Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study claims “the window has closed” for preventing 1.5c of warming, and we’re going to have to work hard to prevent 2c of warming. Naturally in true climate tradition there is no evidence anything bad has or will happen.
Scientists: Window for avoiding 1.5C global warming ‘closed’
World is almost certain to breach danger threshold for millions of vulnerable people, study finds.
Scientists have bad news for people on the front line of climate change impacts.
The 1.5C global warming limit vulnerable countries fought hard to include in the Paris Agreement may already be out of reach.
There is slim chance of stabilising temperature rise at that level without controversial negative emissions technology, according to a study published in Nature.
“The window for limiting warming to below 1.5C with high probability and without temporarily exceeding that level already seems to have closed,” the report found.
It is a blow for those living near the coast of Bangladesh or low-lying islands like Kiribati, which is preparing for an exodus as rising seas swallow homes.
Coral reefs dying and tropical heatwaves are also expected to kick in at moderate levels of global warming, affecting millions of people worldwide.
The abstract of the referenced study;
Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C
The Paris climate agreement aims at holding global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To accomplish this, countries have submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) outlining their post-2020 climate action. Here we assess the effect of current INDCs on reducing aggregate greenhouse gas emissions, its implications for achieving the temperature objective of the Paris climate agreement, and potential options for overachievement. The INDCs collectively lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to where current policies stand, but still imply a median warming of 2.6–3.1 degrees Celsius by 2100. More can be achieved, because the agreement stipulates that targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are strengthened over time, both in ambition and scope. Substantial enhancement or over-delivery on current INDCs by additional national, sub-national and non-state actions is required to maintain a reasonable chance of meeting the target of keeping warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Read more (paywalled): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v534/n7609/full/nature18307.html
So how badly is Kiribati suffering the ravages of climate? The answer is not a lot. Prompted by radical green orthodoxy, the New Zealand Government has been offering Kiribati residents a green card style lottery for 75 new residence permits every year, but as of last year New Zealand can’t find enough Kiribati people who want to leave, to fill the lottery.
… there hasn’t been a dramatic exodus just yet. The New Zealand immigration department sets aside 75 places a year in a lottery for migrants from Kiribati, and at the moment it can’t fill them.
President Anote Tong [Kiribati] suggests that is because things aren’t desperate enough yet.
Read more: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/07/and-you-thought-the-kiribati-climate-refugee-story-was-over/
The one degree or so of warming we have experienced has not made a noticeable difference to people’s lives, other than a slightly longer growing season, and less severe winters. Even if another 0.5C – 1C warming occurs, which is far from certain, there is no reason to think that the kind of temperature change you experience moving a few hundred feet up or down a hillside will make a major difference to people’s lives.
Ummmm, I live in Canada, and I guarantee you…I will not be complaining about 2 degrees of warming ! …..3 degrees and I will be celebrating !
Just moved from my back garden (19 degrees in Sun) to my front garden at 13degrees C,
This global warming is really severe here in the Soviet Republic of Scotland.
Just think how much warmer it will be when you have to return the degrees C and take the degrees F back out of storage. Then you’ll wish you had paid attention!
I see that I am not alone in referring to the SNP as the Scottish Bolsheviks.
Amongst the expatriate Scotsmen in Australia they were always known as the kilted Comms.
Another thing they have in common with the Bolsheviks is in being a minority government with 100% of the power, which arose through the peculiarities of the regional voting system. Less than 50% of Scots actually support them.
Another peculiarity is that in the general election UKIP polled more votes than the SNP and Lib Dems combined yet retained only one seat; whilst the SNP ousted all of the Scottish Labour MPs bar one. The SNP policy or position is that if anything goes wrong blame the Tories.
You should be hoping for global warming. Maybe then Scotland won’t be so cold.
Daryl
I think that – if Scotland is warm, it will be uninhabitable.
The mozzies will then be the size of Cessnas, and will suck humans to a shrivelled sack of about nothing at all save skin.
Much like the SNP’s taxation policies in an Independent Soviet Socialist Republic of Scotland, per the ever-renewing Sturgeon, first minister.
Auto
WELL South of the border.
I personally know two people in Scotland who voted to leave the EU. I dont know any who voted to remain perhaps the vote was rigged by theSturgeon’s Bolsheviks.
When they say 1.5C i’ve always wondered when they were starting from. If they are starting from 1700 then they are counting the recovery from the LIA. In other words, they are assuming that the perfect temperature was 1700 let us know because most people might say that was too cold.
If they are using 1900 then the temperature rise till now is 0.8C but half of that occured before we started pouring significant amount of co2 into the atmosphere. Most people talk about being able to attribute manmade warming to after 1945 when man poured huge amounts of co2 into the atmosphere. Funny thing is about that for 30 years the temperature went down not up. However, I digress.
So, was 1945 the perfect temperature so 1.5C from that is dangerous? Well, based on that we have poured in 50% of all the CO2 we may ever pour into the atmosphere and gotten about 0.4C gain. So, we could expect maybe another 0.4C from the other half till the end of the century. That’s only 0.8C. How do they expect we will get this dangerous 1.5C when it seems almost impossible to get more than 0.8C?
Maybe they mean over the next 100 or 200 years?
I’m confused. What exactly was the perfect temperature for the AGW panic’d climate scientists? When exactly are they starting when that perfect temperature existed.
I would call the perfect temperature assuming one exists to be the temperature where more things die below or above that temperature. The IPCC calculated that at 1.5C things would start to lean towards more dying then benefitting from warmer temperatures. So, it seems maybe the IPCC is saying that 1.5C is the perfect temperature where life is balanced.
In which case if we need to go up another 0.5C to 1C to get to the perfect temperature it seems that we are poised to achieve perfection. So, what’s the worry?
Why don’t they tell us what the perfect temp for the earth is? Just tell us.
+1
Yes. What is the “right” temperature to start from?
Exactly. According to their theory there is some temperature where bad stuff is balanced with the good. For millennia higher temps have always seemed to been associated with better human condition. So it’s not obvious the perfect temp is in the past or any lower temperature. It seems as if they are arguing that any temp change from here is bad which would imply this is the perfect temp. That is unlikely that we happen to be at the perfect temp. I have always found when the assumption is the current whatever is perfect that it is extremely unlikely and virtual proof that whatever theory you have is wrong. They calculate that 1.5 c from 1800 is where more bad stuff happens than good. However I show in several of my blogs at https://logiclogiclogic.wordpress.com/category/climate-policy that their predictions of bad things happening is atrociously bad. I am incredibly skeptical of such predictions because I fell for the club. Of Rome predictions in the 80s. My blog will show you how bad this prediction from experts, using computer models, from good schools like MIT, smart people and they missed the mark horribly. Very educational to read.
The Paris Agreement counted ALL warming since 1800 as from greenhouse gases, which, of course, is absurd.
The perfect temperature does not seem to be “an ever-fixed mark” (apologies to Shakespeare). Rather, it is an ever MOVING mark, which shall only be revealed after full initiation into the Magical Mystery Cult of Gaia. If you are lucky, you may be able to get a Groupon to save on the fees. The good news is, once initiated, you are no longer subject to the leftist-suggested living standards. You too can live like our elite Dear Leaders!!!
That is most assuring. If you read about club of Rome they told us how instituting collectivism and ascetic living massively reducing our birth rate and consumption could lead to nirvana and peaceful coexistence forever. But somehow I don’t think they were talking about the elites super intelligent movie stars who fly around in private jets were supposed to have this ascetic existence. Like with all liberal causes what I’ve discovered is that they mean everyone else should live like I say not myself. I need to fly around to tell you how to live. I deserve to earn massive income from my amazing skills as an actress or actor to get paid 100s of millions for a few weeks of work. It is the greedy corporations who have to brought to punishment for supplying the things we like to consume. Thus oil companies need to be vilified for providing the fuel for me to fly around in my private jet.
Theyists are to blame.
michaelspj
“The Paris Agreement counted ALL warming since 1800 as from greenhouse gases, which, of course, is absurd.”
The Paris Agreement, of course, is absurd.
Fixed. Quite easily.
Auto – appreciating that Obama has tied his goolies [Cockney slang for his Missus’s eye-teeth] to the absurd Paris Agreement. But, not up for re-election, he has endorsed the FBI-interviewed Clinton . . . .
Har, har.
So the 1.5/2.0 °C is that based on exactly which climate sensitivity? Isn’t it 4K? Then this makes even less sense as the sensitivity is much lower.
Such projections are based on models which may be analysed for the climate sensitivity which they exhibit, but it is not part of the calculation. It is not an input parameter.
Phew, then we can stop talking about it then. It was a stupid idea in the first place.
Even the 2 deg C figure was pulled straight out of the air and has not sound scientific basis.
The basic derivation is : it’s warmed about 1 deg since pre-industrial and nothing has happened. So double that and we will probably still be OK. The aim was to provide a simplistic political target, there is nothing scientific about it.
The whole process and the Paris accord has been done of the basis of non validated models which are running hot and an arbitrary “safe” limit which has no scientific value.
Those 1.5 and 2.0 degree C ‘tipping points’ were numbers that were pulled directly from their arses.
I don’t understand how supposedly intelligent and educated people keep using those numbers with such great gravitas. They HAVE to know there has never been any scientific evidence of any such thing. I will never understand how so many people can share the same delusions, and then keep building on them.
Delusions built on other delusions are just more delusions.
Tea party, they proved that in 2080 we will have 40% less agricultural productivity in spite of incredible advancements in genetics, technology of all types, longer growing seasons in many areas and more arable land, higher co2 levels which feed crops and a lot more wealth which to operate with we will starve. We only spend 2% of GDP on farming and food but we will starve in 2080 partly because we won’t be smart enough to move growing crops from hot areas to new arable lands. All this from another 0.5C to 1C in temperature will cause this. It’s proved. Why do you question their peer reviewed articles which show people will starve in 2080? It’s fact. Beyond doubt.
3logic – just wondering who ‘they’ are that proved there would be 40% less agricultural productivity by 2080? Never heard of that report before. Just wondering who exactly said that? And where are these ‘new arable lands’ going to be? The Sun won’t be shining any longer hours per day up in Alaska, the days won’t be any longer, they’ll still have a very short growing season b/c of the tilt of Earth’s axis.
Lou, sorry it is the IPCC. This is part of how they calculate that 1.5C is going to kill us. We will have lower agricultural productivity. I have a graph from the IPCC in my blogs that shows where the regions that will have lower productivity. The theory is that as it warms growing regions that are now marginal become more arable and some that are unstable become more arable. At least in colder regions.
Of course the magnitude of the agriculture hit is astonishing from a rather unimpressive temperature change. Considering that we grow food extremely well in deserts like Israel and in southwestern us I find it a little unbelievable but who am I to argue with experts. Considering food is so cheap we throw away half of it in the us and other places it seems to me in a worst case scenario we could easily overcome any possible decrease in productivity in a hundred different ways without having to starve people.
One issue not covered is that food productivity is rising so fast that by 2080 we will almost certainly have a huge excess capacity to make food and so that any decrease would be easily soaked up by simply expanding capacity. As in all these predictions there is a lack of creativity by the researchers in alternative mitigations such as substituting crops, using other land, increasing investment, or a dozen things that might make starving a remote possibility.
So you’re using a ‘worst case scenario’ to prove your 40% less point? And i don’t see where the IPCC claimed anything like that. They may have stated that certain specific areas of the planet would lose 20-30% of their agricultural ability over the whole course of the 21st Century but that is still not 40% over the whole planet, its specific areas, and still not by 2080. Also, IPCC claims are based on scientific studies of rainfall, aridity, etc. I don’t see where they take into account possible future inventions that may or may not happen to help worldwide crop production. The reports are based on known science of today.
“Those 1.5 and 2.0 degree C ‘tipping points’ were numbers that were pulled directly from their arses.”
A more worrisome point is where their heads must have been, so they could see the numbers to pull them out.
Yes. I can’t believe any intelligent person believes this stuff. Food productivity decline? We’ve tripled good producttivity in the last 50 years. Well almost certainly triple it again in the next 50 with genetics expanded wealth more co2 in the atmosphere and if it does warm up then the expanded growing season and we expanded stable land. The idea good productiveness would decline in 2080 is similar to all their predictions of bad things happening. They’re all incredibly bad studies that are easily refuted with even a modicum of effort. They talk about sea level rise. More than half the islands of the world are gaining land mass. They never mention that. Have they been to Danish lands and seen how they are half underwater for centuries and are okay with global warming. They have no fear of being flooded because of a few inches or even feet. All the negatives are easily mitigated without even trying yet the positives they ignore with a vengeance. Larger growing regions, fewer deaths from pneumonia, heart disease and numerous other causes will save millions. As someone else pointed out. Energy = life. There is zero possibility that 1 or 2c ot even more will cause more death. It is extremely unlikely we are at the perfect temperature and another degree is the killer temp. We know that life was incredibly abundant and fruitful at 8C warmer during certain period in Gaia history. 5000 years ago when human civilization was formed temps were at the Holocene maximum higher than today. This paranoid belief that another degree will hurt anything is absurd.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V15/N19/B2.php
The Swedish studies showed 19% increase in birch basal area and biomass between 1997 and 2010.
http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2013/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2
The CSIRO satellite study found 11% increase in global plant growth between 1982 and 2010. And they didn’t allow for the fact we are burning down rainforest.
Any crop you care to name has increasing yield, and studies of drought and temperature resistance in the major grain crops show they are increasing. A soybean studies showed yields are increasing fastest at the equator.
Combining the CSIRO data with the general accepted estimate of a 50% increase in growth in the 20th century, and we have over a 60+% increase in plant growth since 1900.
More plant growth from higher CO2 is settled science.
And there is a lot of low hanging fruit benefit to increasing CO2.
PA – You don’t seem to read your own links. The 1st one, from the Idso’s at CO2 Science, references a study around one small village of Abisko (your 19%) and also a study in Finmarksvidda, which is in the Arctic Circle and where the average yearly temp on the plateau is 27*. Good luck growing crops there as the sun doesn’t get much above 23* over the horizon even in full summertime. Maybe the trees taste good. Your 2nd link from CSIRO states “On the face of it elevated CO2 boosting in dry country is good news … however, there will be secondary effects that are likely to influence water availability, the carbon cycle, fire regimes, and biodiversity … Ongoing research is needed if we are to fully comprehend the potential extent and severity of such secondary events.” So your link does not say what you claim it does. You should read and try to comprehend what is written before you post it. And low hanging fruits …
Lou Maytrees July 6, 2016 at 11:10 pm
… So your link does not say what you claim it does. You should read and try to comprehend what is written before you post it. And low hanging fruits …
I see you ignored their map showing the global change. Most of the benefit is on or near the equator, which refutes your points. Since anthropogenic urbanization and deforestation wasn’t taken into account their 11% is a lowball number. Just about every study throws a sop to the global warmers. You are focusing on the weasel words and not what the study found.
PA – and you seem to ignore the fact that your CSIRO link warned that secondary effects are a known problem that counteract any benefits of CO2 and need to be taken into account. You’re doing what you’re accusing me of, only seeing what you want to see. And most studies, like shown in your CSIRO link, find that the counter actions of a warming world delete any small benefits that CO2 gives. The counter problems have been known for quite some time.
and btw PA, the so called ‘weasel words’ are written directly in the links you provided. Your links are the ones who wrote and printed those ‘weasel words’.
Warmth is life. Cold kills. IF we are really warming the planet, I fail to see why this is a bad thing.
This interglacial will end sooner or later. That’s the real looming Climate crisis. For humanity, later seems like the better option. Maybe some warming will delay it long enough for us to figure out how to survive the Ice.
GoT Starks always said “Winter is coming…”
Cover it with soot.
I have said this from the beginning. This is a cold planet. Half the land of the planet is an ice ball that virtually no life can exist. We were nearly at the very lowest end of co2 that would cause life to cease on earth. At 180 or so plants would stop growing. The planet has come close to that in previous ice ages. We also know there were times when earth was much hotter and was covered in forests of lush vegetation. More evaporation means more water more rain more life. Co2 is consumed by plants and broken into oxygen which we need to live and carbon which the plant uses to directly grow itself. Co2 is the most life giving life generating substance we have in this world. It is nearly impossible to believe they have turned co2 into something negative when it is exactly the opposite.
This is the same as the scaremongering which those politicians in the UK used to try and persuade people to stay in the EU. It didn’t work for them; they cry wolf too often to be believed by us ordinary folk.
“ordinary folk”? 🙂 “Informed and rational folk” perhaps, which makes us a little different to most, and very different to those who keep sounding the alarm bells for no good reason.
“Informed and rational folk”
Probably a lot more than that. I thought I was quite clever and could understand most things but some of the people here leave me feeling like the village idiot. I have learnt more from this site than anywhere else in the last 10 years and do not see that stopping soon.
Hey Andrew! Allow me to second your comment. THANK YOU to all of you out there (especially Anthony Watts, our gracious host) for the time and effort you have all given to bring us others up to speed on the actual science of climate.
Before I found this site I read a large number of articles about global warming. Too many didn’t make sense given what I already knew about past climate. On this site I found the kind of critical examination of the issues that real science is supposed to be about. Asking questions instead of building on assumptions. When they talk about teaching critical thinking to school kids, I doubt they even know how, but this is what it should mean!
They talk about the science community policing itself but it is the more lay scientists like watt and McIntyre and others who have uncovered the errors in this field. I remember a blatant example of one time the record of Soviet Union got copied from one month to the next. This resulted in setting a new high temperature record which climate scientists went on and on about. A month later a lay person discovered the error not climate scientists. They fixed it and retracted the high temperatures. Ouch. Over and over its been lay scientists finding errors and yet they want to imprison the lay scientists for being skeptical.
The elite tell us that referendums (eg. Brexit) are a bad thing because the ‘ordinary folk’ can’t properly understand the issues. There’s a problem with that.
Experts can’t predict events any better than the rest of us. The trouble is that they think they can. That leads them to tinker with things that are best left alone. The result is a lot of breakage.
There’s a book, ‘Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?’. The author, Philip Tetlock spent a couple of decades gathering evidence. The conclusion is that experts are no better at predicting events than are dart-throwing monkeys. Nobody should be able to get out of highschool without understanding that book and its implications.
Our complex world imposes a fundamental limitation on our ability to predict its behaviour. Everyone needs to understand that, especially the experts. It would result in less ‘breakage’.
Had the pleasure, last year, of spending a few hours with a small group including Dr. Tetlock. I urge everyone to become familiar with his work. It provides the best arguments available regarding the reasons we should reel-in the administrative machinery of Washington D.C.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/tetlock/
A great book on this subject is: The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
What it shows is that a great deal of what happens around us is simply due to random chance. The fallacy comes from the human mind connecting the dots and finding cause and effect where there is none.
Experts are no better at prediction than the rest of us because random events are not predictable. A dart board or a pair of dice will perform equally well as the highest paid expert.
In point of fact, the performance of experts is often worse than that of the average person, because the expert often suffers from the bias of false beliefs.
For example, when predicting a pair of dice, 7 is the most likely throw. However, if you are an expert that believes the dice are going to throw high due to CO2, then you might recommend everyone bet on 8 or 9. Over time the experts strategy will perform worse than simply betting on the result being random.
So using your analogy on ‘experts’, when you bring your auto in for repair you don’t want the expert auto mechanic to do the job, you want someone who is not an expert to do the work? Or when you go for a medical exam you don’t want the Dr who is an expert to do the work, you want the nurse or the orderly to do the examination, etc.
This is especially true when you use the small number of years and data points we have. They talk about not being deceived by the “weather”. Of course they are all the time
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Philip_E._Tetlock_Expert_Political_Judgment_HowBookos.org_.pdf
Hi Bob,
You say “Experts can’t predict events any better than the rest of us. The trouble is that they think they can. That leads them to tinker with things that are best left alone. The result is a lot of breakage.”
Isn’t that the fundamental flaw in communism?
Phil’s dad: +1!
Phil’s Dad,
Communism, socialism, leftism in general.
Many years ago I remember reading an account of some study, conducted by the Army or maybe the Rand Corporation for one of the armed services. They took a cross-section of people and had them work through some nuclear war scenario. Turns out the janitor made better decisions during the exercise than the generals did.
We operate from the assumption that reasoned decisions are best. This makes sense because humans are capable of rational analysis. We seek as much information as possible to base our decision on. In the complex modern world there are so many confounding aspects to major decisions that it exceeds our ability to process. Throw in the reality of our innate biases and emotion along with some incorrect data and the deliberate misdirection from those with political or self serving agendas and we hardly ever get to rational decisions even when they are possible.
There is a wonderful book, Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. One insight from the book is that we unconsciously make decisions and then we consciously make up reasons that make the decisions seem rational.
The alternative is not wise decision making, it is actually paralysis by analysis. In any event, humans aren’t logic engines. We are pattern recognizers.
Anders Ericcson has written a wonderful survey paper on expertise. In it, he describes chess players. A master can’t actually logic out many more moves than a beginner. What she does do is recognize situations. ie. This game is the same as Saemisch vs Alekhine in 1921 (and you are so dead).
Pattern recognition is way faster than logic and probably more reliable. The problem is, as you point out, that people think reason and logic are the be-all-and-end-all in thinking.
Lou Maytrees July 1, 2016 at 8:06 pm ….
Climate so-called experts don’t hold my life in their hands. (Of course, they may delude themselves that they do. They are often so self-important.) So the analogy falls far short … beside being so cliche. How often have climate crybabies used that analogy/comparison, now? Bad analogies, when used over and over, and SO tedious.
neither does an auto mechanic (usually) but according to you and ferd, the guy on the street corner is the one you want to fix your car, not the expert. You can claim anything you want but your conjecture about ‘climate experts’ is only that, your conjecture.
Lou Maytrees July 1, 2016 at 8:37 pm
Oh, for Pete’s sake! With all of the lies, half-truths, exaggerations, wild speculations, and false predictions coming from climate alarmists … including the so-called experts … it would take a complete moron to trust any of their claims. I’m not calling you a moron … unless the shoe fits.
All anybody here is saying … when it comes to “experts,” it is wise to be skeptical. Sometimes, it’s better to trust to common sense. Medical mistakes is, what, the third highest cause of death in the US, now? May not be that high, but it’s an alarming statistic. Not sure if anybody keeps statistics on licensed mechanics but, being human, I imagine they make their fair share of mistakes, also, and those mistakes can result in fatalities.
Nobody is saying go grab a guy on the street corner to diagnose you or your car. That’s a typical strawman argument. What we on this site are trying to demonstrate is that blindly believing in the claims of “climate experts” (and other types of ‘experts’) is foolhardy. It has been demonstrated, time and again, that ‘climate experts’ are often wrong … by observations of the natural world, by studying the history of the natural world, or by simply applying simple common sense to the issue.
Experts feel compelled to provide an Answer when none can be derived from their limited data pools.
You’re missing something important.
The mechanic has been trained to fix my brakes. She’s done the job many times. When she fixes my brakes, she’s repeating a performance.
The climate scientist, on the other hand, purports to predict the behaviour of a poorly understood chaotic system. She’s operating in terra incognita. Not only that but there’s a political/doctrinal aspect to her work. She’s a hedgehog of the worst sort. You can trust her prognostications if you want.
The definition of ‘expert’ is someone who has comprehensive and authoritative knowledge or skills of something. It does not matter if its a chaotic system or your brakes, they still clearly know much more about than you do. Thats why they are experts.
You are 100% correct. Recently a study was done asking students if certain biology statements were true. The biology students answered as poorly as uneducated students but the biology students had more reasons why their wrong answers were right. They were more convinced why giraffe had long necks than the non biology students even though the given answer was wrong. This is the same. The “experts” are operating on theories they were taught that actually are not proven. This is why nutritionists are always wrong. Someone comes up with a nice sounding idea. Everyone accepts it makes sense but in fact it is pure crap. It is based on some association like co2 that is conveniently available but pure coincidence. Without real science and experiments validated these are all as likely wrong as right. Climate science is obviously a contrived thing. The models are built and tuned to give the results they like. When the models diverge they modify the data. It’s so much an obvious game. A game we are paying billions for them to play and annoy everyone.
The word science has a specific meaning – as in a ‘systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject’. Climate is a particular subject, knowledge is what they know about it. And it goes back many centuries. Your claim that the science is contrived is a personal one, but its not a very logical one, b/c words have those specific meanings.
Sea level rise is mainly dominated by natural causes but nowadays it has suddenly changed to manmade
That s because we re so much smarter now.
+1 you really made me laugh… xDDD
I’m going to use every opportunity to reveal this image of how dramatically sea level rise progressed up until 7,000 years ago. Sea level rise can be dramatic.
Compare this transformation with the almost indetectable differences which can be assessed by comparing photos of a local shore line from the 19th century with those available today.
Sometime the most direct and naive analysis is the smart one.
http://i.imgur.com/TqD24c3.jpg
And as a result of your insistence on lighting fires, my ancestors lost their lands in Doggerland. I demand compensation.
Yeah, well, sensible people got in a boat and moved across to Sweden, where thick glacial ice was rapidly retreating.
That’s why the smart people are currently buying up real estate in the central Greenland lakes area.
What lakes? you ask – Well, just wait and see!!!
Is that Martha Fokker?
There is no proof that 1.5 degrees will happen, and no proof 2.0 degrees may happen. There is no proof that it would be a bad thing if either one did happen. This is the sort of BS that “science” has descended into in the west.
We have had skyrocketing CO2 levels but no warming for 20 years or so. Where is the warming? I would like to see some warming; except for the crazies would use that as an excuse to destroy the western industrial societies at an even faster rate.
At the heart of every new alarmist craziness is the delusion that CO2 will warm the planet. We don’t know if the tiny bit of change in a CO2 doubling is positive or negative. The accepted “climate sensitivity” figure has been changing over time even among the warmists.
What a bunch of yahoos.
I agree Mark.
The global cooling period from ~1940 to 1975 (during a time of increasing atmospheric CO2) demonstrates that climate sensitivity to increased atmospheric CO2 is near-zero – so close to zero as to be insignificant.
Furthermore, warm is good and cold is bad – for humanity and the environment. Excess Winter Mortality globally is about 2 million people per year, including about 100,000 per year in the USA and up to 50,000 per year in the United Kingdom. Excess Winter Mortality rates are high even in warm countries like Australia and Thailand.
Reference: “Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather” by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
The scientific conclusion is that there is NO global warming crisis, except in the minds of warmist propagandists.
I recently received a letter from Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips (cc’d to our Minister of Energy and our Premier) wherein she speaks of the government’s plan to reduce “carbon pollution”. Yes, really – some people still talk like that.
There is overwhelming evidence that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans is not dangerously high – it is dangerously low, too low for the survival of life on Earth.
I have written about the vital issue of “CO2 starvation” since 2009 or earlier, and recently others including Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, have also written on this subject:
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/moore-positive-impact-of-human-co2-emissions.pdf
Executive Summary
This study looks at the positive environmental effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a topic which has been well established in the scientific literature but which is far too often ignored in the current discussions about climate change policy. All life is carbon based and the primary source of this carbon is the CO2 in the global atmosphere. As recently as 18,000 years ago, at the height of the most recent major glaciation, CO2 dipped to its lowest level in recorded history at 180 ppm, low enough to stunt plant growth.
This is only 30 ppm above a level that would result in the death of plants due to CO2 starvation. It is calculated that if the decline in CO2 levels were to continue at the same rate as it has over the past 140 million years, life on Earth would begin to die as soon as two million years from now and would slowly perish almost entirely as carbon continued to be lost to the deep ocean sediments. The combustion of fossil fuels for energy to power human civilization has reversed the downward trend in CO2 and promises to bring it back to levels that are likely to foster a considerable increase in the growth rate and biomass of plants, including food crops and trees. Human emissions of CO2 have restored a balance to the global carbon cycle, thereby ensuring the long-term continuation of life on Earth.
[end of Exec Summary]
Is it possible to scientifically educate someone like Alberta’s Environment Minister, our Energy Minister or our Premier? If so, how? Suggestions welcomed.
Regards, Allan
From Dan Pangburn
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/quantifying-natural-climate-change/
Excellent graph, Mr. Clutz! Thank you for posting that.
Allan,
That was a wonderful comment. I agree totally. I also think it would make a very good main post here at WUWT.
Ron,
I stole your graph and posted it on Twitter. That is a nice one!
“Is it possible to scientifically educate someone like Alberta’s Environment Minister, our Energy Minister or our Premier? If so, how?”
You can’t. Their ideology won’t allow it. Therein lies the problem with these people getting into power. Between Notley and Trudeau, Canada is no longer. And when Trudeau gets his way, there will be no more democracy here either.
Yes, Mark Stoval, I agree and…
Here is another EXCELLENT post by Allan MacRae (551 comments): https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
CO2 lags temperature.
Game over, warmists.
Is it possible to scientifically educate someone like Alberta’s Environment Minister, our Energy Minister or our Premier? If so, how? Suggestions welcomed.
Allen–since the political class has an agenda, it is doubtful that any attempts at education would be welcomed.
Allan MacRae
July 1, 2016 at 4:14 am
As you are well aware, Alan, Shannon Phillips and the Alberta Government have their propaganda machine in full swing.
I am sure there are lots of examples of climate change/carbon pollution propaganda but this is a good example:
http://www.alberta.ca/climate-leadership-plan.cfm
TV Advertisements (Alberta and 8 others):
http://dailyplanet.climate-kic.org/9-government-tv-advertisements-about-climate-change/
There are daily television commercials pushing the impending disaster. Without reference to the televisions, newspaper and radio ads, the web site might look innocuous, but when you put it all together, it is rather “interesting”.
I thought about doing a point by point counter submission to the Minister (whom I have known since her high school days in Spruce Grove … but I also know it would do no good).
Que sera.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/alberta-defends-4-4m-summer-ad-blitz-promoting-climate-change-plan-1.2955847
Allan MacRae July 1, 2016 at 4:14 am
…
I recently received a letter from Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips (cc’d to our Minister of Energy and our Premier) wherein she speaks of the government’s plan to reduce “carbon pollution”. Yes, really – some people still talk like that.
In the US and most civilized countries the principle “pollutant” in carbon emission is O2. The carbon we emit isn’t that polluted and releasing CO2 instead of raw soot has some benefits.
Reducing “carbon pollution” doesn’t seem to be wise policy.
The craziest idea of all, one that Obama repeats daily, is this assumption that the human race has some kind of direct “thermostat” control over weather and climate, based on how much CO2 is produced. It makes them sound like raving idiots.
If they sound like raving idiots, it’s because they are.
For the warmist greenies it is fervent gospel. Their green religion and infallible High Priest says so. GK
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that my home thermostat DOESN’T control the climate outside?
This does explain why turning the AC to a lower temperature setting never seems to make a difference outside my door. I figured my neighbors were all cranking up their heat and canceling out my efforts.
Goldrider,
I am sure you know, but – as a brief reminder to all, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, to the nearest 0.1% [rounded] is ZERO.
Auto – appreciating that – even if it rose byanother 20% it would still be ZERO.
No tropical warming, lots’a pole warming. Unless the ice sheets come.
PSMSL shows that sea level at Kiribati has not changed since about 1975 = which is as far back as the data go.
I am still seeking an answer to this:
If CO2 levels increase from 400ppm to 800ppm, that is an increase of 400ppm.
That increase is 1 part in 2500.
How can 1 molecule of CO2 “trap” enough “heat” to raise the temperature of the other 2499 molecules 1.5 to 2.0 C???
Someone please explain this to me. Thanks
They can’t. Period!
In theory it can, in actual practice, it appears to have no measurable effect.
I’m not going to answer your question, but rather formulate it in a different way. The amount of carbon dioxide can be imagined as millimeters thick layer made of compressed pure carbon dioxide weighing about 4kg/m². It is apparently easier to think millimeters thick layer of CO2 affecting heat transport than a molecule in every 2500 molecules.
However, it is no news alarmists think we are going to break 1.5K limit. Their quote ‘business as usual’ quote scenario usually gives much more than that. I wouldn’t guess what their ‘worst case scenario’ would be.
You can get your question answered if you do a bit of reading. Water vapor and CO2 are the two most important greenhouse gases even though the atmosphere is made up almost entirely of non greenhouses gases like N2 and O2. If there were no greenhouse gases, the earth would be about 35 deg C colder than it is; a ball of ice. These things are not in dispute.
Thomas Graney says: ” If there were no greenhouse gases, the earth would be about 35 deg C colder than it is; a ball of ice. These things are not in dispute”
I dispute these “things”, so your proclamation is unfounded. Please publish the quantifiable functions for this “greenhouse gas” property. By definition, all physical properties can be measured. Since you cannot provide any real world measurements, there is no real world “greenhouse gas” property.
When my request remains unanswered, I’ll know the dispute remains.
These things are not in dispute.
=======================
They are. There is an alternate theory that the AVERAGE surface temperature of the earth is LARGELY independent of atmospheric concentration. What H2O and CO2 regulate is the difference between the equator and poles, the difference between the day and night side. This explains why Venus, which rotates very slowly, has almost no difference in temperature between the day and night side.
The 35C warming you mentions is a result fo the conversion of potential energy PE to KE due to convection. The atmosphere gets colder at altitude as air molecules lose KE which is converted to PE. Tis gives rise to the lapse rate.
When you calculate this effect you end up with:
Center of mass of atmosphere 5.5 km
Lapse rate 6.5 C/km
5.5 km X 6.5 C/km = 32.5 C, which is almost exactly the 33 C calculated for the GHG effect. This cannot be simple coincidence.
correction: center of mass is 5km
5 km X 6.5 C/km = 32.5 C
numbers are approximate. if you use 5.5 km you get
5.5 km X 6.5 C/km = 35.25 C
which is very close to:
“the earth would be about 35 deg C colder than it is”
again, cannot be simple co-incidence.
Thomas G.
Highly misleading, because you’re implying all heat leaves by radiation. Not so.
Approx. 95% of the heat leaves by conduction,convection and evaporation. Approx. 5% leaves by radiation. Only 8% of the radiation is available to CO2 and of that only 3% is anthropogenic. So do the math using 33 deg. C and you’ll find that man’s contribution to a temperature increase is 0.0002 deg. C. If you can find it.
Quite correct ferd. Take Mars for example, the rotation is similar to Earth’s but there is very little water vapor in the atmosphere. The day time temperature can reach 20 C on the Mars equator and it decreases to -73 C at night. This is similar to deserts on Earth where the temperature can be very high in the sun and decrease dramatically at night, because it lacks the moderating affect of H2O.
If there were more water vapor in deserts or in the Martian atmosphere, the average temperature would probably be close to the same but the extremes would be far less.
Its not 1 in 2500 that makes the difference, its that we’ve added 40% more CO2 into the atmosphere. 1 in 2500 may seem small but its not when you realize that only 280parts per million, a smaller amount than 1/2500, keeps this whole planet 35*C above the frozen temp the planet would otherwise be. Very little life would survive if it weren’t for those measly pre industrial 280ppm. Or look at it this way, if you remove that infinitesimal 1 in 3600 parts of CO2 from our atmosphere there would be no plant life, hence no animal life.
@Thomas Homer and @ferdberple
Thanks to both for the exultant comments and rebuttal.
The first 20 or so ppm is responsible for most of the warming. After that the amount of warming falls off rapidly. Let me know if you want to see graphic representation.
Ian M
So you’re saying a 1 ppm in 50,000 increase in CO2 is responsible for the 1*C+ surface warming we’ve seen? And yet the planet keeps warming even thought only 20ppm are the cause? Yes, thank you, i would like to see graphic representation.
Supposedly, they like to share!
The last para says that “The one degree or so of warming we have experienced has not made a noticeable difference to people’s lives, other than a slightly longer growing season, and less severe winters. Even if another 0.5C – 1C warming occurs, which is far from certain, there is no reason to think that the kind of temperature change you experience moving a few hundred feet up or down a hillside will make a major difference to people’s lives.” —
Is the one degree or so of warming is “global warming” or total rise in global temperature that includes local and regional factors like ecological changes — changes in land & water use and cover changes –; data manipulations; and others? Or according to which data series of global temperature curve?
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Natural variability makes a far far bigger difference to our lives than a poultry 1degC rise. For instance, the cool & wet June alone will have had vastly far more impact than the prorata rise June should have experienced in the CO2-driven models are to be believed – just ask the farming and tourist industries for a start.
“Natural variability makes a far far bigger difference to our lives than a poultry 1degC rise.”
Agree – a 1C rise is just chicken-sh!t.
[Typo? ]
🙂
1C rise as determined by the distance between chickens.
Does anyone here particularly respect a self-proclaimed scientist? Let’s use the more accurate epithet Witch Doctor, and leave scientist as a honeypot for liars.
I thought the effect was closer to the poles….and none at the equator
When things are getting desperate anywhere you can dream it up IMO
The effect of CO2 is to warm the poles and the night side of the earth, thus raising the average, but not raising the maximum.
This can be plainly seen on Venus, where in spite of having 4 months of day followed by 4 months of night, the daytime and nighttime temperatures are almost exactly the same.
One earth, if we had 4 months of night, temperatures would be similar to the arctic winter on the night side.
The opposite will be happening temp heading down for many years to come.
So it’s too late for 1.5 degrees so we have to work harder? How about we give up and just see what happens? You know, roll the dice and play through. Honestly, only the media and politicians, plus a few faithful disciples have “noticed” anything getting warmer anyway.
Yes, you have it. Just stop it. Quit acting like something can be done. I can’t tell how many times I have encountered problems that could have been so much simpler to correct if someone hadn’t proceeded to apply “controls”. I think the saying is: when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Particularly when what your are doing strongly resembles “bool chit”.
Slightly of topic but another study about the wonderful things “Man” can do:http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36674996,
A story that has so many holes in it I feel sorry for the guys down there doing the research only to see it turned into stuff that should be stuffed into a black hole.
From the article: “There is slim chance of stabilising temperature rise at that level without controversial negative emissions technology, according to a study published in Nature.”
Oh, the hubris! WE are in control of the atmosphere!
I guess “negative emissions technology” refers to fossil fuel solutions.
How about nuclear power? That doesn’t have “negative emissions technology” associated with it. I guess you ignore that techonolgy option, if you are an Alarmist/Green.
Negative emissions technology???
Around here we call that planting trees.
Every time they say it’s over…we’re doomed…..there’s nothing we can do about it..no going back
…and they still don’t shut up
I’d say that it’s all about keeping the Faithful on board. Nothing to do with science. Climate “scientists” use Climate Guilt, Appeals to Emotion, and Circular Reasoning to push the climate ideology. Big Climate has to be protected at all costs.
You forgot Arguments from Authority. 😉
The only window closing is the one for the Climate Liars such as the ones who cranked out this bogus “study”.
From the article: “It is a blow for those living near the coast of Bangladesh or low-lying islands like Kiribati, which is preparing for an exodus as rising seas swallow homes.”
Factually incorrect.
“Coral reefs dying and tropical heatwaves are also expected to kick in at moderate levels of global warming, affecting millions of people worldwide.”
According to most Alarmists, these things have already kicked in. So, I guess following this logic, we can assume that the current coral reef problems and the current heatwaves are natural phenomenon, but if the Earth’s temperature gets any higher, then CAGW will kick in.
So which is it: Is CAGW already here, or is it just over the horizon? What’s your evidence for either case?
CAGW is here, and in force! Coastal homes around the world are being swallowed at a rate of 3 mm per year, give or take.
that must explain why waterfront property is the most expensive on the planet. people are buying it up to watch it sink into the seas.
Like watching paint dry.
Untrue Bernie.
Eventually, paint will dry.
The second derivative of turning point scares perhaps
“I’m working on my second million; I gave up on the first.” – GC
The window has closed on getting people to believe 1.5C, so let’s try to get them to believe 2.0C.
This shows poor goal setting. They should try for 4.0C, or 10.0C. Something skeery.
I would like to record for posterity the tipping point’s exact day/hour/minute/second. Would some CAGW advocate please supply that information? Failing that, how about to the nearest millennium?
The only tipping point that I can detect, is the one where Science tipped itself over the cliff and turned itself into Alarmism. Warmth is essential for life. An Ice Age would be a disaster. If we need to do anything it is to warm the planet, and stave off any threat of an Ice Age. This present interglacial period will end sooner or later. Then we will have a true Climate crisis.
The climate’s been shot (yawn). Round up (yawn) all the usual (yawn) suspects. (zzzz)
First warmunists insisted world governmts waste $76 TRILLION (UN estimate) on CO2 sequestration policies to avoid 2C of CO2 induced warming by 2100…
Now these same warmunists moved the goal posts to 1.5C, which, I’m sure, will later be moved again to 1C, which the empirical evidence and physics show ECS will be if world governments don’t waste dime on CO2 sequestration…
The world has gone quite literally insane…
Maybe in a few decades all the hardcore warmunists will have died off and their equivalents will start blabbing on about how if the temperature drops another 1.5C, GAIA WILL PERISH. The new algores will start buying land that is underwater to prepare for lower sea levels while telling everyone else that the global population should spend all their money to halt the increasing glaciers and polar ice, because WE MUST DO SOMETHING.
Then if the temps do not fall quickly enough, they will start moving goal posts again. Amazingly, the apparent “perfect” temperature will suddenly be that of 2000. And if anyone reminds the leftists that they used to claim the opposite, that person will be labeled a racist-sexist-homophobic-transphobic-bigoted-evil hater. Who probably kicks puppies.
To be fair, they’re not suggesting a “tipping point”. That ruse has already been tried, and failed miserably. This gambit is different, and actually more clever, so kudos to them for that. They are suggesting a sort of sliding scale Alarmism. According to them, we’ve already “cooked in” a disaster-level rise of 1.5C, dooming millions. So, shame on us. Now it’s up to us – you know, the ones they’re trying to shame, how much more disaster we will allow. For good measure, they run the old “don’t force us to burn biofuels and bury the resulting CO2” gambit up the flagpole, to see if we’ll salute it.
We’ve got their “salute” right here.
Sorry, I draw the line at kudos for AGW disciples who torture the truth for political ends.
Are we as warm as the Medieval Warm yet? Let alone the Roman or Minoan Warm? The temperature proxies are vague enough no decisive answer can be made, but I think this is mostly natural cycles (solar or otherwise), unrelated to the probably circa 1degree C rise if CO2 doubles.
Tom Halla
Took the words right out of my mouth. Then, an interesting question came to me. If present day warming has begun to drive CO2 increases, shouldn’t similar increases be present in Roman and Medieval Warm Period proxies? Anyone?
AIUI a community of Vikings lived on the coast of Greenland for about a hundred years during the medieval period. They lived by fishing and subsistence agriculture. They all died when the climate turned cold enough that they could not raise enough food.
It’s is not possible to raise crops in Greenland nowadays.
Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the tipping point:
I just want to celebrate, another day of tipping points:
This study release sounds like “bitter clingers”, technocrats and Fabians angry over the Brexit vote, and trying to lash out at people who want less world governance, and more national (local) control.
As a real scientist (analytical chemist with degrees in math, chemistry, and chemical physics) it continues to bother me to see the good name of Science dragged through the mud by these pre-Fascist propagandist hacks.
I prefer the wording ‘proto-Fascist’, but, yeah – that.
With both UAH (now .34) and RSS now dropping like a rock, these folks are going to be so disappointed as the planet cools.
Game over.
Soooo over.
Over a long time ago……..
*********************************************
As Bruce Cobb aptly pointed out, only a Climate Cult member could be fooled by this nonsense. A very old and worn out ploy:
Cult Leader: “Messiah will return after 150,000 join the cult…”
Dupe: “Uh…….. Leader……. we’ve got around 152,000 in our cult, now…. (nervous cough)….. and, uh……. I don’t see Him…….. or hear Him or…. anything……..”
*!*
CL: “Messiah will return after …… after we have …. 200,000 in our cult! …. Now, get out there and SPREAD the word!” (pulls out phone… touch… touch…. touch-touch….. (muttering)… “Hmm…. looks like those contributions will be okay…. if those damned parishioners would just get the lead out and sell!!!!”)
From GWPF today
2) Germany Starts Roll-Back Of Climate Policy
Reuters, 29 June 2016
BERLIN — Germany has abandoned plans to set out a timetable to exit coal-fired power production and scrapped C02 emissions reduction goals for individual sectors, according to the latest draft of an environment ministry document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
An earlier version of the draft document that was leaked in May had suggested that Germany should phase out coal-fired power production “well before 2050” as part of a package of measures to help Berlin achieve its climate goals.
The new version, which was revised following consultation with the economy and energy ministry, has also deleted specific concrete C02 emissions savings targets for the energy, industry, transport and agriculture sectors.
The document forms the government’s national climate action plan for 2050 and lays out how it plans to move away from fossil fuels and achieve its goal of cutting CO2 emissions by up to 95 percent compared to 1990 levels by the middle of the century.
The original proposals met with hefty opposition from unions, coal-producing regions and business groups who said it would cost jobs and damage industry.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-waters-down-climate-protection-plan-135413515–sector.html
They’re going to get rid of all that nasty carbon by burning it! Genius! They must want to keep all their filthy industries for sentimental reasons or something, I suppose.
I find it ironic when a warmist tells me C02 levels will reach, or have reached some milestone that they’ve hit in the past.
My reply is always: “You mean back when the world ended?”
So much time and effort worrying at the peak of the interstadial. It’s like ants worrying over the height of individual blades of cut grass but seem totally oblivious to the jagged cliff just beyond the edge of the yard.
By far, the most important area of research is to figure out what parts of the world can best support each type of food-chain species beyond the edge of the encroaching stadial ice. We may have to bunk up.
At least this guy is a bit more prepared. Do you suppose he is worried about the height of the grass when he gets to the top?
Holy crap! Imagine gambling your life on that thin sheet of ice.
Can’t help myself. Lemming cartoons depicting unaware cliff jumping.
http://santiagocasares.com/chilisworld/tag/lemmings/
Look at all the sheeple standing around contemplating and studying the growing amount of woolly lint in their navels.
One more and then I will stop,
Fear of heights much, Pam?
Only if those homes are Ant-Man sized.
Well, that settles it. If we hit a “tipping point”, let’s end all this nonsense and move on to something more productive.
Whatever. One “tipping point” or another has been declared since the 00s. They declare a tipping point, wait a few years, and then declare a new tipping point again for renewed scaremonging. Example from 2005:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/aug/11/science.climatechange1
The temperature last week reached 100 F. For the last few days it dipped by more than 20 F. The expectation is that the temperature will rise by at least 10 F and probably 20 F in the near future. Catastrophic!
One more point – nobody mentions the name of the person who pulled the 2.0 out of thin air and now all the self-made experts and politicians are quoting the figure and of course no reference to any science.
In other words, “Plan A failed to scare the sheep. Time for plan B.”
Or, “Dang! Moving the goalpost didn’t work. Time to raise the bar!”
Or, “The Model’s were wrong? We don’t need no steeken models! We need headlines!”
PS Happy Independence Day in advance for the US and belated for the UK.
So… If we’re going to have to work hard now to prevent that dreaded 2 C. rise, how are they going to take the credit when things get a whole lot cooler??? These people just don’t think ahead. They’ll have to come up with a miracle cure now for an instant overnight success, you know, for us little people who “don’t understand the science”.
I’m looking forward to the soon-to-be much needed explanations. 🙂
Simple. They depend on the sheepletons not remembering past claims. And they’ve sold them on the idea that warming causes cooling. Some buy into that.
The politics is driving the meme now. The minions will back anything for a short term election gain.
It’s those working for a long term ideological gain that need to be dethroned.
That’s it. Move those goal posts.
The encouragement for emigration from Kiribati relates to population density not sea level rise. Most of the population live on Sth Tarawa, which has a population density of 8000/sq km. This exceeds that of Hong Kong.
Their biggest threat is depletion and contamination of resources – particularly fresh water. Coral atolls are reliant on a lens of fresh ground water that is replenished by annual rainfall. If the supply is over-utilised it is replaced by increasingly saline water lying beneath and around the lens.
The Australian government is spending millions on aid to Kiribati. A full-time environmental engineer is employed to solve the unenviable problems. Contamination of the water supply via effluent filtering down through the coral-debris soils is a real problem. Solutions include permanent de-salination plants and emigration on a large scale.
This island was heavily modified by the Americans during ww2 building an airstrip from crushed coral on the exposed side of the island ,it’s slowly eroding because of the damage done by dredging .
Yes, the erosion and deposition dynamics on coral atolls are very fluid.. Put something somewhere the system does no approve of, then it can disappear very quickly, reverting to its natural state and dynamics
There is an interesting book called “An Island to oneself” This recluse lived alone on a Pacific Island for a couple of years. He spent 6 months rebuilding by hand. a jetty/causeway made from rocks (probably blocks of coral), A few months later a storm came in and wiped it out again. That was the beginning of his depression 🙂 .
Yes we have reached the tipping point of peak stupidity.
A database server may show degradation of performance at the same rate that x amount of users log in and perform tasks, but then at a certain number of users and tasks the performance drops like a rock; the tipping point. It happens. The results of the tipping point is well known, but the actual tipping point is not known until it occurs or is tested for. Load testing is common in determining application performance capability and what governors need to be put in place to prevent the tipping point being reached.
By overlooking that climate tipping point theories cannot be tested and the aftermath of this hypothetical tipping point is unknown, this same concept is nonetheless and without shame applied to climate. This allows alarmists to pick a degree, any degree and call it the tipping point when in fact, “Climate tipping point” has to be the most amorphous, poorly-defined entity in the history of science. It is bloody meaningless.
alx July 1, 2016 at 7:35 pm … VERY well stated. Thank you.
Reply to Lou M. @7:26pm
====================
CO2 absorbes virtually all the radiation available to it @~20ppm. Most of the thermal effect occurs at that level. At 400ppm, you can’t detect the additional thermal effect.
I believe 20ppm would be too low a concentration to absorb to extinction all of the absorbable IR. I will check and see if it is possible.
The world already reached the 2 C tipping point 1,300 years ago (Kobashi reconstruction) The Arabs were too busy expanding their empire they forgot it was the tipping point. The alarmists are just 1,300 years late in declaring tipping point. They should dig up the graves of the Arab conquerors to remind them it was the tipping point
Greenland isn’t exactly ‘the world’ but you can spin some of Andy Mays words any way you want.
Lou Maytrees July 1, 2016 at 11:24 pm
Reading comprehension can be so hard … especially if you have an ideology and are only capable of parroting mindless talking points you picked up somewhere. So much easier than thinking and debating. AND it makes you just feel so terribly clever, to boot.
Kobashi et al was from one specific lattitude/longitude in Greenland, no where else. So, not even close to ‘the world’. And even May in his article states that Kobashi was 3* higher than and exactly opposite of what Alley shows, which the author May, can’t even quite figure out why (interpret). So your response seems to be simple hand waving to make yourself feel clever or better or something?
Lou Maytrees July 1, 2016 at 11:57 pm
Who the heck cares? It was 1300 years ago. Pretending we know precisely what the temperature was 1300 years ago is a study in self-delusion. I read the Dr Strangelove post as tongue-in-cheek. Pity you have to take yourself so seriously that you felt the need to attack him. Like I said, reading comprehension can be so hard, especially if …
FYI, nobody said Greenland is exactly ‘the world’ … just another of your lame straw men. It is, however, part of the world. Many studies have been conducted in Greenland (ice cores, unavailable in most places in the world) in an effort to determine past climate changes. It’s certainly no worse than alarmists clanging their alarm bells and screeching SEE, GLOBAL WARMING! when NY had an unusually warm Christmas last year. Or the same alarms being sounded when the east coast and the midwest had two unusually cold winters which, apparently, was also caused by GLOBAL WARMING! At least, according to your so-called experts!
teapartygeezer, DrStrangelove did say ‘the world reached a tipping point’ and specifically cited Kobashi for his conclusion. So you would be wrong, someone did say that. And you’re the person who mentioned ‘reading skills’ yes? So not a ‘strawman argument’ at all.
Check Kobashi reconstruction. GISP2 delta T 1900-1993 tracks global delta T. We’re just looking for 2 C above 1750s temperature. Kobashi AD 700s is like 5 C above 1750s. More than what we’re looking for. There’s plenty of studies and evidences that MWP was global. Lou you’re not updated, do some reading
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/03/08/more-than-700-scientists-from-400-institutions-in-40-countries-have-contributed-peerreviewed-papers-providing-evidence-that-the-medieval-warm-period-was-real-global-warmer-than-the-present/
Dr Strangelove, there is no dispute about the MWP happening, the problem is, and even Andy May acknowledges the +3*C difference he can’t interpret, that you cited Kobashi which has the MWP 3 degrees higher than other studies from the same general area (Greenland). Kobashi shows a huge spike where other studies show none. So your claim that Kobashi shows the whole planet 3*C+ warmer, even tho it was only a samll area in Greenland, is not shown in other studies at all.
Kobashi reconstruction is less sensitive to warming than HadCRUT4 (global). In Kobashi 1980s is just 0.1 C warmer than 1900s. In HadCRUT4 it’s 0.5 C. So when Kobashi 700s is 5 C warmer than 1750s, globally it would at least 2 C. I maintain the world had already reached tipping point 1,300 years ago. It’s no joke. But it’s funny that alarmists think this is all new and catastrophic.
BTW it’s also silly alarmists find it hard to believe the world was 2 C warmer in 700s than 1750s. We’re already 1.5 C warmer since 1750. That’s 1.5 C warming in over 250 years. What’s 2 C cooling in over 1,000 years? It’s a breeze
Replace good with food in above. Apple spelling correction at work.