so worried about carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that they forgot about all the other problems, which also were real problems?

One could take the question of grandchildren and future generations further. What will future generations say about our using resources on "fighting climate change" when it turned out that this was a hopeless fight, and that resources should have been used, at least partly, instead on adjusting to the changes?

If the "war on climate change" leads to further growth in government power, much the same way, e.g., the wars of the 20 th century did, what are we to tell future generations when they ask why we did nothing for liberty? What are we to tell our grandchildren when they ask why we let government power grow further?
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Post by Dardedar »

Hogeye wrote:Many/most climatologists recognize the MWP.
DAR
Correction. All climatologists (I know of no exceptions) recognize there was some moderate warming during medieval times. Specifially well confirmed in the nothern hemisphere.
Only a few hardcore alarmists seem to deny it.
DAR
Back it up. Who, specifically, denies there was warming during this period?

Answer: no one.
So the official result is in: 2006 was cooler than 2005.
DAR
Well then, we have entered your cooling trend indeed.

As one fellow put it:

"I'd recommend a good course in statistics. You are trying to generalize from a sample of 5-10 years [actually 2 in your case--Dar]. The warming has been going on for over 100 years, though the most recent phase of it has lasted about 30. Mean global annual surface temperatures are a random walk around a steadily increasing mean."

D.
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Post by Doug »

Hogeye wrote:So the official result is in: 2006 was cooler than 2005. And 2006 was even an El Nino year! The peak years still appears to be 1998, although NASA likes to claim 2005 tied with 1998.
DOUG
A. It is ridiculous to say that if 1998 was hotter than 2006, then global warming is not occurring. The global warming thesis is not about the Earth consistently getting hotter each year. Your point is a non-sequitur.

B. 1998 was only very slightly hotter than 2006. The race was so close, many scientists thought 2006 was in fact hotter than 1998 until the data was re-analyzed.

C. Note: 2007 is expected to be the hottest year on record.
The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, the UK's Met Office says.
An extended warming period, resulting from an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, will probably push up global temperatures, experts forecast.

They say there is a 60% chance that the average surface temperature will match or exceed the current record from 1998.

The scientists also revealed that 2006 saw the highest average temperature in the UK since records began in 1914.
See here.


AND
Combined, they [global warming and El Niño] are set to bring extreme conditions across the globe and make 2007 warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record. It is likely temperatures will also exceed 2006, which was declared in December the hottest in Britain since 1659 and the sixth warmest in global records.
Here.
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Post by Dardedar »

DOUG
A. It is ridiculous to say that if 1998 was hotter than 2006, then global warming is not occurring. The global warming thesis is not about the Earth consistently getting hotter each year.
DAR
Of course it isn't. It's absurd. But it is interesting that we are spiking now so consistently and so sharply that what is happening is in line with the most harsh predictions. As the latest IPCC findings note:

"Eleven of the last twelve years rank among the twelve hottest years on record."

D.
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Hogeye wrote: The problem was that the interview involved Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist
DAR
Gore did the right thing. He no doubt gets far more offers for interviews than he can accept and there is no reason to waste time mixing up good science with contrarian misinformation and quackery. These contrarians like Lomborg are not open to reason, only spinning. See:

Misinformation from Lomborg which deals directly with the dishonest misinformation passed along from Lomborg in your WSJ article.

These GW deniers are so similar to creationists we need some kind of Huxley, a "Darwin's Bulldog" to go around and roast them. Not everyone who is qualified on the science is up to the task of dealing with this kind of stuff. As with the creationists, the information these people peddle is so far out there, so contrary to the facts and often so bizarre, spun and twisted that a hard working scientist could (like a biologist unfamiliar with creationist claims) be "baffled by the bullshit." As Doug said WTF?
Lomborg is a very smooth spinner. But he has a far rightwing apologist script that he follows just as if he was a FOX newscaster. But like Bill O'Reilly who can impersonate an independant, Lomborg can act the part of an environmentalist at times. His speciality? Political science. Perfect.

D.
-------------------------
I read some more about Lomborg. He is a serial fact-fudger it seems:

***
After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was accused of scientific dishonesty. Several environmental scientists brought a total of three complaints against Lomborg to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The charges claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation.

DCSD investigation

On January 6, 2003 the DCSD reached a decision on the complaints. The ruling was a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question[3]:

Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. ...In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.

The DCSD cited The Skeptical Environmentalist for:

1. Fabrication of data;
2. Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
3. Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
4. Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
5. Plagiarism;
6. Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.

DAR
Well he certainly has the qualifications and experience to be a leading GW denier!

The above decision was appealed and it went round and round. They didn't reinvestigate because of the likelyhood that the findings would be the same.

Also:
A catalogue of criticisms against Lomborg has been established and maintained by Kare Fog on the Lomborg-errors web site. For each page in each chapter in The Skeptical Environmentalist, Fog lists alleged flaws and errors. Each of these is described in detail, and if there are indications to Fog's mind that the errors may have been made deliberately in order to mislead, this is indicated. According to Mr. Fog, it has never been commented upon by Bjørn Lomborg, and no errors have been proven false. Mr. Fog contends that the suspicion that Lomborg has misled deliberately is thus maintained; responses to a very small number the 300 items can be found at Mr. Lomborg's website at http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm.
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Post by Dardedar »

Doug wrote: The scientists also revealed that 2006 saw the highest average temperature in the UK since records began in 1914.
DAR
Your other source in this post says:

"It is likely temperatures will also exceed 2006, which was declared in December the hottest in Britain since 1659 and the sixth warmest in global records."

I have seen 1659 date a lot. I haven't seen the 1914 claim before. It must be a mistake because no doubt temperatures were being measure in the UK before 1914! 2006 was also the hottest ever recorded in the US. Basically, the northern hemisphere was record hot last year. But that's just an anecdote.

D.
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Warmest January Ever Recorded Worldwide in 2007: US Scientists
Agence France-Presse

Friday 16 February 2007

New York - World temperatures in January were the highest ever recorded for that month of the year, US government scientists said.

"The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the highest for any January on record," according to scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climate Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit (0.85 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average of 53.6 degrees F (12 C) for January based on preliminary data, NOAA said.

The figures surpass the previous record set in 2002 at 1.28 F (0.71 C) above average.

...

"During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.11 F (0.06 C) per decade, but the rate of increase has been three times larger since 1976, or 0.32 F (0.18 C) per decade, with some of the largest temperature increases occurring in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere," it said.

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Australia to phase out standard light bulbs

Tuesday Feb 20 05:00 AEDT

Australia is set to become the first country in the world to stop using the cheap standard light bulb, with the federal government expected today to announce a commitment to phasing out inefficient incandescent light within three years

The ambitious plan, set to be unveiled by Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, aims to have every Australian home lit by compact fluorescent light by 2009-10.

Replacing the old bulb is expected to cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by 800,000 tonnes, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Under increasing pressure to deal with climate change, the Howard government is set to use this plan as an example of Australia's commitment to solving the problem of global warming.
...
The idea of changing the light was also proposed in California last month, branded the "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act".
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DAR
This GW skeptic stuff is getting so pathetic it should almost start going in the humor section. Remember that loon, Tim Ball?

Image

The only fellow in the "Friends of Science" that had any direct expertise in climatology (although he hadn't published anything on it in nigh 15 years). He was the one that until recently, thought the earth was cooling and that we should be preparing for it. Look at the whopper he is still telling.

***
Ball's Self-promotion Presumptuous Twaddle

8 Feb 07

As recently as Monday Feb 5, 2007, the presumptuous Dr. Tim Ball was still advertising himself as "the first Canadian PhD in climatology."

Here, for the record, is an incomplete list of Canadian climatologists, all of whom received their climatology PhDs before Ball (1983). Each of these has a list of publications and accomplishments that should leave the good Dr. Ball feeling chastened, if not humiliated, when he tries to pass himself off as a Canadian expert.

***
[Just their names, I have edited out their credentials and the extensive details of their expertise. Go to the link to see their pictures too --Dar]

Leonard A. Barrie

George J. Boer

Ian Burton

James P. Bruce

Dr. Stephen Calvert, FRSC

Garry Clarke

R. Allyn Clarke

Jacques Derome

Keith Donald Hage

F. Kenneth Hare

Edgar Wendell Hewson

Steve Lambert

J. Ross Mackay

Gordon McBean

Dr. J. C. McConnell, FRSC

Norm McFarlane

Lawrence Mysak

Tim Oke

André Robert

Marie Elizabeth Sanderson

-----
Credit for compliling this list to Dan Johnson, University of Lethbridge
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Post by Doug »

Darrel wrote:Australia to phase out standard light bulbs

Australia is set to become the first country in the world to stop using the cheap standard light bulb, with the federal government expected today to announce a commitment to phasing out inefficient incandescent light within three years
DOUG
This is great leadership. Too bad Bush can't think of something like this.
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I thought this was quite good:

The Global Revolution
By Jeffrey Sachs
Project Syndicate

Monday 26 February 2007

All countries, both rich and poor, must come together to confront climate change.

The world is in the midst of a great political transformation, in which climate change has moved to the center of national and global politics. For politicians in persistent denial about the need act, including US President Bush, Australian prime minister John Howard, and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, there is no longer any place to hide. The science is clear, manmade changes in climate are being felt, and the electorate's demand for action is growing.

Though unlikely just a few months ago, a strong global agreement by 2010, one that will set a path for action for decades to come, now stands a good chance of being implemented.

Political leaders in countries that produce coal, oil, and gas - like the US, Australia, and Canada - have pretended that climate change is a mere hypothesis. For several years, the Bush administration tried to hide the facts from the public, deleting references to manmade climate from government documents and even trying to suppress statements by leading government scientists. Until recently, Exxon Mobil and other companies paid lobbyists to try to distort the public debate.

Yet truth has triumphed over political manoeuvres. The climate itself is sending a powerful and often devastating message. Hurricane Katrina made the US public aware that global warming would likely raise the intensity of destructive storms. Australia's great drought this past year has similarly made a mockery of Howard's dismissive attitude toward climate change.

Scientists themselves have operated with great seriousness of purpose in educating the public. We can thank the United Nations for that. The UN sponsors the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a worldwide body of hundreds of climate scientists who report every few years to the public on the science of climate change.

This year, the IPCC is releasing its fourth round of reports, starting with the one issued early in February. That report was unequivocal: there is a powerful scientific consensus that human activity, mainly the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), as well as deforestation and other land uses (such as growing paddy rice), leads to massive emissions of carbon dioxide into the air. This is causing climate change, which is accelerating and poses serious risks to the planet.

The single biggest threat comes from the production and consumption of energy for electricity, transport, and heating and cooling buildings. But the world's scientists and engineers, as well as global technology leaders such as General Electric, are also sending a clear message: we can solve the problem at modest cost if we put our best thinking and action into real solutions.

By shifting to alternative energy sources, economising on energy use, and capturing and safely storing the carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuels, global society can limit its emissions of carbon dioxide to prudent levels at an estimated cost of under 1% of global income. The changeover to a sustainable energy system will not come quickly, and will require new kinds of electrical power plants, new kinds of automobiles, and "green buildings" which economise on energy use.

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Post by Hogeye »

Typical alarmist drivel. Katrina due to global warming! LOL! A drought claimed caused by global warming. Stupid anecdotal "evidence" like that, unfortunately, will convince many. If you replaced "global warming" by "the Jewish problem," it could pass for a Nazi tract. The article portrays the political IPCC as a scientific org. LOL!

But at least most of the specific things it recommends, i.e. shifting to alternative energy sources, economising on energy use, are useful for legitimate environmental reasons. The article's recommendation for an international authoritarian war on carbon dioxide is another matter. Luckily, States are generally too incompetent to pull that off. Not to mention that China and India will never consent to starve their people by not industrializing.
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Post by Dardedar »

Hogeye wrote: Katrina due to global warming!
DAR
That's your distortion of the claim. If you read sites like Lew Rockwell's all the time you probably start to think that distortion, exaggeration and misrepresentation is acceptable and the norm. It isn't acceptable and it isn't useful.

Here is the mudane and perfectly accurate claim in question:

"Hurricane Katrina made the US public aware that global warming would likely raise the intensity of destructive storms."

No one doubts that hurricanes derive much of their energy from heat stored in the ocean. Increase the temperature = increase the amount of fuel. Duh.

Consider:

***
'October 3, 2005
Scientists monitoring ocean heat and circulation in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have a new understanding of how these tropical storms can gain intensity so quickly: The Gulf of Mexico's "Loop Current" is likely intensifying hurricanes that pass over eddies of warm water that spin off the main current.

"A positive outcome of a hurricane season like this is that we've been able to learn more about the Loop Current and its associated warm-water eddies, which are basically hurricane intensity engines," said Nick Shay, a University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) meteorologist and physical oceanographer.

The Loop Current is a horseshoe-shaped feature that flows clockwise, transferring warm subtropical waters from the Caribbean Sea through the Yucatan Straits into the Gulf of Mexico.

This year, the Loop Current extended deep into the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season. Currents at this time of year typically become unsteady and pinch off deep, warm eddies, said Shay. The warm water then becomes ideal for hurricanes in the process of intensifying.

"Scientists have known that hurricanes form above the world's warmest ocean surface waters," said Jay Fein, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which funded the research. "This study adds new information about hurricanes' journeys to landfall, and will help to better predict their paths and intensity changes during their final hours over open water."

National Science Foundation

And:

'Hurricane forecasters rely on daily sea surface temperatures to determine the behavior of tropical cyclones, the general name for tropical depressions, tropical storms, typhoons and hurricanes. Sea surface temperatures must be at least 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius) for a tropical cyclone to develop and maintain itself. If there are no winds to tear a storm apart, warm ocean waters often allow a tropical cyclone to strengthen, since it is the primary "fuel" for development."

Science Daily ...adapted from a news release issued by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

And:

Researchers link human activities to rising ocean temperatures in hurricane formation regions

LIVERMORE, Calif. — New research shows that rising sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in hurricane “breeding grounds” of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are unlikely to be purely natural in origin. These findings complement earlier work that uncovered compelling scientific evidence of a link between warming SSTs and increases in hurricane intensity.

Warm ocean waters fuel hurricanes, and there was plenty of warm water for Hurricane Katrina to build up strength once she crossed over Florida and moved into the Gulf of Mexico. This image depicts a three-day average of actual sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, from August 25-27, 2005. Every area in yellow, orange or red represents 82 degrees Fahrenheit or above. A hurricane needs SSTs at 82 degrees or warmer to strengthen. The data came from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Click here to download a high-resolution image.

Previous studies to understand the causes of SST changes have focused on temperature changes averaged over very large ocean areas – such as the entire Atlantic or Pacific basins. The new research specifically targets SST changes in much smaller hurricane formation regions.

Using 22 different computer models of the climate system, atmospheric scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ten other research centers have shown that the warming of the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans over the last century is directly linked to human activities.

...
Hurricanes are complex phenomena and are influenced by a variety of physical factors such as SST, wind shear, moisture availability and atmospheric stability. The increasing SSTs in the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane formation regions isn’t the sole cause of hurricane intensity, but is likely to be one of the most important influences on hurricane strength."

Then there is the evidence that we are influencing it:

Human Activities Are Boosting Ocean Temperatures in Areas Where Hurricanes Form, New Study Finds

"We've used virtually all the world's climate models to study the causes of SST changes in hurricane formation regions," Santer says.

Research published during the past year has uncovered evidence of a link between rising ocean temperatures and increases in hurricane intensity. This has raised concerns about the causes of the rising temperatures, particularly in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific where hurricanes and other tropical cyclones form.

See also:

Forced and unforced ocean temperature changes in Atlantic and Pacific tropical cyclogenesis regions]

"Previous research has identified links between changes in sea surface temperature (SST) and hurricane intensity. We use climate models to study the possible causes of SST changes in Atlantic and Pacific tropical cyclogenesis regions. The observed SST increases in these regions range from 0.32°C to 0.67°C over the 20th century. The 22 climate models examined here suggest that century-timescale SST changes of this magnitude cannot be explained solely by unforced variability of the climate system. We employ model simulations of natural internal variability to make probabilistic estimates of the contribution of external forcing to observed SST changes. For the period 1906-2005, we find an 84% chance that external forcing explains at least 67% of observed SST increases in the two tropical cyclogenesis regions. Model "20th-century" simulations, with external forcing by combined anthropogenic and natural factors, are generally capable of replicating observed SST increases. In experiments in which forcing factors are varied individually rather than jointly, human-caused changes in greenhouse gases are the main driver of the 20th-century SST increases in both tropical cyclogenesis regions."
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Post by Dardedar »

Climate Change Impact More Extensive Than Thought

By Volker Mrasek
Der Spiegel
Friday 02 March 2007

Global climate change is happening faster than previously believed and its impact is worse than expected, information from an as-yet unpublished draft of the long-awaited second part of a United Nations report. No region of the planet will be spared and some will be hit especially hard.
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Post by Hogeye »

A new book recently came out debunking the chicken littles:

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism

Here is a review of the book.
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Post by Savonarola »

Hogeye wrote:A new book recently came out debunking the chicken littles:

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism
Just like other PIG books "debunk" science and evolution?

I invite anybody to investigate the credibility of the entire PIGnorant series. As I put it when addressing The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, the word "Politically" needs to be crossed out in order to make the title accurate. This line is nothing but steaming bovine excrement passed around by the RWNJs.

Here's a fun blog entry of fake PIG covers that -- frankly -- some of us might not be too surprised to see.

And yes, Hogeye will probably throw out claims of ad hominem attacks, but any honest assessment of the PIGs removes any reason to consider them reliable sources.
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