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Living within a living, loving planet
Global Warming
Did Climate Change Help Create ‘Frankenstorm’?
Oct 27th
By Stephen Lacey and Joe Romm on Oct 26, 2012 at 2:28 pm
“Coastal areas[US] may be hit with storm surges of up to 6 feet, potentially reaching the highest levels ever recorded. The storm could last as long as 4-6 days, bleeding into the election.
The storm comes at a unique time politically. In August, the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida was disrupted by strong rain and flooding caused by Hurricane Isaac. Two days later in his acceptance speech, Mitt Romney mocked President Obama’s pledge to deal with climate change and “slow the rise of the oceans” — causing uproarious laughter among delegates. And for the first time since 1988, the presidential candidates did not talk about climate change during debates — even as data shows that the U.S. is experiencing the most extreme weather ever recorded.
‘The climate has shifted to a new state capable of delivering rare and unprecedented weather events,” explained meteorologist Jeff Masters earlier this year.’”
Shouldn’t this be a wake-up call?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151210607037708&set=a.136077452707.110998.12185972707&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf
If you think people won’t agree with you on a topic, then don’t mention it.
Oct 25th
http://www.nationofchange.org/climate-change-taboo-phrase-us-electoral-politics-1351092384
“But during the four nationally televised debates held so far – three presidential and one vice presidential – neither Democratic incumbent Barack Obama nor his Republican challenger Mitt Romney has even mentioned the subject of climate change.
“’According to a new survey from Texas University, 73 percent of the (U.S.) public believe that climate change is happening. In a recent Yale study, 70 percent say so. The surveys were made in September. So, what we see is that seven in 10 Americans notice this problem,’ Deans said.
He cited the recent report from Munich Re, which found that natural disasters have increased more in North America than in any other region of the world since 1980. Insured losses from weather catastrophes in North America between 1980 and 2011 totaled 510 billion dollars, according to Munich Re.”
Misleading posts
Oct 18th
Misleading Daily Mail Article Pre-Bunked by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Posted on 17 October 2012 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/misleading-daily-mail-prebunked-nuccitelli-et-al-2012.html
It is always best to offer specific examples when talking about climate change skeptics and their misleading statements. This article is a good start. There are lots of comments from quite well informed readers. They are well worth reading. See the link above.
Summary
“To sum up, Rose and Curry were simply incorrect in virtually every assertion made in thisDaily Mail article.
- Global surface temperatures have most likely increased since 1997.
- Focusing on short-term temperature changes confuses short-term noise and long-term signal.
- Most global warming goes into heating the oceans, and as Nuccitelli et al. (2012) showed, global warming has not slowed.
- Natural variability is much smaller than the long-term global warming signal, and smaller even than the global warming signal over the past two decades.
- The slowed rate of global surface warming over the past decade is consistent with individual model runs, which show that these ‘hiatus decades’ are entirely expected.
- Over the long-term, the Earth has warmed as much as expected.
- Carbon pricing will result in a net benefit the economy as compared to doing nothing and trying to adapt to the consequences.”
“Comments
YubeDude at 12:43 PM on 16 October, 2012
This article isn’t about science as it only skims the data, albeit incorrectly, this article is just another salvo in the war for the minds of the masses who are either to busy to notice of lack the sophistication to discern the high degree of sophistry being applied. This is about using a dishonesty of words to manipulate emotions in the reader who lacks the intellect to see the obvious propaganda. Maybe the motivation is pure business, trying to appeal to the readerships demographic. Regardless of the reasons for this article, the substance is appallingly misleading noise.”
Economic cost of climate change
Oct 4th
The Economic Damage of Climate Denial
The Economic Damage of Climate Denial http://www.skepticalscience.com/johnson-hope-2012.html
When you start talking about economics, the eyes of many a climate science geek (present company included) begin to glaze over. However, this is a critical subject. When you ask a climate contrarian why they won’t support climate action just in case they are wrong about the science, the contrarians will invariably assert that pricing and reducing carbon emissions will harm the economy. However, this assertion is in direct contradiction with the body of climate economics literature, which actually shows the opposite is true.
This post examines a new paper by Johnson and Hope (2012) which evaluates the overall cost of carbon emissions via climate change damages. Key points when these costs are taken into consideration:
- current estimates of the overall costs of carbon emissions (via damage from climate change) are generally too low
- when those costs are taken into account, solar energy is already cheaper than coal, and wind is probably cheaper than natural gas (both are already cheaper than coal)
- by failing to put a price on and reduce carbon emissions, and by continuing to rely on fossil fuels, we are damaging the economy
93% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
Oct 2nd
93% of Fox News climate change coverage misleading
Posted on 1 October 2012 by John Cook
http://www.skepticalscience.com/93-percent-Fox-News-climate-change-coverage-misleading.html
“An analysis of prime time programs on Fox News has found that 93% of their coverage of climate science in 2012 was misleading. The report, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, analysed six months of prime time segments covering climate change in early 2012.
The Wall Street Journal, News Corporation’s other media flagship, didn’t fare much better. The report also included WSJ opinion pieces over the last year and found 81% of their climate change coverage was misleading.
To characterise this coverage as biased doesn’t capture the magnitude of their treatment of climate science. News Corporation is promoting an inversion of reality. For the past several decades, there has been a strengthening scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming.
Surveys of the climate science community since 1996 have found the percentage of climate scientists agreeing on human-caused global warming has steadily increased to the point where in the last few years, several independent surveys have found 97% agreement among actively publishing climate scientists.”
How many people do you know make fact out of what they read in the paper?
Is the situation worse than we think?
Aug 27th
Climate Change, Irreversibility, and Urgency
Posted on 26 August 2012 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-irreversibility-and-urgency.html
Comment:
R. Gates at 17:19 PM on 26 August, 2012
“The rapidity of Arctic sea ice loss and the awakening of a the methane “time bomb” across the once frozen regions of the NH is something the 2007 IPCC report didn’t take into account at all. Limiting increase in global temps to 2C is out the window and 3C may be impossible to avoid now as well. Those fools who think that a melting Arctic is a great opportunity to plan for further fossil fuel extrapolation fail to understand the various stresses this will place on a civilization needing to feed 7+ Billion humans.”
Perhaps a reminder is warranted here about methane. Yes, methane is a small percentage of the total greenhouse gas composition. However, it carries a derringer strapped to its left leg in addition to the colt 45 in a shoulder holster. Why?
“There is concern that, if rising global temperatures due to anthropogenic climate change cause the arctic permafrost to melt, massive quantities of methane would be released into the atmosphere, causing a catastrophic run-away greenhouse effect beyond even the upper 5.8ºC estimate postulated by the IPCC. Such a process is believed to have occurred in the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 30
some 55 million years ago, when average global temperatures increased by 5ºC and which lasted for 150,000 years.”
“The atmospheric concentration of methane is thought to have increased by a factor of 2.5 since pre-industrial times, reaching 1745 ppb in 1998. This rate of increase far exceeds that of carbon dioxide, concentrations of which are only 30% higher than in pre-industrial times. In fact, information is sufficient for the IPCC to assert that the current methane concentration has not been exceeded in the last 420,000 years.”
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/methaneuk/chapter02.pdf
“One of the most important ways in which methane differs from carbon dioxide is that it only persists in the atmosphere for roughly 10 years after it is released, whereas carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for about 100 years. This means that actions we take today to reduce methane will provide results in just a decade.”
http://oceanlink.island.net/ONews/ONews7/methane.html
It is important to note that although methane doesn’t persist very long in the air, when it does oxidise, it produces 1 Co2 and 2 H20 molecules.
Antarctic warmth not unique
Aug 24th
Antarctica warmth ‘unusual, but not unique’
By Jonathan Ball
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19348427
“In his Nature paper, Dr Mulvaney did not conclude that the recent changes observed in the peninsula were down to human activity.
However, when asked about this, he said: ‘If I am pressed to say whether I think it’s human-induced, then I would say what we are seeing is human-induced.’”
Antarctic warmth not unique
Interesting that Dr Mulvaney did not publish his personal conclusions. Thankfully, Dr. James Hansen does so.
We didn’t really need to be told that Antarctic ice melting is not unprecedented. Most people are aware that we have had glacial and interglacial periods before. Further, it is well accepted that “Changes in the Earth’s orbit and tilt produce natural fluctuations in climate.” Unfortunately, the key “natural fluctuations” favour cooling rather than the increasing warming we are recording now.
Few climate scientists, except the handful who are paid as detractors, argue about the causes of global warming. To offer “natural fluctuations” as a significant point in the argument as to the effect of human activity on global warming is spurious at the least and downright misleading. Looking at the last interglacial period, for instance, average temperatures in northern latitudes was higher and sea levels significantly higher – this quite in keeping with the expected effect of the natural fluctuations of the time. The next to the last interglacial period had natural fluctuations much more similar than the last one.
The huge significant fact is that in both of these the level of CO2 was much, much lower.
I have made my case for the evidence of anthropogenic causes of global warming below:
http://www.earthenspirituality.com/glogal-warming/
In summary, the press focuses on controversy. Alarmingly, the global warming detractors are just a handful but are given press coverage as if they were a significant number. Sadly, many, as I mentioned above, are paid to amplify ambiguities. If you think about it, most of the scientific data on the behaviour of living beings is ambiguous. We readily [we don’t have a choice, actually] accept ambiguity and uncertainty, for example, from the establishment medical profession. We are often told to try this drug and come back if it doesn’t work. We pay the bill whether the medicine “works” or not.
Climate change science would be so much easier to understand and appreciate if we examined the evidence and came to the conclusion that earth scientists are studying a living being and not a mechanical object. We should not expect certainty in the same way as we do with a machine. We have a whole set of scientific evidence around Gaia theory.
Sadly, some “theories” are favoured by establishment science over others whilst the public has been conditioned to believe in an unbiased scientific community. Sorry, that is just not true. Some scientific “truths” are more popular than others whilst other “truths,” such as that fact that the earth revolves around the sun and that the world is not flat, took centuries to become “popular.”
Sadly for Earthly living beings, we do not have centuries to avoid the consequences of excessive burning of fossil fuel and the continued chopping of forests to build structures for a human population growth that is completely out of control.
I rest my case in my book “Planet as Self” where I suggest an Earthen Spirituality, a spirituality built around the principle that earthly beings “are” the planet and not just “on” a planet. We will not risk the consequences of the sacrifices needed to turn our situation around unless we come to respect and admire Gaia as our, for want of a more developed vocabulary, higher self.
The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Aug 18th
The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1551
“Taking timely action to avert the worst consequences of climate change requires good public policy. Policy change requires widespread public support. That support will not be sufficient until the broad scientific consensus on climate change is recognized as a fact.”
Posted by Andy S on Thursday, 16 August, 2012
Artic sea ice melting twice as fast as predicted
Aug 16th
| See: http://climatesight.org/2012/08/15/a-bad-situation-in-the-arctic/ |
Also see: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/08/13/arctic-ice-melting-faster.html
“Arctic sea ice is in the midst of a record-breaking melt season. This is yet another symptom of human-caused climate change progressing much faster than scientists anticipated.”
“Computer models of the climate system have a difficult time reproducing this sudden melt. As recently as 2007, the absolute worst-case projections showed summer Arctic sea ice disappearing around 2100. Based on observations, scientists are now confident that will happen well before 2050, and possibly within a decade.”
“climate models, which many pundits like to dismiss as “alarmist”, actually underestimated the severity of the problem. Uncertainty cuts both ways.”
How many other significant predictions have they also underestimated?
Melting will continue through September
Artic sea ice melting rapidly
Climate Dice
Aug 6th
Dr. James Hansen and associates have updated a new paper to be published later this week.
I believe that it is one of his most interesting and revealing. He makes the case for the significance of the weather extremes over the last few years and with actual readings [not models] and reveals how the warming and weather extremes have shifted from 1951 to the present. This is well worth reading.