I want to sue the republican party for willful denial of scientific evidence about climate change.

[PeterMP]

We went backwards in emissions due to the recession AND increased natural gas usage, but as the economy has recovered and natural gas prices have gone up, we've had 2 straight years of emission increases.

[Mad Mike]

Global carbon dioxide levels break 400ppm milestone | Environment | The Guardian

 

 

Figures released by the US science agency Noaa on Wednesday show that for the first time since records began, the parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere were over 400 globally for a month.

 

The measure is the key indicator of the amount of planet-warming gases man is putting into the atmosphere at record rates, and the current concentrations are unprecedented in millions of years.

[Mad Mike]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-06-18/this-year-is-headed-for-the-hottest-on-record-by-a-long-shot

 

 

We broke the record. Again. 

 

Last month was the hottest May on record, and the past five months were the warmest start to a year on record, according to new data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It's a continuation of trends that made 2014 the most blistering year for the surface of the planet, in records going back to 1880. 

 

The animation below shows the Earth’s warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea over more than 135 years. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest years are in the 21st century, and 2015 is on track to break the heat record again. It isn't even close.  

 

I was going to come back and post a quote from this article anyway. But for the record, I have more of a problem with stupid posts and links than brief ones.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Mad Mike

[Predicto]

Global carbon dioxide levels break 400ppm milestone | Environment | The Guardian

 

 

 

Figures released by the US science agency Noaa on Wednesday show that for the first time since records began, the parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere were over 400 globally for a month.

 

The measure is the key indicator of the amount of planet-warming gases man is putting into the atmosphere at record rates, and the current concentrations are unprecedented in millions of years.

 

 

But but volcanoes.  Propaganda.  Al Gore.  Teach the controversy.   

[Larry]

Can we get a board rule prohibiting posts which consist entirely of a link, with no point in the post whatsoever? 

[PeterMP]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/18/world/pope-francis-climate-technology-encyclical/index.html

 

I've said before I think there is a better chance of the next conservationist US real political leader (e.g. significant politician) coming out of the "religious" right, then the (non-religious) left.

Edited June 19, 2015 by PeterMP

[twa]

I've said before I think there is a better chance of the next conservationist US real political leader (e.g. significant politician) coming out of the "religious" right, then the (non-religious) left.

 

it is getting to be a thing, kinda like church gyms and coffee shops.

 

Huckleberry ?

[twa]

We went backwards in emissions due to the recession AND increased natural gas usage, but as the economy has recovered and natural gas prices have gone up, we've had 2 straight years of emission increases.

 

NG price hasn't went up significantly , and usage is set to rise(especially in commercial/industrial,electric generation)

 

Shoulda been a bigger push on transportation, but someone has electric fever.

 

Shipping is making the move finally

[twa]

 

 

I don't know for sure.  I don't know of or really see a mechanism by which aquifer use would affect temperatures to any significant amount.

 

The water from surface reservoirs would be more of a factor I'd think since evaporation is pretty substaintial, but even those are probably fairly neutral .

 

trivia,   they are planning injection wells to recharge some (Aquifers)reservoirs here with flood water to avoid that evaporation issue(and refill of course)

Edited June 19, 2015 by twa

[Mad Mike]

Can we get a board rule prohibiting posts which consist entirely of a link, with no point in the post whatsoever?

What is your friggin issue now? Do you get some special thrill complaining about my posts?

And for the record, when posting from my iPhone i am forced to be brief. Deal with it.

[Larry]

What is your friggin issue now? Do you get some special thrill complaining about my posts?

And for the record, when posting from my iPhone i am forced to be brief. Deal with it.

Funny. I didn't single out your post. (Frankly, twa does it a lot more than you, or at least it seems that way).

And I post from my iPhone, and I'm actually able to type on it. (I'm on the iPad, right now).

Deal with it.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Larry

[Redskins Diehard]

Funny. I didn't single out your post. (Frankly, twa does it a lot more than you, or at least it seems that way).

And I post from my iPhone, and I'm actually able to type on it. (I'm on the iPad, right now).

Deal with it.

in fairness he didn't say the iPhone forced him to do it. Just said when he uses that he is forced.

I'm on android and can be as long winded add I'd like. ..or that the mods will permit.

DWI

[Mad Mike]

Funny. I didn't single out your post. (Frankly, twa does it a lot more than you, or at least it seems that way).

And I post from my iPhone, and I'm actually able to type on it. (I'm on the iPad, right now).

Deal with it.

 

You do realize that my single link post was directly above yours right? You think maybe you can be more specific about your issue next time? It might help avoid further confusion. 

[twa]

 (Frankly, twa does it a lot more than you, or at least it seems that way).

 

 

 

Really?

Not long winded like some folk   but just posting links would be a aberration 

[DCSaints_fan]

I'm operating under the assumption that, as far as water is concerned, the earth is a closed system. water moves or changes state, but otherwise we don't magically get/lose water?

 

if water is being moved from location to another, in significant quantities, i would think it would have an affect on water temperature? especially if the rate of water temperature change is related to the volume of water we're talking about? if it's not finding its way back to the aquifers, then it must be going to the ocean?

 

i don't know, it's why i was asking

 

The Water cycle is mostly closed on a small time scale, but not on a geologic one.  Plants (autotrophs) consume water and oxygen to produce sugars/starches (carbohydrates), which in turn get eaten up by heterotrophs  (animals, fungi, etc.), and then expelled as CO2 and H20 But not 100% of autotrophs get consumed, some of them get buried.   So in some respects that water/CO2 is "locked in" to the carbohydrates of the dead autotrophs.   However, this effect is very small and really only apples on a geological time scale (tens of millions of years)

 

I think there are some complications here with methanogens, etc. so what I wrote here is probaby a grade school simplification, but its the basic idea

 

Also, at Earth temperatures, water exists in an solid-liquid-gas equilbrium

water vapor <-> water (liquid) <-> ice    

Warming the planet causes the equlibrium to shift towards vapor, cooling it causes it to shift towards ice

 

Where as CO2 at Earth temperatures and pressures, only exists as a gas.

 

Water vapor actually contributes to the greenhouse effect more than carbon dioxide.   However, if you could magically pump water vapor into the atmosphere ex nihilo, it would just end up precipitating out as liquid (condensing, i.e, rain) somewhere else, and not effect the climate appreciably.  Whereas with CO2, that doesn't happen because it exists only as a gas and doesn't condensee at Earth temps/pressures.  (Plants of course convert CO2 to sugars, but this takes quite a while to have an effect on CO2 levels)   CO2/Methane driven warming causes the water vapor/liquid/ice equllibrum to shift towards vapor, which amplfies the warming effect of water vapor because it drives more of it to the vapor phase (which is a green house gas).  Which, in turn, heats up the planet and caues more water to evaporate, etc..   This is an example of positive feedback loop, The reason why its not a "runaway" effect, is because, simply the feedback diminishes with each "loop", at least for small concentratons.  However, there is a point where it does become a "runaway" efffect that would boil the oceans off Earth.   However I think this point is beyond several thousands of ppm CO2 and its not really possible to reach anytime soon.   Even so, I'm not eager to find out 700 ppm CO2 Earth would look like in terms of human civilization :-|

Edited June 19, 2015 by DCSaints_fan

[twa]

there will be a day of reckoning

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

For much of my life I have been a science writer. That means I eavesdrop on what’s going on in laboratories so I can tell interesting stories. It’s analogous to the way art critics write about art, but with a difference: we “science critics” rarely criticise. If we think a scientific paper is dumb, we just ignore it. There’s too much good stuff coming out of science to waste time knocking the bad stuff.

Sure, we occasionally take a swipe at pseudoscience—homeopathy, astrology, claims that genetically modified food causes cancer, and so on. But the great thing about science is that it’s self-correcting. The good drives out the bad, because experiments get replicated and hypotheses put to the test. So a really bad idea cannot survive long in science.

Or so I used to think. Now, thanks largely to climate science, I have changed my mind. It turns out bad ideas can persist in science for decades, and surrounded by myrmidons of furious defenders they can turn into intolerant dogmas.

[No Excuses]

Ridley is a great writer but that's about it. Perhaps he's tired of arguing that climate change is going to be a wonderful thing for the world and has now moved onto your run of the mill skeptic op-eds.

[tshile]

Ridley is a great writer but that's about it. Perhaps he's tired of arguing that climate change is going to be a wonderful thing for the world and has now moved onto your run of the mill skeptic op-eds.

So are the claims wrong, or irrelevant?

I'm specifically interested in the claims regarding the funding/money, and the incorrectly used data (both accidentally and maliciously)

I'm still reading through it. I don't have the experience to know whether the stuff he cites is wrong, or blown out of proportion, and I doubt i'll have the time to look a significant number of them up. So i'm curious why you say the only thing of quality here is the writing style?

[No Excuses]

So are the claims wrong, or irrelevant?

I'm specifically interested in the claims regarding the funding/money, and the incorrectly used data (both accidentally and maliciously)

I'm still reading through it. I don't have the experience to know whether the stuff he cites is wrong, or blown out of proportion, and I doubt i'll have the time to look a significant number of them up. So i'm curious why you say the only thing of quality here is the writing style?

 

I would get into it but I'm honestly tired of this debate and long ago I decided to bow out of this thread. For the last three years I've taught full time at my university (70 students every semester) and quite honestly, it becomes a toll to get into the nonsense twa generally posts in here when your full time job requires you to teach to begin with. I have no idea how PeterMP has the time and energy to do it so consistently.

 

The best I can offer you is that there are a lot of sources on the internet who cover all the stuff Matt Ridley has been lying about or distorting for quite some time.

 

Shoddy journalists (like Ridley) pretending to offer a viewpoint that isn't chalk full of errors and lies is probably my #1 pet peeve (proper scientific communication is a huge problem and people like Ridley aren't helping the issue).

 

And with that, I exit this thread again and go back to being an observer.

Edited June 20, 2015 by No Excuses

[tshile]

The best I can offer you is that there are a lot of sources on the internet who cover all the stuff Matt Ridley has been lying about or distorting for quite some time.

And with that, I exit this thread again and go back to being an observer.

 

Fair enough.

 

For what it's worth, as soon as i posted that response to you I read a section on one issue I was already familiar with and immediately identified that while what he wrote sounded good and compelling, it was a complete misrepresentation of the situation.

 

So, I accept your answer

[Fred Jones]

there will be a day of reckoning

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

 

 

Good article, but as I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself, how to you know Mr. Ridley?  How do you know that genetically modified crops have no effect or that pesticides are safe.  Ask some cancer patients about that.

 

That said, he does make some good points.  Many articles are published that simply are not true and fuel the people outright debunking the clear fact that man affects the climate for the worse.  Also, the Green movement is exaggerated and overblown as serious climate change is not immediate.

 

Ridley calls himself  a "Lukewarmer" and even says "Lukewarmers do not think dangerous climate change is impossible; but they think it is unlikely."  So, a nice spin on words just like all the people clamoring that climate change is immediate, bad and has to be solved right now.  Ridley also says "sensitivity to carbon dioxide is high (which is doubtful)", which I completely disagree with to a point.  Widespread sensitivity to Carbon dioxide, doubtful, but what about all the people that will be.  I see people now sensitive to all kinds of things which I never remember seeing when I was growing up.

 

Ridley goes on about the scientists that claim a possible 4 degrees warming by the end of the century.  I call bull to both Ridley and the scientists he calls out.  How the heck do we know if it will or will not warm up four degrees.  To raise the red flag is wrong just as much as a simple dismissal is.

 

On a side note, Ridley discusses the "huge financial gravy train that is climate science has distorted the methods of science."  Add the meat industry, dairy industry and many others to the list there buddy of people presenting false information with government money.

 

Ridley does strike some good points that a lot of data presented by the scientific community has been shown to be outright false.  Which is sad as it just harms the truth.  Ridley is also correct when he says that all these scientists presenting all this bad and false data saying "the climate scientific establishment repeatedly reacts as if nothing is wrong. It calls out any errors on the lukewarming end, but ignores those on the exaggeration end."  When you are never held accountable for your actions, why not keep publishing false information to keep the grants coming.

 

At least Ridley believes "I think carbon-dioxide-induced warming during this century is likely, though I think it is unlikely to prove rapid and dangerous. So I don’t agree with those who say the warming is all natural, or all driven by the sun, or only an artefact of bad measurement"

 

I like the article as it presents the bad side of climate change, but even Ridley makes assumptions.

[Mad Mike]

From the article....

"Matt Ridley is an English science journalist whose books include The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. A member of the House of Lords, he has a website at www.mattridley.co.uk. He declares an interest in coal through the leasing of land for mining."

So he is NOT a climate scientist. He's just a guy spreading disinformation who profits from coal.

[twa]

The science is settled, no use discussing it.

[PeterMP]

So are the claims wrong, or irrelevant?

I'm specifically interested in the claims regarding the funding/money, and the incorrectly used data (both accidentally and maliciously)

I'm still reading through it. I don't have the experience to know whether the stuff he cites is wrong, or blown out of proportion, and I doubt i'll have the time to look a significant number of them up. So i'm curious why you say the only thing of quality here is the writing style?

 

First, let me say that the whole 'look how science got the fat thing wrong' is seriously being over done.  Trans fats are bad for you.

 

And that was a heavy part of the American diet in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.  New things had come onto the market that were based on partially hydrogenated oils/fats and those things were heavy in trans fats and trans fats are bad for you.

 

Things like what Crisco was were bad for you (Crisco has changed their formulation so it at least isn't as bad for you as it was) and since those types of things were a big part of the fat in the American diet those years, in general going to a low fat diet was a good thing.  If you lived in the 1970s, going to a low fat diet would have cut down your trans fats and you would have been better off.

 

The other thing is that scientists nor the government said in the process cutting back fats to massively increase the number of calories you are taking in.  Nobody ever thought the average US caloric in take that we see today was good.  Nobody ever said candy, sodas, and other high sugar processed foods were good for you.

 

In addition, the idea of "good" fats (things like Omega 3s) are at least decades old now.

 

The initial science didn't have quite all of the details right, but if you were living in the 1980s and listened to the advice and did real basic things to cut down on your fat (without massively increasing the number of calories you took in), you were better off than the average person because in reducing the amount of fat you took in, you would reduce the amount of trans fat you took in where the average American diet was heavy in trans fat.

 

Now, today a low fat diet isn't as important, but that's because people stopped using things like Crisco (so much) and/or the way foods were made have changed.  Today, I can go to the grocery store and buy a butter like product that is high in good fats.  I couldn't do that in the 1970s.

 

From there, in any large scale human endeavor (which climate science today is), there are going to be bad people and good people that make mistakes and do wrong things.

 

There's a lot at twa's link so I'm going to deal with the hockey stick, which was done with Michael Mann.  Now, I've written about Mann before, and from his work, I don't like him much.  He's at best sloppy if not unethical to me.

 

However, the nice thing about the climategate e-mails is they give us a sense of what he (and his peers) were thinking, and there was no sense of lying or having to cover up a lie.

 

There is no sense of some grand lie or scheme or defraud the general public.

 

From there, we need to worry about the science.  The nice thing is that more than person/group does the work different ways.

 

It isn't hard to find people that are critical of Mann and still end up with a very similar conclusion using different methods/data.

 

So the problem with the "hockey stick" is doing the analysis well requires some complex statistics, and Mann isn't a statistician.

 

The nice thing about the controversy and some real statisticians who had no connection to Mann (and really no connection to climate science prior to this) got involved and were pretty critical of what was being done.

 

http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/statisticians-slam-random-global-warming-hockey-stick-graph.html

 

"The two statisticians conclude that climate scientists “have greatly underestimated the uncertainty of proxy based reconstructions and hence have been overconfident in their models”. They comment that the long flat handle of the hockey stick is best understood to be a feature of the data processing and “less a reflection of our knowledge of the truth”."

 

Pretty bad, right?

 

But when they set down with data and put together their own long term climate graph what did they get?

 

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1104.4002.pdf

 

"If we consider rolling decades, 1997-2006 is the warmest on record; our model gives an 80% chance that it was the warmest in the past thousand years."

 

(were their analysis ended in 2006 because this now several years old.  Basically, the current temperature was very like (80%) the warmest period in the last 1000 years).

 

 

(They didn't add in the hockey stick into the image.  I took that from a blog.)

 

Sounds like global warming to me.  Looks like an unprecedented rate change in temperature which has had the general trend of going up to me.

 

Don't like their result?

 

Pick one.

 

 

We have less data for the southern hemisphere, but the story there isn't any better:

 

 

The Southern hemisphere is blue.  The North red.

 

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n5/full/nclimate2219.html

 

"The current (post-1974) warm phase is the only period of the past millennium where both hemispheres are likely to have experienced contemporaneous warm extremes."

 

Did Mann mess up making his stick?  Almost certainly, yes.

 

Is there abundant data from different sources and people using different techniques that would allow us to conclude that global warming looks real (that we've seen the temperature increase at an unprecedented rate in a general direction that makes it likely this is a historically warm period given things like orbital considerartions)? Yes!

 

Is there any evidence that what Mann did he did as part of some plan or scheme to get more money from the government for his research or to get famous or because he was taking money from other groups and they were putting pressure on him despite that we have his leaked e-mails to friends and peers? no.

 

Now, the piece that twa posted essentially focused on Mann and missed all of the other science related to the hockey stick, and from what I know, it treats other topics similarly.

 

So the claims aren't really wrong and aren't really even irrelevant in the bigger picture (scientists doing poor science isn't irrelevant), bit it isn't really right.

 

It is a lot like Mann's hockey stick.

Edited June 21, 2015 by PeterMP

[Mad Mike]

Sculpture by Issac Cordal in Berlin called "Politicians discussing global warming."