Global Warming General Thread

[Dardedar]

From a thread at realclimate.org:

***
Comment: "recent crop failures pale in comparison to those that have occurred throughout history.">>

Response: "Today, however, [with climate change] we face a problem which is radically different in three respects.

First, civilization is global, not local. We’re not talking about Rome or North America, we’re talking about everyone, everywhere.

Second, the human population is currently dependent upon a greatly enhanced agricultural output. We’re not talking about a city state of 50,000 or 200,000 people where most of the population is directly involved in food production, we’re talking about an interconnected civilization of billions where (at least in the west) almost no one does anything more than shop for food. People don’t provide for themselves… the system provides.

Lastly, we’re not talking about a sustained 1C swing in global temperatures (and associated precipitation changes, which are the real killer) as in the past 2,000 years (with local swings of — I’m guessing — 3C to 5C). We’re talking about a 3C to 6C global swing, with local swings up to 8C or 12C or even 20C (very, very worst case, so don’t jump on that). And this isn’t something that will necessarily pass in “just” a few hundred years.

[As a side note, part of the problem in your presentation is the use of “recent crop failures” as a reference point. No one is all that worried about what has happened to date. Today isn’t the problem. 30 or 50 years from today is the problem.

This is very much like the rather optimistic man who fell off of the top of the Empire State Building. Each time he passed an open window, he was heard to say “so far, so good.”]

http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_po ... ent-195071

[Dardedar]

2010 Hottest Year on Record:

"Climate change is worsening, fast. The National Climate Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just announced that for the entire planet, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005. And the period 2001 to 2010 is the hottest decade on record for the globe. The actual data are here.

And the hottest 10 years on record in order:

2010
2005
1998
2003
2002
2009
2006
2007
2004
2001

LINK

[Dardedar]

The guy who did the Oregon Petition? Art Robinson? Watch him make a complete and utter fool of himself on Rachael Madow:

http://climatecrocks.com/2010/10/13/ast ... -robinson/

Nuclear waste? Dilute it and sprinkle it over the oceans and America.

AIDS? A government conspiracy.

[Dardedar]

Worst case:

“A new analysis has concluded that the magnitude of climate
change during Earth''s deep past suggests that future
temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if
society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse
gases. “Building on recent research, the study examines
the relationship between global temperatures and high levels of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tens of millions of years ago.
It warns that, if carbon dioxide emissions continue at their
current rate through the end of this century, atmospheric
concentrations of the greenhouse gas will reach levels that
existed about 30 million to 100 million years ago, when global
temperatures averaged about 29 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees
Celsius) above pre-industrial levels. “National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jeffrey Kiehl said that
global temperatures might gradually rise over centuries or
millennia in response to the carbon dioxide. The elevated
levels of carbon dioxide may remain in the atmosphere for tens
of thousands of years, according to recent computer model
studies of geochemical processes that the study
cites.”
--Source: “Earth’s hot past points to drastic
global warming,” TopNews Network, Jan 14,
2011-01-14

http://www.topnews.in/usa/earths-hot-pa ... ming-26826

[Dardedar]

Fox News' Top 10 Climate Science Distortions And Fabrications

1. Global warming "doesn't exist"

2. 2009 was "the coldest year on record"

3. "Nearly all of the [Arctic] ice has returned"

4. "How can there be global warming if it's snowing and it's bitterly cold?"

5. "The Earth is actually cooling now"

6. Hacked emails prove scientists are "doctoring" data to exaggerate global warming

7. El Nino is the cause of warming of the past 30 years

8. Climate science warned of global cooling in the 1970s

9. "NASA acknowledges solar cycle, not man, responsible for global warming"

10. Phil Jones told BBC that "the Middle Ages were warmer than the climate now"

Data for each claim at Media Matters

[Dardedar]

I am not completely sold on this correlation, but it is consistent with what climate change predicts:

Munich Re Says Natural Disasters in Germany Tripled Since 1970 on Climate

By Holger Elfes and Oliver Suess - Feb 17, 2011

German insurers’ losses from natural catastrophes are rising as global climate change causes more inundations and storms, Munich Re said.

Weather-related events have more than tripled in the country over the past 40 years, Peter Hoeppe, who heads the Munich-based reinsurer’s Geo Risks Research Department, told journalists in Dusseldorf today. A rising trend is also measurable worldwide, he said.

Insurers’ claims costs related to natural disasters rose last year. Allianz SE, Europe’s biggest insurer, recorded “high losses from natural catastrophes and bad weather conditions” in the three months ended September 2010, it said in the quarterly report on its website. Flooding, windstorms and a hailstorm cost the firm about 137 million euros ($186 million) in Germany in the period, it said. Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, also owns primary insurer Ergo Versicherungsgruppe.

“Climate change is a fact,” Hoeppe said, adding that 2010 was the hottest year worldwide since records started, according to data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. Higher temperatures are increasingly leading to extreme rainfall and storms."

Bloomberg

[Dardedar]

Quite an article:

Extinction and Climate

Life on Earth does not enjoy change, and climate change is something it likes least of all. Every aspect of an organism’s life depends on climate, so if that variable changes, everything else changes too – the availability of food and water, the timing of migration or hibernation, even the ability of bodily systems to keep running.

Species can adapt to gradual changes in their environment through evolution, but climate change often moves too quickly for them to do so. It’s not the absolute temperature, then, but the rate of change that matters. Woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers thrived during the Ice Ages, but if the world were to shift back to that climate overnight, we would be in trouble.

Put simply, if climate change is large enough, quick enough, and on a global scale, it can be the perfect ingredient for a mass extinction. This is worrying, as we are currently at the crux of a potentially devastating period of global warming, one that we are causing. Will our actions cause a mass extinction a few centuries down the line? We can’t tell the future of evolution, but we can look at the past for reference points.

There have been five major extinction events in the Earth’s history, which biologists refer to as “The Big Five”. The Ordovician-Silurian, Late Devonian, Permian-Triassic, Late Triassic, Cretaceous-Tertiary…they’re a bit of a mouthful, but all five happened before humans were around, and all five are associated with climate change. Let’s look at a few examples.

the rest...

[Dardedar]

"Despite having no more scientific credibility than the Flat Earth Society, the climate cranks have held our nation's climate policy hostage for decades now. One reason the United States has done so little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the past twenty years is that our government and media have listened as much to climate cranks as to real scientists."

Mark Hertsgarrd

[Dardedar]

How they do "science" over at the Heartland Institute:

[L.Wood]

.


Scientists Are Cleared of Misuse of Data
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: February 24, 2011

"An inquiry by a federal watchdog agency found no evidence that scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmos
pheric Administration manipulated climate data to buttress the evidence in support of global warming, officials said on Thursday."

Don't even think about this NYT report appearing on FAUX NEWs.

The NYT headline should have been 'Scientists cleared of Media Accusations of Misuse of Data'

.

[Dardedar]

Now this is what I like to see. A crappy crank filled climate science denier rag "Energy & Environment" has threatened to sue the climatologists at realclimate because they wrote something mildly critical of them. The complaint was that they wrote this:

"The evidence for this is in precisely what happens in venues like E&E that have effectively dispensed with substantive peer review for any papers that follow the editor’s political line.”

This would be a lawsuit in Britain so it has the potential to be a Very Big Deal. Did they roll over and write a retraction to avoid being sued? No, they told them to get stuffed and piled on with lots of extra evidence backing up their claim:

E&E threatens a libel suit

Definitely worth reading.

[Dardedar]

"Why are we arguing the issue [climate change]? Challenging vested interests as powerful as the oil and coal lobbies was never going to be easy. Scientists are not naturally aggressive defenders of arguments. In short, they are conservatives by training: never, ever risk overstating your ideas. The skeptics are far, far more determined and expert propagandists to boot. They are also well funded. That smoking caused cancer was obfuscated deliberately and effectively for 20 years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.

We know that for certain now, yet those who caused this fatal delay have never been held accountable. The profits of the oil and coal industry make tobacco’s resources look like a rounding error. In some notable cases, the obfuscators of global warming actually use the same “experts” as the tobacco industry did! The obfuscators’ simple and direct motivation – making money in the near term, which anyone can relate to – combined with their resources and, as it turns out, propaganda talents, have meant that we are arguing the science long after it has been nailed down. I, for one, admire them for their P.R. skills, while wondering, as always: “Have they no grandchildren?” --Jeremy Grantham

[Dardedar]

Critics' review unexpectedly supports scientific consensus on global warming

A UC Berkeley team's preliminary findings in a review of temperature data confirm global warming studies.

A team of UC Berkeley physicists and statisticians that set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming is finding that its data-crunching effort is producing results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view.

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched by physics professor Richard Muller, a longtime critic of government-led climate studies, to address what he called "the legitimate concerns" of skeptics who believe that global warming is exaggerated.

But Muller unexpectedly told a congressional hearing last week that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is "excellent.... We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups."

The hearing was called by GOP leaders of the House Science & Technology committee, who have expressed doubts about the integrity of climate science. It was one of several inquiries in recent weeks as the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to curb planet-heating emissions from industrial plants and motor vehicles have come under strenuous attack in Congress.

Muller said his group was surprised by its findings, but he cautioned that the initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined.

The Berkeley project's biggest private backer, at $150,000, is the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch are the nation's most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on the burning of fossil fuels, the largest contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gases."

The rest at LA Times

[Doug]

Even Charles Manson Knows Global Warming is a Threat

Charles Manson, the notorious cult leader, has broken his 20-year silence, and is speaking out about global warming.

Manson, now 76 years old, was accused of brainwashing members of his commune known as “The Manson Family." He was jailed 40 years ago for orchestrating the murders of eight people -- carried out at his instruction -- including Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate.

The Telegraph reports that during a recent interview with Spain’s Vanity Fair magazine, Manson warned of a danger that he thinks is greater than himself -- global warming.

Manson said, "Everyone's God and if we don't wake up to that there's going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we're doing bad things to the atmosphere… The automobiles and fossil fuels are destroying the atmosphere and we won't have air to breathe.”

Before trailing off, Manson added, 'If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem...'

See here.See the Vanity Fair article (in Spanish) here.

[Savonarola]

Charles Manson, the notorious cult leader, has broken his 20-year silence, and is speaking out about global warming.

Great. Now the rightwingers will claim that people who accept GW as true are part of the Manson family.

[Dardedar]

Another reason to be rather pessimistic on this topic of climate change:

The methane hydrate feedback revisited

April 25, 2011

Methane release from the not-so-perma-frost is the most dangerous amplifying feedback in the entire carbon cycle (see “NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100“).

Methane (CH4) deserves attention it is such a highly potent greenhouse gas — 25-33 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year time-horizon, but as much as 100 time more potent over 20 years, according to the latest research!

Last year I reported on a major study in Science that found the vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores appeared to be destabilizing and venting. The normally staid National Science Foundation issued a press release warning “Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”

Climate Progress

[Dardedar]

"The problem for global warming deniers is that we have known for about 150 years that raising the level of atmospheri­c CO2 would warm the planet, and the evidence that this is now happening has been clear for about 30 years.

Therefore their only recourse is to just deny everything - deny the universall­y accepted temperatur­e record that shows accelerati­ng warming... deny the very clear attributio­n of that warming to human causes... deny that the ice is melting all over the planet... deny that the warmer, moister atmosphere is causing demonstrab­ly more extreme weather... deny that the seasons are changing, that climate zones are shifting polewards and uphill, that sea level rise is accelerati­ng, that drought is increasing­, that permafrost is thawing and that literally thousands of other physical and biological metrics indicate a warming world.

Only by denying the truth, rejecting the overwhelmi­ng evidence and slandering decent, honest climate scientists do these sociopathi­c anti-scien­ce individual­s hope to deceive the public and thereby protect the billions of dollars in profits of the fossil fuel industry."

Huff Po comment

[Dardedar]

Catholics up to speed on climate change:

Fate of Mountain Glaciers
in the Anthropocene

A Report by the Working Group Commissioned by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

Declaration by the Working Group

"We call on all people and nations to recognise the serious
and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused
by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other
pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other
land uses. We appeal to all nations to develop and implement, without
delay, effective and fair policies to reduce the causes and impacts of
climate change on communities and ecosystems, including mountain
glaciers and their watersheds, aware that we all live in the same home.
By acting now, in the spirit of common but differentiated responsibility,
we accept our duty to one another and to the stewardship of a planet
blessed with the gift of life.
We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet
receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink
as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect
the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant
us this wish."

http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/reso ... e-science/

[Dardedar]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/carter- ... rming.html

[Dardedar]

Global Warming Skeptics: A Primer

For All But a Few Climate Scientists, the Debate Is Over.
But Guess Who's Paying the Doubters?

In 1998, Exxon devised a plan to hold off action on global warming. The
strategy was outlined in an internal memo, titled Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan,
which promised, "Victory will be achieved when uncertainties in climate science become part of the conventional
wisdom" for "average citizens" and "the media." The company would
recruit and train new scientists who lack a "history of visibility in the
climate debate" and pay them to develop materials depicting supporters
of action to cut greenhouse gas emissions as "out of touch with reality."
ExxonMobil has since poured millions of dollars into spreading its message
worldwide. Here's where some of that money went."

LINK