Cherry Picking Climate Catastrophes: Response to Conor Clarke, Part II
WUWT Guest Post by Indur Goklany
Conor Clarke at The Atlantic blog, raised several issues with my study, “What to Do About Climate Change,” that Cato published last year.
One of Conor Clarke’s comments was that my analysis did not extend beyond the 21st century. He found this problematic because, as Conor put it, climate change would extend beyond 2100, and even if GDP is higher in 2100 with unfettered global warming than without, it’s not obvious that this GDP would continue to be higher “in the year 2200 or 2300 or 3758”. I addressed this portion of his argument in Part I of my response. Here I will address the second part of this argument, that “the possibility of ‘catastrophic’ climate change events — those with low probability but extremely high cost — becomes real after 2100.”
RESPONSE:
The examples of potentially catastrophic events that could be caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas induced global warming (AGW) that have been offered to date (e.g., melting of the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheets, or the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation) contain a few drops of plausibility submerged in oceans of speculation. There are no scientifically justified estimates of the probability of their occurrence by any given date. Nor are there scientifically justified estimates of the magnitude of damages such events might cause, not just in biophysical terms but also in socioeconomic terms. Therefore, to call these events “low probability” — as Mr. Clarke does — is a misnomer. They are more appropriately termed as plausible but highly speculative events.
Consider, for example, the potential collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). According to the IPCC’s WG I Summary for Policy Makers (p. 17), “If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that would lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m” (emphasis added). Presumably the same applies to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
But what is the probability that a negative surface mass balance can, in fact, be sustained for millennia, particularly after considering the amount of fossil fuels that can be economically extracted and the likelihood that other energy sources will not displace fossil fuels in the interim? [Remember we are told that peak oil is nigh, that renewables are almost competitive with fossil fuels, and that wind, solar and biofuels will soon pay for themselves.]
Second, for an event to be classified as a catastrophe, it should occur relatively quickly precluding efforts by man or nature to adapt or otherwise deal with it. But if it occurs over millennia, as the IPCC says, or even centuries, that gives humanity ample time to adjust, albeit at a socioeconomic cost. But it need not be prohibitively dangerous to life, limb or property if: (1) the total amount of sea level rise (SLR) and, perhaps more importantly, the rate of SLR can be predicted with some confidence, as seems likely in the next few decades considering the resources being expended on such research; (2) the rate of SLR is slow relative to how fast populations can strengthen coastal defenses and/or relocate; and (3) there are no insurmountable barriers to migration.
This would be true even had the so-called “tipping point” already been passed and ultimate disintegration of the ice sheet was inevitable, so long as it takes millennia for the disintegration to be realized. In other words, the issue isn’t just whether the tipping point is reached, rather it is how long does it actually take to tip over. Take, for example, if a hand grenade is tossed into a crowded room. Whether this results in tragedy — and the magnitude of that tragedy — depends upon how much time it takes for the grenade to go off, the reaction time of the occupants, and their ability to respond.
Lowe, et al. (2006, p. 32-33), based on a “pessimistic, but plausible, scenario in which atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were stabilised at four times pre-industrial levels,” estimated that a collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet would over the next 1,000 years raise sea level by 2.3 meters (with a peak rate of 0.5 cm/yr). If one were to arbitrarily double that to account for potential melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, that means a SLR of ~5 meters in 1,000 years with a peak rate (assuming the peaks coincide) of 1 meter per century.
Such a rise would not be unprecedented. Sea level has risen 120 meters in the past 18,000 years — an average of 0.67 meters/century — and as much as 4 meters/century during meltwater pulse 1A episode 14,600 years ago (Weaver et al. 2003; subscription required). Neither humanity nor, from the perspective of millennial time scales (per the above quote from the IPCC), the rest of nature seem the worse for it. Coral reefs for example, evolved and their compositions changed over millennia as new reefs grew while older ones were submerged in deeper water (e.g., Cabioch et al. 2008). So while there have been ecological changes, it is unknown whether the changes were for better or worse. For a melting of the GIS (or WAIS) to qualify as a catastrophe, one has to show, rather than assume, that the ecological consequences would, in fact, be for the worse.
Human beings can certainly cope with sea level rise of such magnitudes if they have centuries or millennia to do so. In fact, if necessary they could probably get out of the way in a matter of decades, if not years.
Can a relocation of such a magnitude be accomplished?
Consider that the global population increased from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.8 billion this year. Among other things, this meant creating the infrastructure for an extra 4.3 billion people in the intervening 59 years (as well as improving the infrastructure for the 2.5 billion counted in the baseline, many of whom barely had any infrastructure whatsoever in 1950). These improvements occurred at a time when everyone was significantly poorer. (Global per capita income today is more than 3.5 times greater today than it was in 1950). Therefore, while relocation will be costly, in theory, tomorrow’s much wealthier world ought to be able to relocate billions of people to higher ground over the next few centuries, if need be. In fact, once a decision is made to relocate, the cost differential of relocating, say, 10 meters higher rather than a meter higher is probably marginal. It should also be noted that over millennia the world’s infrastructure will have to be renewed or replaced dozens of times – and the world will be better for it. [For example, the ancient city of Troy, once on the coast but now a few kilometers inland, was built and rebuilt at least 9 times in 3 millennia.]
Also, so long as we are concerned about potential geological catastrophes whose probability of occurrence and impacts have yet to be scientifically estimated, we should also consider equally low or higher probability events that might negate their impacts. Specifically, it is quite possible — in fact probable — that somewhere between now and 2100 or 2200, technologies will become available that will deal with climate change much more economically than currently available technologies for reducing GHG emissions. Such technologies may include ocean fertilization, carbon sequestration, geo-engineering options (e.g., deploying mirrors in space) or more efficient solar or photovoltaic technologies. Similarly, there is a finite, non-zero probability that new and improved adaptation technologies will become available that will substantially reduce the net adverse impacts of climate change.
The historical record shows that this has occurred over the past century for virtually every climate-sensitive sector that has been studied. For example, from 1900-1970, U.S. death rates due to various climate-sensitive water-related diseases — dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, other gastrointestinal disease, and malaria —declined by 99.6 to 100.0 percent. Similarly, poor agricultural productivity exacerbated by drought contributed to famines in India and China off and on through the 19th and 20th centuries killing millions of people, but such famines haven’t recurred since the 1970s despite any climate change and the fact that populations are several-fold higher today. And by the early 2000s, deaths and death rates due to extreme weather events had dropped worldwide by over 95% of their earlier 20th century peaks (Goklany 2006).
With respect to another global warming bogeyman — the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation (AKA the meridional overturning circulation), the basis for the deep freeze depicted in the movie, The Day After Tomorrow — the IPCC WG I SPM notes (p. 16), “Based on current model simulations, it is very likely that the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean will slow down during the 21st century. The multi-model average reduction by 2100 is 25% (range from zero to about 50%) for SRES emission scenario A1B. Temperatures in the Atlantic region are projected to increase despite such changes due to the much larger warming associated with projected increases in greenhouse gases. It is very unlikely that the MOC will undergo a large abrupt transition during the 21st century. Longer-term changes in the MOC cannot be assessed with confidence.”
Not much has changed since then. A shut down of the MOC doesn’t look any more likely now than it did then. See here, here, and here (pp. 316-317).
If one wants to develop rational policies to address speculative catastrophic events that could conceivably occur over the next few centuries or millennia, as a start one should consider the universe of potential catastrophes and then develop criteria as to which should be addressed and which not. Rational analysis must necessarily be based on systematic analysis, and not on cherry picking one’s favorite catastrophes.
Just as one may speculate on global warming induced catastrophes, one may just as plausibly also speculate on catastrophes that may result absent global warming. Consider, for example, the possibility that absent global warming, the Little Ice Age might return. The consequences of another ice age, Little or not, could range from the severely negative to the positive (if that would buffer the negative consequences of warming). That such a recurrence is not unlikely is evident from the fact that the earth entered and, only a century and a half ago, retreated from a Little Ice Age, and that history may indeed repeat itself over centuries or millennia.
Yet another catastrophe that greenhouse gas controls may cause is that CO2 not only contributes to warming, it is also the key building block of life as we know it. All vegetation is created by the photosynthesis of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact, according to the IPCC WG I report (2007, p. 106), net primary productivity of the global biosphere has increased in recent decades, partly due to greater warming, higher CO2 concentrations and nitrogen deposition. Thus , there is a finite probability that reducing CO2 emissions would, therefore, reduce the net primary productivity of the terrestrial biosphere with potentially severe negative consequences for the amount and diversity of wildlife that it could support, as well as agricultural and forest productivity with adverse knock on effects on hunger and health.
There is also a finite probability that costs of GHG reductions could reduce economic growth worldwide. Even if only industrialized countries sign up for emission reductions, the negative consequences could show up in developing countries because they derive a substantial share of their income from aid, trade, tourism, and remittances from the rest of the world. See, for example, Tol (2005), which examines this possibility, although the extent to which that study fully considered these factors (i.e., aid, trade, tourism, and remittances) is unclear.
Finally, one of the problems with the argument that society should address low probability high impact events (assuming a probability could be estimated rather than assumed or guessed) is that it necessarily means there is a high probability that resources expended on addressing such catastrophic events will have been squandered. This wouldn’t be a problem but for the fact that there are opportunity costs associated with this.
According to the 2007 IPCC Science Assessment’s Summary for Policy Makers (p. 10), “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” In plain language, this means that the IPCC believes there is at least a 90% likelihood that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (AGHG) are responsible for 50-100% of the global warming since 1950. In other words, there is an up to 10% chance that anthropogenic GHGs are not responsible for most of that warming.
This means there is an up to 10% chance that resources expended in limiting climate change would have been squandered. Since any effort to significantly reduce climate change will cost trillions of dollars (see Nordhaus 2008, p. 82), that would be an unqualified disaster, particularly since those very resources could be devoted to reducing urgent problems humanity faces here and now (e.g., hunger, malaria, safer water and sanitation) — problems we know exist for sure unlike the bogeymen that we can’t be certain about.
Spending money on speculative, even if plausible, catastrophes instead of problems we know exist for sure is like a starving man giving up a fat juicy bird in hand while hoping that we’ll catch several other birds sometime in the next few centuries even though we know those birds don’t exist today and may never exist in the future.
Cherry Picking Climate Catastrophes: Response to Conor Clarke, Part II
Posted by Indur Goklany
Conor Clarke at The Atlantic blog, raised several issues with my study, “What to Do About Climate Change,” that Cato published last year.
One of Conor Clarke’s comments was that my analysis did not extend beyond the 21st century. He found this problematic because, as Conor put it, climate change would extend beyond 2100, and even if GDP is higher in 2100 with unfettered global warming than without, it’s not obvious that this GDP would continue to be higher “in the year 2200 or 2300 or 3758”. I addressed this portion of his argument in Part I of my response. Here I will address the second part of this argument, that “the possibility of ‘catastrophic’ climate change events — those with low probability but extremely high cost — becomes real after 2100.”
RESPONSE:
The examples of potentially catastrophic events that could be caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas induced global warming (AGW) that have been offered to date (e.g., melting of the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheets, or the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation) contain a few drops of plausibility submerged in oceans of speculation. There are no scientifically justified estimates of the probability of their occurrence by any given date. Nor are there scientifically justified estimates of the magnitude of damages such events might cause, not just in biophysical terms but also in socioeconomic terms. Therefore, to call these events “low probability” — as Mr. Clarke does — is a misnomer. They are more appropriately termed as plausible but highly speculative events.
Consider, for example, the potential collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). According to the IPCC’s WG I Summary for Policy Makers (p. 17), “If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that would lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m” (emphasis added). Presumably the same applies to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
But what is the probability that a negative surface mass balance can, in fact, be sustained for millennia, particularly after considering the amount of fossil fuels that can be economically extracted and the likelihood that other energy sources will not displace fossil fuels in the interim? [Remember we are told that peak oil is nigh, that renewables are almost competitive with fossil fuels, and that wind, solar and biofuels will soon pay for themselves.]
Second, for an event to be classified as a catastrophe, it should occur relatively quickly precluding efforts by man or nature to adapt or otherwise deal with it. But if it occurs over millennia, as the IPCC says, or even centuries, that gives humanity ample time to adjust, albeit at a socioeconomic cost. But it need not be prohibitively dangerous to life, limb or property if: (1) the total amount of sea level rise (SLR) and, perhaps more importantly, the rate of SLR can be predicted with some confidence, as seems likely in the next few decades considering the resources being expended on such research; (2) the rate of SLR is slow relative to how fast populations can strengthen coastal defenses and/or relocate; and (3) there are no insurmountable barriers to migration.
This would be true even had the so-called “tipping point” already been passed and ultimate disintegration of the ice sheet was inevitable, so long as it takes millennia for the disintegration to be realized. In other words, the issue isn’t just whether the tipping point is reached, rather it is how long does it actually take to tip over. Take, for example, if a hand grenade is tossed into a crowded room. Whether this results in tragedy — and the magnitude of that tragedy — depends upon how much time it takes for the grenade to go off, the reaction time of the occupants, and their ability to respond.
Lowe, et al. (2006, p. 32-33), based on a “pessimistic, but plausible, scenario in which atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were stabilised at four times pre-industrial levels,” estimated that a collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet would over the next 1,000 years raise sea level by 2.3 meters (with a peak rate of 0.5 cm/yr). If one were to arbitrarily double that to account for potential melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, that means a SLR of ~5 meters in 1,000 years with a peak rate (assuming the peaks coincide) of 1 meter per century.
Such a rise would not be unprecedented. Sea level has risen 120 meters in the past 18,000 years — an average of 0.67 meters/century — and as much as 4 meters/century during meltwater pulse 1A episode 14,600 years ago (Weaver et al. 2003; subscription required). Neither humanity nor, from the perspective of millennial time scales (per the above quote from the IPCC), the rest of nature seem the worse for it. Coral reefs for example, evolved and their compositions changed over millennia as new reefs grew while older ones were submerged in deeper water (e.g., Cabioch et al. 2008). So while there have been ecological changes, it is unknown whether the changes were for better or worse. For a melting of the GIS (or WAIS) to qualify as a catastrophe, one has to show, rather than assume, that the ecological consequences would, in fact, be for the worse.
Human beings can certainly cope with sea level rise of such magnitudes if they have centuries or millennia to do so. In fact, if necessary they could probably get out of the way in a matter of decades, if not years.
Can a relocation of such a magnitude be accomplished?
Consider that the global population increased from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.8 billion this year. Among other things, this meant creating the infrastructure for an extra 4.3 billion people in the intervening 59 years (as well as improving the infrastructure for the 2.5 billion counted in the baseline, many of whom barely had any infrastructure whatsoever in 1950). These improvements occurred at a time when everyone was significantly poorer. (Global per capita income today is more than 3.5 times greater today than it was in 1950). Therefore, while relocation will be costly, in theory, tomorrow’s much wealthier world ought to be able to relocate billions of people to higher ground over the next few centuries, if need be. In fact, once a decision is made to relocate, the cost differential of relocating, say, 10 meters higher rather than a meter higher is probably marginal. It should also be noted that over millennia the world’s infrastructure will have to be renewed or replaced dozens of times – and the world will be better for it. [For example, the ancient city of Troy, once on the coast but now a few kilometers inland, was built and rebuilt at least 9 times in 3 millennia.]
Also, so long as we are concerned about potential geological catastrophes whose probability of occurrence and impacts have yet to be scientifically estimated, we should also consider equally low or higher probability events that might negate their impacts. Specifically, it is quite possible — in fact probable — that somewhere between now and 2100 or 2200, technologies will become available that will deal with climate change much more economically than currently available technologies for reducing GHG emissions. Such technologies may include ocean fertilization, carbon sequestration, geo-engineering options (e.g., deploying mirrors in space) or more efficient solar or photovoltaic technologies. Similarly, there is a finite, non-zero probability that new and improved adaptation technologies will become available that will substantially reduce the net adverse impacts of climate change.
The historical record shows that this has occurred over the past century for virtually every climate-sensitive sector that has been studied. For example, from 1900-1970, U.S. death rates due to various climate-sensitive water-related diseases — dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, other gastrointestinal disease, and malaria —declined by 99.6 to 100.0 percent. Similarly, poor agricultural productivity exacerbated by drought contributed to famines in India and China off and on through the 19th and 20th centuries killing millions of people, but such famines haven’t recurred since the 1970s despite any climate change and the fact that populations are several-fold higher today. And by the early 2000s, deaths and death rates due to extreme weather events had dropped worldwide by over 95% of their earlier 20th century peaks (Goklany 2006).
With respect to another global warming bogeyman — the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation (AKA the meridional overturning circulation), the basis for the deep freeze depicted in the movie, The Day After Tomorrow — the IPCC WG I SPM notes (p. 16), “Based on current model simulations, it is very likely that the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean will slow down during the 21st century. The multi-model average reduction by 2100 is 25% (range from zero to about 50%) for SRES emission scenario A1B. Temperatures in the Atlantic region are projected to increase despite such changes due to the much larger warming associated with projected increases in greenhouse gases. It is very unlikely that the MOC will undergo a large abrupt transition during the 21st century. Longer-term changes in the MOC cannot be assessed with confidence.”
Not much has changed since then. A shut down of the MOC doesn’t look any more likely now than it did then. See here, here, and here (pp. 316-317).
If one wants to develop rational policies to address speculative catastrophic events that could conceivably occur over the next few centuries or millennia, as a start one should consider the universe of potential catastrophes and then develop criteria as to which should be addressed and which not. Rational analysis must necessarily be based on systematic analysis, and not on cherry picking one’s favorite catastrophes.
Just as one may speculate on global warming induced catastrophes, one may just as plausibly also speculate on catastrophes that may result absent global warming. Consider, for example, the possibility that absent global warming, the Little Ice Age might return. The consequences of another ice age, Little or not, could range from the severely negative to the positive (if that would buffer the negative consequences of warming). That such a recurrence is not unlikely is evident from the fact that the earth entered and, only a century and a half ago, retreated from a Little Ice Age, and that history may indeed repeat itself over centuries or millennia.
Yet another catastrophe that greenhouse gas controls may cause is that CO2 not only contributes to warming, it is also the key building block of life as we know it. All vegetation is created by the photosynthesis of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact, according to the IPCC WG I report (2007, p. 106), net primary productivity of the global biosphere has increased in recent decades, partly due to greater warming, higher CO2 concentrations and nitrogen deposition. Thus , there is a finite probability that reducing CO2 emissions would, therefore, reduce the net primary productivity of the terrestrial biosphere with potentially severe negative consequences for the amount and diversity of wildlife that it could support, as well as agricultural and forest productivity with adverse knock on effects on hunger and health.
There is also a finite probability that costs of GHG reductions could reduce economic growth worldwide. Even if only industrialized countries sign up for emission reductions, the negative consequences could show up in developing countries because they derive a substantial share of their income from aid, trade, tourism, and remittances from the rest of the world. See, for example, Tol (2005), which examines this possibility, although the extent to which that study fully considered these factors (i.e., aid, trade, tourism, and remittances) is unclear.
Finally, one of the problems with the argument that society should address low probability high impact events (assuming a probability could be estimated rather than assumed or guessed) is that it necessarily means there is a high probability that resources expended on addressing such catastrophic events will have been squandered. This wouldn’t be a problem but for the fact that there are opportunity costs associated with this.
According to the 2007 IPCC Science Assessment’s Summary for Policy Makers (p. 10), “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” In plain language, this means that the IPCC believes there is at least a 90% likelihood that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (AGHG) are responsible for 50-100% of the global warming since 1950. In other words, there is an up to 10% chance that anthropogenic GHGs are not responsible for most of that warming.
This means there is an up to 10% chance that resources expended in limiting climate change would have been squandered. Since any effort to significantly reduce climate change will cost trillions of dollars (see Nordhaus 2008, p. 82), that would be an unqualified disaster, particularly since those very resources could be devoted to reducing urgent problems humanity faces here and now (e.g., hunger, malaria, safer water and sanitation) — problems we know exist for sure unlike the bogeymen that we can’t be certain about.
Spending money on speculative, even if plausible, catastrophes instead of problems we know exist for sure is like a starving man giving up a fat juicy bird in hand while hoping that we’ll catch several other birds sometime in the next few centuries even though we know those birds don’t exist today and may never exist in the future.
bluegrue (14:08:23) :From your new age science bible (Wiki):
Air volumetric heat capacity=0.001297 j k
Water volumetric heat capacity=4.186; 3227 times than that of the air.
Spending money on speculative, even if plausible, catastrophes instead of problems we know exist for sure is like a starving man giving up a fat juicy bird in hand while hoping that we’ll catch several other birds sometime in the next few centuries even though we know those birds don’t exist today and may never exist in the future.
I dont know if you haven’t noticed by catastrophes due to climate change are happening here and now.
So I guess that means we should be spending.
It’s a good response. Mine would have been simpler though. As any alarmist will tell you coal and oil will run out buy 2050 anyway so there is no point in doing an analysis more than 50 years beyond then.
paulm:
Which catastrophes due to climate change are happening here and now?
Nowg I have a degree in Chemistry among others…you are not looking at the actual realities of CO2 and CH4.
Jim, I am looking at the journal Nature, Scientific American, SA, 3.0, data sets from 10 different sources, and literally thousands of different peer reviewed journals in climatology, physics, atmospheric fluid dynamics, physical chemistry, meteorology, geology–geochemistry/physics, etc… not just NOAA, MET UK, NASA, RC, and Climate Skeptic…oh and check out Economist.com or the magazine, NY Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, PBS, BBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, for your so called “biased news,” lol.
Guy I follow on twitter who posts crop reports. Here referring to the progress of the corn crop:
“3rd slowest crop to silk on record, but correlation with yield is low. Rather, it matters where delays are and when it freezes first. #farm”
http://twitter.com/ArlanFF101/status/3111601546
noaaprogrammer (09:30:53) :
In terms of its life cycle, the sun will eventually expand to engulf the Earth before it collapses in death. What are we doing about that?
===========================
By that time we’d have become the modern extinct dinosaurs.
Paulm:
A little known fact for you: Climate has been changing since there was a climate on this “Rock” we live on. Climate catastrophes have occured since climate has been a factor. The solution is to pick up the pieces and rebuild or move to an area that is not as prone to known historic catastrophes and wait for the next one whereever it may occure. Knowledge and welth overcome ignorance and poverty which makes people less prone to natural hazards.
bluegrue (14:37:09) :
Ron de Haan (08:48:54) :
Sooo, DDT was banned? Interesting. Google for “WHO DDT”, first hit:
Frequently asked questions on DDT use for disease vector control
WHO recommends indoor residual spraying of DDT for malaria vector control.
Oh, and keep in mind there may be a reason for not using DDT everywhere. Ever heard of pesticide resistance?
Information on vector susceptibility and tolerance to DDT should be up-to-date and backed up by an effective pesticide resistance management strategy to ensure continuing pesticide effectiveness. Local vector resistance or increased tolerance to DDT may affect its overall effectiveness. Where there is resistance to pyrethroids, DDT effectiveness may be reduced by cross-resistance. In this event, one method of slowing vector resistance is to widen the choice of insecticides used for indoor residual spraying and rotate the use of those currently effective against mosquitoes (though this will probably increase operational costs).
Bluegrue,
Mockton was in the middle of the DDT Ban. So if you want details, send him an e-mail or google the subject because it is a wel documented fact.
The WHO took it’s use up again after scientific evidence had been presented not so long ago, but only for indoor use and only in a very limited number of countries.
Besides that, the first person to catch Monckton on scientific incorrect or corrupt data still has to be born.
This guy has a heck of a reputation and one of his qualities is his integrity, a property one normaly acquires by telling the truth.
If the present trend continues…. No need for me to comment. Ladies and gents, I give you that master wordsmith, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens):
“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
– Life on the Mississippi
Jacob Mack:
With all that learnin it is a shame you did not learn how to think. It may not be to late to file a suit against your teachers as you have a good case. I believe there are some attornies that will take your case on a contingency basis.
Jacob Mack, here’s a little bon mot for you.
It’s the concluding sentences from Nicola Scafetta’s response to Benestad and Schmidt.
“I just wonder why the referees of that paper did not check Benestad and Schmidt’s numerous misleading statements and errors. It would be sad if the reason is because somebody is mistaking a scientific theory such as the “anthropogenic global warming theory” for an ideology that should be defended at all costs.”
Jacob, you’re not the first person I’ve come across who brags about how much they “know” and yet still can’t figure out they’re on the wrong side of critical thinking on this issue.
Bluegrue (14:37:09) :
Read this: http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.442/healthissue_detail.asp
Nogw:
The atmospheric greenhouse effect is a different one from the effect in an actual greenhouse. The latter inhibits convection, one of the transport mechanisms for heat in the atmosphere.
Regarding heat capacity of water and air, congratulations on stating the obvious. Your point? Heat transport has three mechanisms: convection, radiation, diffusion. In the atmosphere the latter is only important in direct contact with the surface, otherwise convection and radiation dominate and convection stops at the tropopause. The absorption of IR radiation from Earth by CO2 is strong enough such that it can be used to determine the concentration of atmospheric CO2, as shown in the Chahine paper I linked to. A molecule of CO2 that has absorbed a photon does not care into which direction it emits so on average about half of the energy absorbed is emitted back to Earth. There are also inelastic collisions between gas molecules, so the energy of the photon can be transferred into kinetic energy, heat, warming the air in general. The change in absorption due to increasing CO2 levels is also strong enough, that the stratosphere is cooling.
IF you want to learn, look up one dimensional radiative convective models of the atmosphere.
Jacob Mac: “Yet the fact remains that sea ice is melting, (just watch Discovery channel footage, PBS footage, BBC footage, Economist pictures, Scientific American 3.0, Nature, and reports from many different news networks) ”
Just to show you how you have been misled, look at the actual global sea ice area as shown here: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
The Arctic has been increasing in melt, but the Antarctic ice has been increasing by almost the exact amount. Total global ice has remained very constant over the last thirty years.
I don’t have the time or inclination to take apart your other arguments, but you shouldn’t let others (i.e., MSM and popular science mags) interpret the science for you. You’re being played for a sucker. What you and others of your ilk fail to adequately consider is that there are many drivers of climate and some are far stronger than CO2. Even if considering CO2 in isolation, the warming is not significant without some very speculative reinforcing feedback mechanisms. Bottom lines are, the earth hasn’t been warming for the last decade; historically, man has prospered during warm periods and suffered in cold; CO2 up to 1000 ppm enhances plant growth and gives us higher crop yields; photosynthesis stops at CO2 levels less than 200 ppm and we all die. It is the height of arrogance to declare that the climate of the mid-1900s is THE perfect climate for the world – or that man can do a whit about the climate at all.
When discussing catastrophes, it occurs to me that we are for more at risk for a global cooling catastrophe that tips us into a new ice age. It is my understanding that the major one off events (meteor strikes and volcanoes) tend to cool the planet.
M. Simon (13:59:43) wrote:
“noaaprogrammer,
The 09:30 post you referenced was only talking millions of years and said nothing about the sun. I think the sun is very important to the discussion. Billions are a lot bigger than millions.
Are you really a programmer? I hope you do not routinely drop 3 orders of magnitude. It could be inconvenient. ;-)”
The moderator doesn’t need anymore internecine traffic, but since you obviously incorrectly read the 9:30 post, here it is again. (Note that the sun is referenced by the word “sun,” and that the word “million” or its Arabic numeral representation is nowhere to be found. Instead, the tautological phrase, “In terms of its [the sun’s] life cycle,” is by definition more true than 9 billion years.)
noaaprogrammer (09:30:53) wrote:
“In terms of its life cycle, the sun will eventually expand to engulf the Earth before it collapses in death. What are we doing about that?”
…and yes, I used to be a programmer for meteorologists at NOAA and NCAR in Boulder, Colorado back in the 1970’s when I was in graduate school. I now teach computer science (including the prefixes on the powers of ten in multiples of 3 from 10^(-15) to 10(+15) to beginning students.
M. Simon (13:46:50) :
I am not an advocate of forced entomophagy, but, if they insist, you won’t get out of it that easy. From the King James Bible, Leviticus 11:21-22:
“Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.”
re: Nogw (11:21:29) : Peter J. Dare (10:12:14) : Wrong!. It has been calculated that if properly managed, all the existing population would fit and prosper in an area equal to Texas.
The all of the people could fit in texas myth continues. If all 6.8 billion people were in Texas. Each person would have a space of about 33 feet square (1000 square feet). In this space one must live, work, grow food, dispose of waste, transport oneself hither and yon. I suspect that non of the proponents of this myth would care to try.
“ Steven Hill (08:19:14) :
Typo above, it’s AGW.”
But AWG is pronounceable & sounds much sillier, so let’s use it. That way we can refer to AWGers (augurs), CAWGers (croaking crows), etc.
(AWG can, with a littler arm-twisting, be made an accurate acronym, for “anthropologically warmed globe.”)
I’d like to know that too. More specifically, I’d like to know which catastrophes are occurring due to human industrial CO2 output (besides economic catastrophes due to alarmism).
[snip]
Reply: Nothing here but a personal attack. ~ ctm
Jacob Mack (15:00:02) :
Nowg I have a degree in Chemistry among others…
The real Jacob Mack:
Jacob Mack’s Specialties:
Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology and Analysis along with in depth knowledge of social environmental issues dealing with global climate change, Biochemistry and Microbiology areas of expertise along with Neuropsychology practicum.
Jacob Mack’s Education
Ashford University
BA Psychology , Double Major/Psychology-Social Criminal Justice , 2008— 2009
Taking the summer 09 off and transferring to another college Fall 09 to finish up my BA Degree by Dec 2010, then I’m going to pursue an advanced degree in Psychology in addition to completing my CA Teaching credentials.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jcbmack
also: http://climateoverdrive.wordpress.com/
ctm
True, sorry. I find it very frustrating when a post is full of typos.
Quote: “What you and others of your ilk fail to adequately consider is that there are many drivers of climate and some are far stronger than CO2. Even if considering CO2 in isolation, the warming is not significant without some very speculative reinforcing feedback mechanisms. Bottom lines are, the earth hasn’t been warming for the last decade; historically, man has prospered during warm periods and suffered in cold; CO2 up to 1000 ppm enhances plant growth and gives us higher crop yields.”
jtom,
this is a good opening for more serious scientific disussion. One, water vapor absorbs infrared of certain frequencies, while CO2 absorbs others allowing less radiation to leave to space and, therefore be re-radiated back to the planet Earth. CH4 which is methane absorbs more heat transferring radiation per mole than C02; as permafrost melts more CH4 is being released into the atmosphere. Water vapor is forced upon by increasing C02 levels, so you are almost correct there. Regarding C02 for plantlife, yes of course, the carbon cycle, light and dark reactions requires CO2, so no argument there. What you are neglccting to mention or perhaps are unaware of, are negative and positive feedback loops limitations. Too much water, nitrogen, sunlight, and so forth will eventually kill plantlife; some species are more adaptive than others and can survive, or even thrive in more extreme conditions, but evolutionart adaptations do have upper limits for all species… Regarding hominids, well, it is well documented that many Neandertals did well during their first glacial period and that modern hominids did even better during Neandertal’s second exposure to a glacial period. CO2 at 1000 ppm is not going to be good for humans, and no not all plant life will do well at such high end CO2 levels, though some will, of course… now, ignoring the popular science magazines, and the news, I suppose my actual P.h.D. professors were all lying to us as well? These include: botanists, meteorologists, climatologists, chemists, cell biologists, microbiologists, physical chemists and the like. My degrees are in Biology and Chemistry with specializations in environmental science. So, all the textbooks, the charts and my professors with real world experience are all wrong? What about primary literature and actual photographs of the regions in question?