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This map below updates every hour, and shows city temperatures along with temperature gradients. Can you believe 18F in Atlanta (midday) at the time of this writing? Low temperature records are being shattered in many USA cities with cold records outnumbering warm records almost 5 to 1. This thread will update with weather news as it happens.
Look at all of the cold records:
| Total Records: | 1045 |
| Rainfall: | 127 |
| Snowfall: | 351 |
| High Temp: | 85 |
| Low Temp: | 162 |
| Low Max Temp: | 300 |
| High Min Temp: | 20 |
Cold records total: 462
Warm records total: 105
Source: http://wx.hamweather.com/maps/climate/records/1week/us.html
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Update: here is WeatherBell’s map being used for The Drudge Report. It represents the air temperature at 2 meters above the surface (you may need to manually refresh browser to see it.) Note the United States Avg: value, which is below freezing for the CONUS.
UPDATE2: record breaking cold in Atlanta
![image_full1[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/image_full11.gif)
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The warmistas on The Weather Channel this morning were saying that the bitter cold was caused by warming in the Arctic that “dislodged” part of the polar vortex and send it southward to us. They showed their obligatory graphics showing the “strong” warming trend over the last 50-60 years. For them to make such warmist points during the middle of such immense cold is interesting…
@Gary Young Pearse
Julia Slingo hasn’t been awarded an OBE, she has been given a much higher honour (ti some people) – she’s been made a Dame (the female equivalent of a Knight or ‘Sir’). The award was for “her services to weather and climate science.” (to quote the official reason).
The Met Office’s chief executive, John Hirst, has also been recognised in the New Year Honours List and has been made a CBE.
Because the Met Office is sooo good they can now give us space weather and the weather forecast for Jupiter! But can only say that it ‘may rain’ later today in the UK.
😎
@Bob S.
Great to have an open minded person AGW-inclined persuasion. I think that the onus to prove premise that we are experiencing extraordinary climate change is on the Warmist camp. The Polar Vortex we are experiencing is the status quo for North America, as it was in the 70’s when alarmist proclaimed it heralded Ice-Age-Impending Global Cooling. (See Time Magazine via: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/time-magazine-goes-both-ways-on-the-polar-vortex/)
Note that we have changed from Global Warming (since the globe hasn’t been warming for 15-17 years — even with some interesting temp adjustments applied to the data) to “Climate Change”. Well, the climate always changes. I’m glad we’re not in the midst of an Ice Age, or even a “Little Ice Age”. The world has been much warmer (see the Jurassaic period or the Holocene Optimum) without any interference by man. Furthermore, the rate of temperature increase in the latest warming period (80s-90s) was no more rapid that the previous period (30s-40s — I’m sure someone else here has the reference to the charts I’ve seen in the past.)
What is remarkable is that the IPCC says that man could not have caused the earlier temperature increase, but causes the second (at a 95% certainty level). Yet, the rates were the same. And now, massive increases in CO2 during the last 1 1/2 decades, we have seen no temperature increase.
Few people here deny that extra CO2 from man has no contribution to the climate. We only note that, given physics as we understand it, it can only have a small and declining contribution with increased concentrations. Even the IPCC relies on Water vapor (the models to not predict at all reliably) to get the catastrophic warming.
I hope this helps you.
jono1066 says:
January 7, 2014 at 11:59 am
Go to Google.com, type ‘7f in c’ in the search box (no quotes), hit return. Read answer.
The purple bit on the first map looks very like the extent of the Laurentide ice sheet during the Wisconsin glaciation (the most recent one). Just sayin’.
@danj
Why is anyone in their right mind watching “The Weather Channel” to get any weather information at all? The only way these people will go away is if we stop funding their garbage by watching their channel on cable or visiting their websites. Eventually, their sponsors will get the message…
(These same comments also apply to the “Weather Underground” – the only weather “information” site named after a radial left wing organization)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground
“The Weather Underground Organization (WUO), commonly known as the Weather Underground, was an American radical left organization founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally called Weatherman, the group became known colloquially as the Weathermen. Weatherman first organized in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)[2] composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their supporters. Their goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party for the overthrow of the US government.“
Bob S. says:
January 8, 2014 at 6:49 am
“How do recent temperature extremes constitute proof that our climate is not changing?”
They don’t. The climate is always changing. The concept that humans have had any significant contribution to that change or that changes in our behaviour could have any significant impact upon it are what most analytically oriented individuals challenge. According to the climate models temperatures should still be rising along with the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and they have not risen in 17 years. Models that do not predict should not be the basis for public policy. Warm has historically always been better than cold for human populations and such activities as food production. Without CO2 this would be a dead planet, ie no photosynthesis. There are so many erroneous issues in the AGW plan book one could write a book on the errors in logic, alone.
Monitor this site and you will have plenty of additional data and insites to add to your personal evaluation of what you want to believe.
Bob S. says:
January 8, 2014 at 6:49 am
How do recent temperature extremes constitute proof that our climate is not changing? I’m not saying it’s conclusive or even good evidence for climate change or global warming, but it certainly does not support the opposing view.
A bit of a straw man there, Bob. No one claims either a) that the climate isn’t changing, since it always changes or b) that it “proves” anything one way or the other. There is little evidence that man’s CO2 has done anything to affect temperatures, and the idea that it somehow affects our weather is laughable. Yet, the claim continues to be made, or at least implied.
Who’all wants to get in on a betting pool over whether or not, come the first week of February, NOAA will call January 2014 the hottest January ever recorded?
Side-bet on whether or not there’ll again be a suspiciously Russia-sized, Russia-shaped superhotspot centered on Russia and stopping precisely at Russia’s borders present in the land-based temperature record, the magnitude of which will be enough to skew the entire data set to record highs?
Bob S. says:
January 8, 2014 at 6:49 am
Please answer – by calculations, NOT by “press release” or by sweeping generalities! – the following:
1) These temperatures (lows in the US and highs as in Australia) are truly “exceptional” in the world’s historical period, and they have not been measured before by “unmodified” temperature records.
2) Show, by calculations, that a perceived (claimed) global average temperature increase of 0.7 degrees since 1850 can CAUSE today’s regional low temperatures in the US, AND regional high temperatures in Australia, AND a 17 year period of steady temperatures AND a 25 year decline in global average temperatures between 1940 and 1975. (Remember, there are no worldwide measurements of the so-called “soot effect” or aerosols … Only claims.) NO global circulation model at ANY site has been correct over even a ten-year forecast period.
3) Tell us, by calculation, WHY the GCM models can be accepted as accurate when
While CO2 was steady over 75 year period, global average temperature records and proxies
Remained steady over several12 year periods,
Increased over a 25 year period,
Decreased over a 20 year period.
While CO2 was increased over 55 year period, global average temperature records and proxies
Remained steady over two 12 year periods,
Increased over a 25 year period,
Decreased over a 20 year period.
Thus, my final questions:
3A) What is the actual measured influence on global temperature,
3B) If the world’s global average temperature has increased despite the addition of CO2, and it has increased without the addition of CO2, and will cause no harm by increasing, so why does the CAGW community demand the world harm itself by artificially restricting CO2 and deliberately restricting greater energy economies?
3C) If the CAGW can ONLY justify its extremely large budgets (and its crisis mode of demands that will harm people worldwide) by creating perceived emergencies and by demanding more money and ever-greater budgets, how can they pretend to NOT be “self-funding through crisis”?
Bob S. says:
January 8, 2014 at 6:49 am
How do recent temperature extremes constitute proof that our climate is not changing?….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Try to get rid of the your preconceived notions about this site. This site has attracted and kept as contributors many scientists. Saying those here think the climate does not change is really quite insulting. It is an attempt to reduce us to unthinking idiots and thereby marginalize us.
For example try William McClenney (geologist):
New Geologic evidence of very very quick climate changes. link
An alternate view: The Antithesis
A discussion of a new paper (2012) Can we predict the duration of an interglacial?
Or try Dr. Robert Brown of Duke University:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/07/a-brief-introduction-to-the-detection-of-climate-and-weather-transitions-using-hurst-rescaling/#comment-1299461
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/#comment-1521678
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/18/the-ensemble-of-models-is-completely-meaningless-statistically/
All readings in Fahrenheit seems extreme to me
Hi Leon,
I wonder if the blizzard you mention from your youth is the one my mom talks about. It would have been the mid 1940s. It was the year they moved to Erie County from Oklahoma. She describes the snow drifting to the peak of the barn — 40 feet (12m). I might dismiss that as hyperbole, except that I’ve seen the photo my Grandfather made of the kids playing in it.
@ur momisugly Bruce Cobb
My “straw man” comment was based on numerous posts on this site that seem to me to imply that if it is colder than usual somewhere, than global warming is definitely a hoax. That is a logically flawed argument. I know these posts I refer to do not necessarily represent the views of all people not in the AGW camp, but it is those types of comments that I was aiming at, and there are many of them.
Also, I don’t understand why it is “laughable” that man’s production of CO2 could affect global temperatures, which could potentially affect the weather we experience. The greenhouse effect can be demonstrated on a small scale and adding more energy to our atmosphere seems to me to have the potential to change things. Can it change things on a scale that we can measure or even notice? I admit I do not know the answer to that, but it’s hardly a laughable notion.
@ur momisugly Dire Wolf
Thanks for your level-headed reply. You bring up some good points I will think more about. Your main argument seems to be that man’s activities probably do have some effect on the climate, but these effects are dwarfed by non-anthropogenic changes. This may be exactly correct. I don’t know, nor, I suspect, does anyone else. It is certainly something to consider.
I do have to question one thing you wrote. You give the example of the warming periods of the 30s-40s and the 80s-90s. I was not previously aware of them, so I will take you at your word. You mention that the IPCC claims that the more recent warming period was caused by man with high certainty, but the previous one was not. I think the fact that the rate of warming is similar in both cases hardly suggests that they are both naturally occuring. I know this over-simplifies the issue, but what if, without human intervention, the 80s-90s warming period would have never happened?Would it alarm you if the IPCC was correct in their analysis? What are your thoughts about this perspective?
It is my general philosophy to play it safe with things we don’t understand. I believe you agree that the severity of anthropogenic climate change is clearly difficult to predict, but there are some potentially severe consequences if the AGWs are correct. So why not play it safe, and try to reduce our carbon emissions? If this is not done in fear of AWG predictions, then why not do it to keep our air cleaner, take power away from oil-rich, unstable, often hostile regimes, and reduce the impact of losing fossil fuels when this finite resource eventually runs dry?
@ur momisugly Jim G.
You seem to have a similar gestalt stance to Dire Wolf, which I cannot dispute. You mention that wildly inaccurate models should not shape public policy, which I would completely agree with. Do you have a link to the data to back up your statement about the discrepancy between AWG models and measured data over the last 17 years? That is something I would be interested in seeing first hand. I have seen data in the past that the global temperature is indeed rising in the last couple of decades unlike your claim. If you trust NASA as a source, see this website: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/. The rising temperatures seem to correlate pretty well to anthropogenic CO2 production, maybe not on the timescale of one or even five years, but I find the apparent overall trend supporting AWG theories. Is it possibly a coincidence? Yes, we cannot discard that possibility, but I don’t see the discrepancy you described.
I find your implication about CO2 being good for the planet somewhat simple-minded. I’m not an advocate of removing all CO2 from the atmosphere, I am simply concerned that increased levels could possibly have some undesirable consequences. Also, your warmer being better argument seems short-sighted. I believe it is important to think about consequences a warmer climate could have on the global ecosystem, not just directly to humans. Maybe we just have to agree to disagree on this particular point?
> Bob S. says: January 8, 2014 at 6:49 am
> How do recent temperature extremes constitute proof that our climate is not changing?
The big lie from the AGW side is that we’re “deniers”, i.e. we deny that climate is changing. That is 100% false. Any sane literate person acknowledges that Earth’s climate has been changing for the past 4 billion years, is changing now, and will continue to change for the next 4 billion years. Deal with it
> As you may have guessed, my beliefs do align with those of the so-called AGWs,
The “A” in “AGW” implies “Anthropogenic”, i.e. caused by humans. That’s where most of this forum disagrees. Over the past 4 billion years, long before homonids stood up on their rear limbs, earth’s climate went through many extremes. All the way from a big ball of molten lava 4 billion years ago, through “snowball earth” through every phase in between. Man was not present then.
More recently, 18,000 years ago, Earth’s temperatures were several degrees colder than today, and ice sheets 2 kilometres thick covered places like Toronto and Chicago. There were less than a million homo sapiens on the planet, mostly hunter-gatherers in Africa. Yet, the planet started to warm up and polar ice cover started to retreat. The macro trend for the past 18,000 years has been rising temperatures and retreating polar ice cover, with a few speed bumps along the way (Younger Dryas, Little Ice Age, etc). Note that for 99% of this time period (i.e. up to 1830) human population was below a billion, and it had nowhere near today’s per-capita carbon footprint. Notwithstanding that, temperatures rose and polar ice retreated. Temperatures have continued warming and polar ice retreating for the last 180 years, just like the 16,200 years before that. It is up to the AGW crowd to explain why 180 years ago, a natural phenomenon has switched to being a man-made phenomenon.
@ur momisugly Gail Combs
You’re right, I’m sorry. I did come here with a preconceived notion of the site’s regulars, and I have been pleasantly surprised so far. Admittedly, I chose this particular article because it seemed to be trying to support the argument that “if it’s really cold right now, then global warming does not exist,” as I have seen on other venues. I wanted to hear the reasoning behind such an argument, but clearly this is the wrong place for that exact topic. Regardless, I still got a couple a well-thought-out replies so far, and I hope to keep the discussion going.
I will try discriminate between this site and others from here on out. Thanks for the reading material.
@ur momisugly RACookPE1978
I’m afraid won’t have many numbers for you, but I’ll try to answer anyway. You should also know that I’m not here to argue that there exist accurate GCMs. I want to discuss the other side of the climate issue, one that I’ve wrongly dismissed up to now. If I have errors in logic, I want you to point them out, just as if you have errors in logic, I will try to point them out. Too often people get stuck in their ways on both sides of charged issues, and I think open conversation accomplishes much more than blind argument.
Nevertheless, I will try my best to answer your questions with the knowledge I currently have.
1) I’m just not sure what you’re getting at here.
2) I can’t. I do not have the knowhow, nor, it seems, does anyone else, CAGW or not. Assuming your facts are correct, I have a question for you: just because we haven’t come up with an accurate model yet, does it mean we should stop trying?
3) Knowing very little details about the GCMs to date, my answer would be that global temperatures vary due to many independent variables, not just CO2 concentration. How severely does CO2 effect global temperatures is unknown.
3A) Once again, I think there are too many variables in play to be able to isolate the effect of just one.
3B) First, how can you be so sure that increasing global temperatures can do no harm? I am not convinced of this. I highly doubt the CAGW is trying to cause the world harm. It is their belief that the world will be harmed more over the long term if we do not try to curb our emissions. Also, how much do you think the world would be harmed if we do not try to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels and the accessible reserves of fossil fuels run dry. I think it is better to be proactive, look forward and prepare, not just trust that things will work themselves out.
Let me propose an analogy. Say you and a group of people are stranded on an island with a stock of, say, cheese to sustain yourselves. The island has other food sources, but no one knows how to effectively harvest enough to sustain the group. Also, there is a potential danger on the island, say, lions. It is predicted by some of your group that the lions will be attracted to the smell of cheese if you open the packages in too great a quantity, and the lions may kill the group. However, it has never been conclusively demonstrated that lions are attracted to cheese. Additionally, the stock of cheese is limited, and you don’t know when the supplies will be finished. Do you A) eat the cheese at a high rate assuming the lions will not come and you will figure out how to sustain yourselves off the islands bounty after the cheese is gone, or do you B) ration the cheese to reduce the potential risk of lions and try to start researching harvesting methods to supplement your cheese stock and prepare you for when the cheese runs out.
This is a simplified situation, but the choice seems obvious to me.
3C) All I can say to this is that climate change research takes up a very small amount of the nation’s budget. Whether or not the money is being spent well, we have bigger budgetary fish to fry. I personally think that it is worth spending money on if there is a small chance of avoiding or mitigating a problem of this magnitude.
(Mods. since this is no longer one, you may want to remove this first line. Top sticky post – new posts will appear below this one.)
Bob S. We’ve only begun to pay.
“The US is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
@ur momisugly Bob S
Thank you, in return, for your own level-headed response. For the two warming periods I suggest this chart for a beginning: http://d243395j6jqdl3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/graph.jpg Note that between the two warming periods was a dramatic cooling period, even though CO2 was increasing rapidly. If CO2 can increase while the earth experiences rapid decreases in temperature (such that people worried about the onset of an ice age) what role does CO2 really play? Indeed, today’s “global temperature pause” begs just that question.
In addressing the precautionary principle you mentioned (erring on the side of caution), we must first talk about the costs. If we could eliminate the use of fossil fuels around the world right now we would be dooming billions of people to poverty. Already our misguided Ethanol mandates have raised world food prices making it harder for the poor to eat. Electricity is the engine that has lifted people out of poverty around the world and there is no real substitute source for electricity generation besides fossil fuels. (Nuclear could be a solution, but only if massively developed, and you will find Anthony Watts a great promoter of thorium fusion reactors — much safer than Uranium fusion and something neglected in our mad dash for nuclear weapons.) The de-carbonizing of the world economy would produce or continue massive suffering. To my mind, the needs of the poor must be put above speculations about AGW that lacks scientific rigor. (I recommend to you this essay: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/)
In addition, we must consider what problems we spend on. We spend billions of dollars directly as a nation on “green” solutions (and probably a trillion if you count indirect costs such as mandated wind/solar components to electricity). An asteroid impact of catastrophic consequence is inevitable. How much should we spend on that? The supervolcano at Yellowstone will erupt catastrophically. How much for that? An ice age will, inevitably arise. What should we spend on that?
Finally, about peak fossil fuel production. Is it inevitable that we will “run out” of fossil fuels? I speak specifically about methane. Methane is one of the most common substances in our solar system, occurring in places with no hint of life (such as Jupiter’s moon, Titan, where it rains methane). If methane is produced without dead dinosaurs, etc. (the fossils in “fossil fuel”) how can we be certain it is a fossil fuel here. Furthermore, any good economist will tell you we will never “run out” of fossil fuels. What will happen is that, if they become more scarce, they will
a) become more expensive making innovation affordable (whether it is better production such as fraking or it is alternative energy sources such as thorium fusion or some future innovation) and
b) be used less and less until, like whale oil, the are rarely thought of.
I hope this hasn’t been overly long. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
“American taxpayers spent $7.45 billion to help developing countries cope with climate change in fiscal years 2010 through 2012, according to a federal government report submitted to the United Nations on a subject that Secretary of State John Kerry described as “a truly life-and-death challenge.”
$22.2 billion in taxpayer climate change funding in 2013, with $21.4 billion planned for 2014 http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf Table 1, p. 5
@ur momisugly Bob S
“You give the example of the warming periods of the 30s-40s and the 80s-90s. I was not previously aware of them, so I will take you at your word.”
If you want a clearer view of the cyclic nature of Global Temperatures, based purely on the data available to date (HadCrut4). may I recommend you look at the graph below.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:220/mean:174/mean:144/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:720
@ur momisugly RichardLH
Thanks for that great resource. That shows the cyclic nature very well. However, it also shows an increasing trend since roughly the 1920s: the blue line in your link. That is more the issue, I think. The million dollar question: what is causing that trend?
@ur momisugly Dire Wolf
RichardLH linked to a really nice resource for the historic temperature measurements. It allows you to easily take the convolution the measured data with a prescribed function width, so you can filter out the higher frequency noise in order to see the trends. In Richard’s link the green plot shows a remarkably regular sinusoidal oscillation with a period of roughly 60 years which is imposed upon an increasing function (blue curve) that could be interpreted as having begun circa 1920 based on the data shown. Now, let us postulate that the cyclical function is not anthropogenic since I can’t conceive of anything humans have done in regular 60 year periods that would affect the global temperature. The increasing trend is of unknown origin which is the reason for this debate if I’m not mistaken. I believe this because it explains many things: the two aforementioned warming periods and the milder cooling period in between could easily be explained by a sinusoidal function imposed on a monotonically increasing function. Additionally, the sinusoidal function has been in the decreasing phase over the last couple of decades or so, and the increasing trend has an increasing slope, so instead of a cooling period like that of 50 or 60 years ago, we have a flattening of the data in recent years, explaining the “global temperature pause.” Note that I’m not saying that the increasing trend is anthopogenic, but I don’t see why that is an invalid theory. The AWG interpretation is making sense in terms of this data, but I am open to other explanations. What is your interpretation of this data? What do you think is causing that blue curve?
Good point. It is true that we have to think about the costs of implementing the precautionary principle. This is something that is often overlooked. I do believe there will be costs, but I don’t think the poor are the ones who will suffer most.
First off, I don’t think we should just eliminate the use of fossil fuels immediately. I think it is high time we start phasing them out. This would be a long process, lasting probably a couple centuries.
Second, I completely agree with you on the ethanol mandates. They were a severely misguided and just plain ignorant attempt to burn cleaner fuel. Besides the negative effects on the agricultural economy, if memory serves, it takes about 3 gallons of gasoline worth of energy to process and create a single gallon of ethanol from corn, and ethanol has a lower energy content than gas. Granted it costs energy to produce a gallon of gas, too, the net energy gain of ethanol is far into the red. Really stupid idea. (Sorry for the soapbox.)
Third, the suffering poor. I am highly unconvinced that the poor will bear the brunt of losing fossil fuels. The metric I like to think about when it comes to poverty is income inequality. I want to show you two graphics. The first one shows a metric of income inequality by country: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/gini%20map%20large.jpg. The second shows the magnitude of oil production by country: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Oil_producing_countries.2010.png. Now, the correlation isn’t perfect, but income inequality tends to increase with greater oil production. On the small scale, this also seems to be true, since oil money often ends up in the hands of a relatively small group of people. Nigeria is an extreme yet somewhat representative example of this: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/ross/NigeriaOil.pdf. It’s worth reading at least the first couple pages of that link to see my point.
Fourth, you are right, there is known source that is as easy and energy-rich as fossil fuels. I would argue that is the reason for our addiction to it. While there are no sources that are anywhere near as convenient, there are alternatives. You pointed out nuclear, which I also support along with Watts. Solar and wind are also pretty serious options. Solar in particular is good for developing countries, even disregarding contentious environmental impacts, solar is great as a distributed energy source in regions without an existing electrical infrastructure. A couple summers ago, I spent a month in Ghana in west Africa partially for the purpose of evaluating the viability of alternative energy there. It is a perfect candidate for solar, as I suspect many developing countries are. Outside the larger cities, electrical infrastructure is non-existent. Most smaller villages have no access to electricity, and they will travel hours, believe it or not, in order to charge their cell phones (oddly enough, almost everyone has one). They also have no access to refrigeration for food, or more importantly, medicines. Solar panels have been deployed in a handful of these communities, and they are a huge boost to quality of life, and much, much cheaper than extending the electrical infrastructure or running a generator. Long story short, there are viable alternatives for fossil fuel, and even more convenient ones in select cases. I think they are worthy of being developed further.
Fifth, I really find it hard to appreciate that article with it’s accusatory, one-sided, and subjective language. It is articles like that that gave me my initial negative impressions of this website. But aside from that, looking at the data the article presents, yes the initial predictions of the AGW do seem to be overblown. This goes to show the unreliability of predictions, since they are exactly that: predictions. Does that prove that the current estimates are overblown, too? What I find more disturbing about the data presented is the final figure with the “observations” listed out to the year 2050. That is a prediction, too, and it assumes temperatures will rise linearly at the same rate as the last 60 years. I’m no climate scientist, but that is way oversimplified. I don’t think we should base our public policy solely on these predictions, nor do we. If our government truly adhered to all the AGW warnings, we would be spending a heck of a lot more on climate research and energy alternatives than we do today. The AGWs have not “won” if you want to look at this issue in an adversarial light, nowhere close.
On your next point, the difference between the catastrophes you listed and the issue in question is that, assuming the AGW camp is correct, this potential catastrophe is avoidable and we know how to mitigate it’s effects. The sun will die out in 3 billion years. Today, we have no way of changing that, and we have more pressing issues, so we should spend $0 on that problem.
I feel like you’re arguing semantics with methane not necessarily being a fossil fuel. I think the point is moot. No matter where it comes from, it’s supply is finite on this planet. And producing more would take more energy than you will get back from burning it (conversion efficiencies are less than unity).
The economist’s argument is one I’ve heard before, and while technically true, it ignores important details, and assumes that our rate of innovation and deployment of new tech will keep up with declining fossil fuel resources. My greatest fear on this issue is that fossil fuel production will decline too fast for us to keep up with it, and the transition will be disastrous. This fear is based partially on the fact that we have little idea of how much accessible fossil fuel resources we have left. The economist argument says nothing about the potential discrepancy between the rate of change and the rate of innovation. This is what I meant in a previous post by just sitting back and letting things work themselves out, along with my silly analogy about cheese and lions. Things will be much easier on us long term if we look forward and wean ourselves off fossil fuels slowly, rather than to react to an inevitable drop in their supply.
P.S. No worries about long posts. Thank you for reading mine, as I seem to be an even worse offender 🙂
@ur momisugly Laurie
You clearly don’t want your tax dollars being spent on climate research or alternative energy subsidies. Would you pay taxes to support the fossil fuels industry? Because that is what you are doing. It is possible that even more of your tax dollars are going to fossil fuel subsidies, anywhere from 10 to 52 billion dollars per year of U.S. taxpayer money goes to well-established and wealthy companies that sell us a product we are addicted to (these numbers have to be estimated because they are not transparent like the numbers you gave). That makes no sense to me. If you think that alternative energy should be able to compete on it’s own merits, then certainly should oil. Do you at least agree that if we cut funding for alternative energy tech, that we should also cut the fossil fuel subsidies?
I apologize in advance for the one-sided source, but this article gives direct links to the studies from which it gets its numbers: http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/.
Bob S. says:
January 9, 2014 at 8:34 am
“@ur momisugly RichardLH
Thanks for that great resource. That shows the cyclic nature very well. However, it also shows an increasing trend since roughly the 1920s: the blue line in your link. That is more the issue, I think. The million dollar question: what is causing that trend?”
Well we can be fairly sure that it too is cyclic, at least to some extent. After all the temperatures dropped to the low point at 1840-80 from a slightly higher regime before that. There was a sequence of low points stretching back through the whole of the Little Ice Age, apparently at ~100 year periods.
“NASA defines the term as a cold period between AD 1550 and 1850 and notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming.[7] ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
So the data does not (yet anyway) allow for us to decide if we are close to the end of this ~100 cycle or not.
I believe that at least some of the rise since 1840-80 has natural causes and that it will reverse at some point. As you say the question is when and at what level.
Mind you, it is possible to add CO2 to that graph and come to the conclusion that it is all down to that and that alone.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:220/mean:174/mean:144/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:720/plot/esrl-co2/scale:0.007/offset:-2.25
Fits the values but not necessarily the logic 🙂