James Hansen: We Have a Little More Time After All (Whew!)
By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Contrary to the impression favored by governments, the corner has not been turned toward declining emissions and GHG amounts…. Negative CO2 emissions, i. e., extraction of CO2 from the air, is now required.”
– James Hansen, “Young People’s Burden.” October 4, 2016.
“The ponderous response of the climate system also means that we don’t need to instantaneously reduce GHG amounts.”
– James Hansen, “We Hold Truths to be Self-Evident“ December 2, 2016.
What a difference a few months make!
Just in time for holiday season, and for the Trump Administration, the father of the climate alarm, formerly a climate scientist with NASA/GISS, and now a full-time scientist/activist, has ameliorated his grand climate alarm. The 10-year ultimatum announced in 2006, made more dire in 2009 and since, is now moderated.
This October, we were told that the net emissions of of man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must go negative. Now, “we don’t need to instantaneously reduce GHG amounts.”
A climate scientist might want to see Dr. Hansen’s math and model simulation to understand the revision in the last sixty days.
Maybe the climate can survive Donald Trump after all!
Here is the history:
Old View (July 2006):
“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions” he wrote in his July 2006 review of Al Gore’s book/movie, An Inconvenient Truth. “We have reached a critical tipping point,” he assured readers, adding “it will soon be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences.”
Revised View–Worse Than Thought (2009)
Several years later, with the publication of his 2009 manifesto Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save the Planet, he shared “some bad news” (p. 139) with readers:
The dangerous threshold of greenhouse gases is actually lower than what we told you a few years ago. Sorry about that mistake. It does not always work that way. Sometimes our estimates are off in the other direction, and the problem is not as bad as we thought. Not this time.
“The climate system is on the verge of tipping points,” Hansen stated (p. 171). “If the world does not make a dramatic shift in energy policies over the next few years, we may well pass the point of no return.”
Also in 2009, he told the press:
We cannot afford to put off [climate policy] change any longer. We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.
Revised View–Need to Go Emissions Negative (October 2016)
“Contrary to the impression favored by governments, the corner has not been turned toward declining emissions and GHG amounts. The world is not effectively addressing the climate matter, nor does it have any plans to do so, regardless of how much government bureaucrats clap each other on the back.…. Negative CO2 emissions, i.e., extraction of CO2 from the air, is now required.”
New View (December 2016):
“Stopping human-made climate change is inherently difficult, because of the nature of the climate system: it is massive, so it responds only slowly to forcings; and, unfortunately, the feedbacks in the climate system are predominately amplifying on time scales of decades-centuries.
The upshot is that there is already much more climate change “in the pipeline” without any further increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs). That does not mean the problem is unsolvable, but it does mean that we will need to decrease the amount of GHGs in the relatively near future.
The ponderous response of the climate system also means that we don’t need to instantaneously reduce GHG amounts. However, despite uncertainties about some climate processes, we know enough to say that the time scale on which we must begin to reduce atmospheric GHG amounts is measured in decades, not centuries. Given the fact that the fastest time scale to replace energy systems is decades, that means that we must get the political processes moving now. And that won’t happen until the public has understanding of what is actually needed and demands it.
Previous posts on the climate science and climate policy views of James Hansen can be found here.
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Anything to keep the gravy train rolling.
Mmmm….Gravy, with thinly sliced Roast Beef, Roast Potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding and a glass of Red Wine. Just so happens this is what I am making tonight for dinner now in honor of Hansen. Cheers!
Yorkshire Pudding . . . . yum.
Basically, the guy’s a big opportunistic bullshitter. No surprises here. LOL. These people have the face of brass.
I often think they deserve a face of punching but that would make me a meanyhead.
where does that nonsense come from? Hansen was formerly a full-time scientist/activist with NASA/GISS, and now a full-time activist,
When the global warming “gravy train” final reaches it’s last stop (none too soon for me) I wonder what train all these environmental folks are going to jump onto next? Hmmm….
Anything they can damage or destroy while they profess to protect it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/1/dakota-access-protesters-accused-of-destroying-env
I think Hansen’s getting ready to do a yo-yo: dropping a few rungs on the alarmism ladder in order to go up again later.
This just in: Global warming causes goalposts to move.
Fear not. It will shortly be revealed that CO2 is still bad, but that it is causing AGC (Anthropogenic Global Cooling). The only fix will be to reduce CO2 emissions, or at least transfer money from developed nations to dictatorships and warlords. Someone merely put too many negative operators into the models by accident. That problem has been fixed. The threat still exists, and tornadoes, hurricanes, extremes of cold (and hot) will still occur, as will the incidence of earthquakes and meteor strikes.
Diesel !! Banning all cars from towns and cities. That will shut economies faster than carbon tax.
They started if france 4 yrs ago
jump UNDER would be useful
hansens trying to CYA in regard to sucking more govvy paid “advising” i reckon
Mr. Hansen also seems to be part of a kickstarter documentary project that will promote 4. generation nuclear. Interesting times indeed.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2142897175/the-new-fire
Exactly! To claim that it is already too late would stop the money flow.. Therefore, it is not too late, but is more critical and requires lots more money.
^^^ THIS ^^^
“Uncertainties about some climate processes”? So, not settled science then, after all.
So the father of global warming tells us we’ve been lied to all along…
….the science is still not settled
When they can tell me what happened when CO2 levels were in the thousands….
Lat, why should we listen to him? He couldn’t even measure temperature correctly and Gavin Schmidt is having to re-adjust all Hansen’s numbers year after year after year.
About time Hansen went outside and realized just how wrong the models are. I’ve gotten really tired of hearing about how “sensitive” our climate is to GHGs when it is nothing of the kind!
PMK
Dr. Hansen has wisely concluded that climate is much less sensitive to carbon dioxide after November 8th 2016.
Climate sensitivity to CO2 will, for unexplainable science reasons, dramactically increase again after Jan 20, 2021. (the earliest date a Demo-rat liar can retake the WH.)
Either that or he is plea-bargaining.
Me too. I Simply refuse to let the climate liars get a pass while they destroy science as a noble endeavor with their deceit.
This really is quite galling. One minute he is inciting a riot and the next he is chanting “…give peace a chance….”.
nankerphelge — well expressed — Eugene WR Gallun
+1000
James Hansen and his fellow CAGW travellers must still be held responsible for the mayhem they caused.
If not – then they should be consigned to the dustbin of history as fraudsters and conmen
History, other than that “revealed” in socialist societies, always uncovers the real villains. Now, those reading history tend to interpret it in a manner that best reflects on themselves. Evidence Castro, anyone?
Paul H.: As much as I would like to believe in Cosmic Justice, I think we must just make do with what we can get. Whether tomorrow or in 10 years, the AGW mime will disappear, and so will all those True Believers, who will never, ever admit to having been believers….
They will laugh at cagw scenarios and mindlessly start a new alarm to redistribute wealth.
Greg, I think most of them will just quietly fade away without ever admitting that they were wrong. But I think it will be sooner than ten years. Two or three cold winters in a row over North America and Europe, eliminate the funding in America, and that will be the end of it. The end that is except for all the residual damage like the lost jobs in the coal mines, the money wasted on wind mills and electric cars, the research grants for junk science that could have been spent on useful research, etc.
Its the money that keeps it alive.
Agreed. After Hansen discredited everybody who did not agree with his and Gore’s predictions, and caused billions of dollars waste in research grants and renewable energy projects when neither could produce a measurable difference to CO2 generation, he is now backpedaling as if nothing bad has happened as a result of his stubbornness and stupidity. Not just taxpayers’ money wasted but also a generation of people brainwashed.
Does history remember the names of Ptolemaic mathematicians of the early 17th Century who created ever more elaborate equations to describe the Geocentric movements of the planets and stars?
History remembers Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe. To be sure not all of these got it exactly right until mathematicians could employ Newton’s Mathematica Principae. But still they threw off the wrong paradigm to embrace a new one, and history remembers them.
History (long history of centuries) will not remember Hansen, Mann, Jones, Trenberth, Santer, etc, except in appendix chapters on the corruption and downfall of late 20th-early 21st Century atmospheric science.
But, it will remember Anthony Watts and WUWT, the “little engine that could.”
November 17, 2006
“So does anybody have any gee-whiz questions?”
Well, isn’t that interesting -just had a recent debate with a warmist tool er, troll, on another site,
who quoted Hanson chapter and verse….
I’m bookmarking this for his inevitable return to this particular site…
@ur momisugly tgm, please oh please can you show the conversation? I need a laugh after reading the disgusting about face from hansen. His ilk make me sick. I hope the new administration throws him in the ditch but I guess with hansen being retired he can now spout anything he wants without losing anything. Like your pension hansen? SCUM!, (sorry about the rant I am just sick of these sycophants)
And here’s me believing “the science is settled” /sarc…
A desperate attempt by a discredited has-been to regain relevance.
Once a researcher/scientist stops doing careful well-documented and reproducible work and starts carrying protest signs, that person should no longer expect to be listened to.
That’s the way I see it too. If he were to stick to his initial ten years to armageddon prediction, then at this point we all might as well say the heck with it, we’re cooked no matter what we do.
I see the whole thing as entirely pathetic.
Not the signs, but the BS on them.
we know enough to say that the time scale on which we must begin to reduce atmospheric GHG amounts is measured in decades, not centuries
Oh. So all those papers claiming current climate disasters are complete bullsh*t then? After all, if the father of climate insanity himself is now admitting that the disasters he has been predicting are decades to centuries away, then he is at the same time discrediting any claim that current matters (real or imagined) can be blamed on CO2 emissions.
Excellent points! Additionally, I would say that if he really believes that there is a long follow on effect from increased CO2, he should be desperate to reduce emissions now, due to the long term effects. What kind of idiot logic is this guy operating from?
It’s a lot like a Messiah Complex. But if so, it looks like he may be getting over it.
So, all those “tipping points” were really, what? Bumps in the road?
chimp — No, they were pratfalls — Eugene WR Gallun
That’s it. Falls on their fat, trough-feeding faces.
“decades to centuries away”
No, he said the time was decades, not centuries. And that is the time to reduce amounts>, not emissions.
“No, he said the time was decades, not centuries.”
But it will be centuries before CO2 emissions even start a downward trend.
Live with it. 🙂
Why would anyone want to reduce CO2 emissions? Don’t you want to eat?
Present levels are a good start, but 800 ppm would be better and 1200 ppm, as in a real greenhouse, best of all. But we probably can’t even make it to 600 ppm in the next hundred years, if ever.
Nick Stokes December 3, 2016 at 4:02 pm
Hi, hope you’re well.
You are correct to a point. Decades mean a minimum of two and a maximum of 10. That not centuries part. It is a plural. So a single century falls within the time reference.
Look, he wrote it, not me or you. You can see it as 20 years, someone else 50, and so on.
As a result, it is a meaningless reference.
Okay Hansen shared those observation this month. Who knows whar next. The truth is, Nick, he has left people like you with your butt’s hanging in the breeze.
No matter what is said by the AGW side, Hansen’s remarks are going to be a club used to smack you across the head. Even if he recants, it won’t help. Instead of a responsible scientist to be taken seriously, he will take on the atributes of the straw man in Wizard of Oz.
Unless Lew & Cooky quietly take him off to a padded cell …
“The ponderous response of the climate system also means that we don’t need to instantaneously reduce GHG amounts. However, despite uncertainties about some climate processes, we know enough to say that the time scale on which we must begin to reduce atmospheric GHG amounts is measured in decades, not centuries.”
michael
What he said in October, 2016
“Negative CO2 emissions, i.e., extraction of CO2 from the air, is now required.”
“What he said in October, 2016”
What he actually said, properly quoted, was:
B. “Negative CO2 emissions,” i.e., extraction of CO2 from the air is now required, if climate is to be stabilized on the century time scale, as a result of past failure to reduce emissions.
on the century time scale – similar to the decade scale to reduce actual amount.
Mike
“The truth is, Nick, he has left people like you with your butt’s hanging in the breeze.
No matter what is said by the AGW side, Hansen’s remarks are going to be a club used to smack you across the head. “
Mixed metaphor there. But there is nothing in what is quoted here that is any different to before. Just elementary stuff like distinguishing between emissions and amounts. Most people would be very happy if we can get the amount down within a century
Nick Stokes December 3, 2016 at 5:22 pm
Thanks for responding.
“Most people would be very happy if we can get the amount down within a century”
Yes yesterday. Tomorrow? When what has been said hits the public that may change.
All the logic chains are now suspect .
Hansen admitted “our” estimates are off. Not his. He just grabbed you and dragged you down into the mud with him.
Credibility is a fragile thing Hansen and by his association has included all of those involved.
Nick there are people in Ontario Canada that are trying decide, do I, pay a electric bill, or buy food. A electric bill which has grown to such unmanagable preportions due to failed assumtions by climate scientists who believe in AGW, and the politicans who believed them. There is no excuse for this. Not in Ontario or anywhere else.
Take a look at the Hansen statement. Do you really think people are going to care about getting the amount of of CO2 down after being deceived?
It is going to get rnteresting.
“The dangerous threshold of greenhouse gases is actually lower than what we told you a few years ago. Sorry about that mistake. It does not always work that way. Sometimes our estimates are off in the other direction, and the problem is not as bad as we thought. Not this time.”
michael
Oh and you do a good job of defending the side you are on.
Good point. He wants only to kill 30% of world population by zeroing CO2 emissions, and wants to leave the rest to the then impoverished future generations as a home work.
“The dangerous threshold of greenhouse gases is actually lower than what we told you a few years ago.”
How on earth do you read that into it? That’s not what he is saying at all.
Trump has a site where one can cast one’s pearls in his direction: https://apply.ptt.gov/yourstory/ Here’s what I posted there two days ago:
Advocating a debate while remaining neutral Is the best route. Nice idea!
Nasty ideas.
After 25 years of Jim Hansen’s “death trains,” and ‘we have only 2 years to save the climate,’ and climate models that show an immediate air temperature rise with [CO2], we suddenly now have a “ponderous” climate system and decades to act.
This is Jim Hansen stepping back because air temperature has done nothing for 20 years.
Switching to a slowly responding climate is just his tactic to save his incompetent ideas from an empirical disproof.
Expect no public examination of his self-contradiction; just an uncritical acceptance of his new gospel as though it were his old gospel.
It’s nice how he managed to include a criticism of the West into his argument. “Democracies played an outsize role in creating the climate problem…” That’ll play well with his progressive demographic.
“Democracies played an outsize role in creating the climate problem” because they are places of freedom where incompetent demagogues such as Jim Hansen are free to mount a bully pulpit and incite political odium. The real “climate problem” is one of scientific incompetence buttressed by lies and supported by prejudice.
Obviously major sources CO2, volcanoes and bush fires, are “democracies”. Hansen would be better off trying to connect GHG/CO2 with El Nino and La Nina events. This would open up a completely new field of rent seeking. Give big government and the banks something to hope for Jim. They may throw you some “printed” crumbs. If you can’t come up with another globe blowing disaster based on need to live off others efforts, your time is over.
Clearly, he must see that “the gig is up” and that he has to find a new way of spinning himself into relevance and renew his funding. The GOOD NEWS for us is that this is very clear evidence that the cracks in the whole crumbling edifice of AGW theory, practice, politics and funding are so fast appearing that die-hards like the egregious Hansen are looking for new relevance. Sorry, buddy, go tote sandwich-boards to earn a crust … you are irredemably tainted with the label: ‘Snake-Oil Salesman’.
Ross King, MBA, P.Eng. (ret’d) 1453 Beddis Road, SaltSpring Island, B.C., V8K2E2, Canada (250) 537-0666
“The older I get, the better I was….”
On 3 December 2016 at 14:24, Watts Up With That? wrote:
> Geoff commented: “Obviously major sources CO2, volcanoes and bush fires, > are “democracies”. Hansen would be better off trying to connect GHG/CO2 > with El Nino and La Nina events. This would open up a completely new field > of rent seeking. Give big government and the banks” >
Pat
One is left wondering how old a new CO2 molecule needs to be before it can absorb infrared radiation. Do they get better at it as they age? Do they get tired and run out of absorption capability in old age? This too needs to be studied more.
CO2 is a solvent. You need a lot of it before it becomes effective, see Venus.
They don’t run out of absorption capability, but they do deplete the IR radiation that can be absorbed
That could be the answer, DMA. CO2 is now 25 years old, and no longer energetic enough to quickly warm the air. 🙂
Alinsky’s rules:
RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
Add measurement error bars of +/-0.1 based on reading the foundation papers for satellite microwave brightness temperature. That’s a range of error of at least 0.2, on this y-scale it appears that current global temps are no different from 1980. Try plotting the same data with a y-scale of +/- 3 degrees and a 6 month running average to eliminate the high frequency noise. I don’t think the real world temperature twitches by 0.2 degrees every month.
Say that to a warmist at heights.
BTW, it’s freaking cold here. You didn’t talk about error bars when it was anomalously warm here.
Regards, 60°N
I wondered what Hansen would do when his disaster scenario failed again. He seems to be oblivious to his failure–maybe he is still in shock over the US election.
He has simultaneously moved the goal posts into the distant future while pretending that he is still credible. He is playing his believers for morons.
Not difficult.
One should always remember that 50% of the earths population is below average intelligence.
Those are not the problem!
No, but half ARE below median intelligence.
Yes, perfectly expressed! Pretty slick way to hit the reset button. “Okay folks, the new countdown to disaster starts…………..now!”
It is interesting that with calamity-cults the norm is to give a date in the accessible future and when the prophecy fails, they make a new one.
With the climate-calamity-cult it is different: they say that from now the calamity will occur in X or Y decades. They can never be proven wrong if they call a long game. The surprise is that for a ‘calamity’ to happen, they need a vaguely believable ‘trend’. The Pause is an absolute killer. We never get anywhere near the ‘decades’ of disaster and they re-call the game. This is a sure sign the prophets of doom haven’t a clue what they are talking about. Narry a whit.
Has-been Hansen, I christen thee the Jim Jones of climate. Gather your nutters around you in some jungle hideout. I’ll send Koolaid. The real stuff. I want you to live there happily in the company of friends.
I will continue my work of bringing warmth and cooking to these living in energy poverty. Deal?
As long as you promise it’s organic grapes with chinese herb extracts…They’ll be fine with that koolaide.
Crispin in Waterloo December 3, 2016 at 6:32 pm
“but really in”..
“I will continue my work of bringing warmth and cooking to these living in energy poverty.”
For at least myself you are a mystery. Now more so. But it appears a good one.
michael
To Mike the Morlock
I rarely say what actually do for a living because ‘it is a bit complicated’. In a single week, the last one, I attended two sessions on introducing smoke reducing coal stoves for farmers in Hebei Province, attended a conference in Beijing on the latest testing protocol for cooking stoves and a NYSERDA conference in Albany NY on improving the performance of space heating wood stoves in NY State. While in Albany I offered to introduce to the Four Corners native Americans burning coal from Peabody a new stove technology that can burn coal without any smoke at all.
The argument is this: hundreds of millions of people live in permanent energy poverty, defined as spending more than 10% or their income on energy. A great many of them burn coal, primarily. It is fantasy to suggest that this demographic be called upon to ‘reduce their energy consumption’ or their ‘CO2 emissions’. What cheek!
There is a small cadre of people working on technically advanced solutions for people who are dependent on coal and who live in energy poverty. This field of endeavour is delivering some of the most advanced technologies and theoretical work ever done on the combustion of coal.
The target populations live ‘outside the bubble’ of the enviro movements who not only condemn them to perpetual energy poverty but demand they ‘reduce their carbon footprint’ on the basis they use coal. In fact they use very little energy. My general goal is to make their lives healthier and to reduce drudgery. I am very fortunate in being able to to make contributions to this field.
“He is playing his believers for morons.”
He is not playing.. he knows the truth.
The American public (especially the smart phone generation) has the attention span of a gnat, so no matter what he said or did in the past, what he says and does currently is what he will be known for. That’s just the way it is and he knows it.
Jimmy probably thought that he was going to be right in the long-term, so it was worth telling a few porkies in the short term. He forgot the medium term.
But he still has a great hat.
What a twat.
Janice what is the bottom pic , I don’t recognize it , thanks. And how the heck are you? (Let me know.)
lol, Sybot (a) (smiling) — the thing in the bottom pic is HANSEN UNDER ARREST. Oh. You knew that, huh? Here is a WUWT story (different photo, same event, if I’m not mistaken):
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/29/nasas-james-hansen-arrested-yet-again/ .
***********************************
And,
Hi,
Thank you for asking, I am fine. Davy dog and I are still where we were (parents’ garage) at the end of September. It’s warm, well-lit with hydropower, and I have plenty to eat.
No “news.” Trusting God. Something good is ahead for me!
… “Gonna be!” … 🙂
I hope you and Mrs. Sybot are doing very well.
Keep warm up there!
Janice
Janice Moore — right on! — Eugene WR Gallun
Thanks, Mr. Gallun! (we are eagerly awaiting your next limerick or poem, you know 🙂 )
P.S. Mr. Gallun. Ahem. I need to clarify my statement a bit. “… eagerly awaiting your next non-obscene limerick or poem….” 🙂
Jim is just following the Alarmist crowd by moving the goal post when the previous prediction in this case 2006 becomes self evidently wrong (again).
Just like the Arctic Ocean was going to be ice free 6-years ago (made at the AGU Fall Meeting in 2007)!
Ha ha
He had to do something. After all, in one month 2016 is over.
Actually I feel Hansen sold his soul to the devil, and now all his good times are over, and he senses he has got to pay the devil his due. Not a very comfortable position to find oneself in, I surmise. He has less of a chance than a cornered rat, for even a cornered rat has a fighting chance. All Hansen can do, I fear, is flip flop like a fish on dry land.
Can we at least haul him before the bar of justice for fraud and take back his pension?
I have been saying for years that he (and Gavin Schmidt) should stand trial for “falsifying public records”, for their “adjustments.” After all, every man deserves his day in court, and the right to prove his innocence.
There might be some interesting “fallout” from such a trial. It might turn out Hansen was “following orders” from higher up. He might plea-bargain, and finger a politician or two or ten. Once things started to unravel things might get very interesting.
I don’t think it is a crime to be an activist. Falsifying Public Records, on the other hand, is illegal. Likely a lawyer could find irregularities in how funding was handled, as well.
I just wish Bill Gray was still alive to see all this, but perhaps he is smiling down on us from heaven.
IMO grant trough feeders like Mann could also be prosecuted. The chilling effect on real science has to be weighed against the trillions in treasure and millions of lives these criminals have cost.
Jones is probably beyond the reach of US law, but his compatriot Schmidt isn’t, nor his fellow British Commonwealth citizen Trenberth, nor Hansen nor Mann and a host of other miscreants.
I first felt wrath towards Hansen when McIntyre’s careful examination of “adjustments” forced Hansen to retreat back in 2007.
https://climateaudit.org/2007/08/08/a-new-leaderboard-at-the-us-open/
I was so vehement that Hansen should be hung out to dry back then that my comment got snipped. (I learned a lot about good manners and patience from McIntyre). But I learned a lot about persistence as well, and about holding Hansen’s feet to the fire at this site, and Tony Heller has been a sort of pit bull in terms of tenacity, over at Realclimatescience.
But it has been over a decade. Can you believe the knaves held on so long?
Some of the conspiracy ringleaders must be held accountable. Many younger academics and government workers had to go along to get along.
McIntyre opposes, or used to, prosecution. But IMO their crimes stink to high heaven and need to be given a public airing. Let judges and juries decide the hoaxing hucksters’ fate.
And claw back any and all grant money from “scientists” who don’t archive their publicly-funded data. The academic, green industrial swamp needs to be drained along with the Washington-Wall Street axis swamp. Sorry for the worse than mixed metaphor.
Caleb,
In normal times a man is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of prof on the accuser.
In these post-trut times of fake news from the MSM, men like Roger pielke Jr are ajudged guilty until proven innocent. Thus your observation, “everyman deserves his day in court and the right to prove his innonence.”
Individual rights are meaningless before an all powerful state.
We live in Orwellian times after 8 years of The Worst President Ever.
This change of mind by James Hansen is another of the early benefits of the Trump-Effect. We can look forward to many more as Trump assumes power. Warmistas are heading for the exit door.
full-time scientist/activist
****************************
would have saved you time by just typing
full-time activist
Picking the land only data is interesting but not useful in considering global warming. The latest UAH data from November continues to be in the +0.4 range, well above the level before the latest El Nino. As J. Curry mentioned a few days ago, it will take some months to perhaps 5 years before we can judge whether or not the latest El Nino may be followed by a step change as may have occurred in the last (1997-89) El Nino).
The surface responds more promptly to forcings because surficial materials have a heat capacity about 1/4 of water. That is, water temperature is going to lag land surface temperature changes. If you want some insight on what is happening now, instead of waiting, it is best to look at land temperatures rather than sea surface temperatures or a combination that is buffered by the water temperatures.
The problem is noise. Any fast response component will show noise effects on the output much more prominently than a lagged, heavily damped component.
Yes, but the cooling reaction to the end of El Nino is likely to show up in the land data first, given the basic sluggishness/dampening due to the size of the ocean heat sync. If the effect works as expected, the Land+Sea data should ultimately decline as well, it’ll just take longer to see it. I think that’s the situation to which Dr. Curry refers.
This is my assumption, please challenge if you have more information on this idea.
“Ocean heat sink” not “sync” – sorry about that autocorrect
The deep seas (the ocean heat capacity) is all that really matters in this climate system state. The air component is a 2nd degree component. But as land dwelling creatures then that fast component, 2nd degree response, is important to us to as weather. The rest is climate arising from what is happening ing with OHC and those ocean cycles.
A current theory, gaining much momentum, is that we now live in a “Post-Truth Society”. As ‘Old-School’, I want to stop the World and get off. We’re all headed backwards to oblivion fast if there’s no-one’s word we can rely on — excpet as viewed though a lens of “follow the money”.
Back to the Four Estates … there used to be a separation of powers, and those independent powers were the foundations & corner-pillars of our society. Not any more, … and in my lifetime!
Independent scientific thought has been hi-jacked by the political Pay-Masters: “You only say what we say you can say … or else!” to which there is a flip-side: toady-up to the Pay-Masters for a living. And so we have an unholy alliance between political opportunists and Snake-Oil Salesmen prepared to do anything, say anything for financial benefit. Truth, as in any war, against the people is the first casualty. George Orwell’s Big Brother would be proud of the way we are being strung-along by this cozy, mutually beneficial scam on the taxpayer which has little to do with scientfic probity & intellectual honesty.
Bill Clinton (and his sidekick The Algore) started us down the slippery slope of Post-truth. It accelerated some under GWB, Jr. Who did nothing to stop the climate alarmism lies.
Then It took off wholecloth into The realm of whole Untruths with Obama.
Would someone please advise our Prime Minister that his Carbon Tax is not needed yet. I sent e-mails in the past but I’m not a scientist so he does not listen to me. He oft repeated during his election campaign that his decisions would be guided by accepted science. Please, climatologists out there, help us!
Eh?
Accepted science in Canadian Liberal speak, is that which transfers the wealth from your effort,into their pockets.
You have to read in Liberaleeze, accepted by the Party.
Or any other government action that forces money from taxpayers and enriches the chosen friends and family.
Where else has kleptocracy ruled for so long?
Canada a success.
For fools and bandits.
Kleptocracy at its best, Canada’s Back!
Andre, just add a few letters after your name, like CEO ( you run the family right?), CFD, ( and earn the salary?) Your partner would be HRD ( Human resources Director), HSD ( Homeland Security Director) and so on .
You’d get in in a heartbeat
Just Baffle them with BS, they seem to be used to it.
+1
André, You don’t have to do a thing. Just watch Junior trying to square the circle, one minute talking up a carbon tax to discourage the use of fossil fuels, the next, approving the construction of 2 out of 3 crude oil pipelines to encourage their use, as we Canadians “transition” to a carbon-fee world. Yes, transition indeed! As if any company would invest billions in a project that will need decades to generate a payback while we “transition” off that product. We’ll be “transitioning” for a very, very long time. Wake me up when somebody discovers a renewable that has the energy density, reliability, storeability and transportability of fossil fuels.
Premier Mom is getting smacked real hard over electricity prices. Once it starts costing real money I expect the population will quit being apathetic about climate change. The Conservatives have to quit paying lip service to climate change and take advantage of the situation.
When people across the country start paying much more for energy because of Trudeau Jr’s carbon tax, we have to make sure he gets the blame, not the provinces.
Chretien and Martin cut back payments to the provinces. The provinces made cutbacks that hurt the population and got the blame. The provincial governments made some questionable decisions but the blame really belonged to Chretien and Martin, and they got off scot-free on that issue. Trudeau shouldn’t be able to take advantage of that kind of thing.
Jr. isn’t nearly as smart as his Dad. Folks forget that Sr. was involved with The Club of Rome. SK and MB are now “conservative”, Notley has about a 10% approval rating, so AB will go back to the right soon. Ontario is a mess, so could easily swing back. Hopefully Jr. is a one-term comedy act! He already has created a lot of damage. We are down to ~8 hrs. of low-angle sun so solar won’t be of much value. Snow is piling on top of the Panels. The windmills don’t function very well at low temp. The folly should be obvious before long. Suzuki – Canada’s answer to Hansen- isn’t have the same effect he once had.
And the back-pedaling already in progress steadily, even frantically increases. They see the writing on the wall. And it spells T R U M P.
It spells the end of their gravy train.
Does Hansen’s change have anything to do with Trump’s impending Presidency?
Hmm…
There is no change. Instantaneous reduction was never an option. What he has been saying is:
“Given the fact that the fastest time scale to replace energy systems is decades, that means that we must get the political processes moving now. “
And, implied in that statement, Mr. Stokes, is the premise: decades are not too short a time scale.
That is, Mr. Stokes, as MANY on this thread have pointed out, Hansen simply moved the goal posts to keep the game, going.
Well, Hansen didn’t get the memo:
CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED.
Game over.
This is probably pointless, but, dear mod, if you would please be so kind, please close my italics attempt after the words, “time scale.” Thanks!
IT has always been his view that we urgently need to reduce emissions. It will be decades before that reduces GHG amounts.
“IT has always been his view that we urgently need to reduce emissions”
Seems like he’s changed his mind, doesn’t it?
It’s amazing how a regime change can focus the mind, wouldn’t you agree?
Mr. Stokes, the record (please read that back, court reporter…..) says otherwise:
You’ll be wondering where I found that. It was in the above article.
“It will be decades before that reduces GHG amounts.”
With China, India, Turkey, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, soon the USA and also many other countries, totally disregarding the anti-CO2 scam, and continuing to build coal and gas fired power stations, it will be CENTURIES, not decades before global CO2 emissions even start a negative trend.
And won’t the world’s plant life LOVE IT !!
I don’t see any dialback on Hanson’s part at all. What I see is, “Just because my previously published deadline(s) has(have) passed, don’t stop throwing money down this rathole. You MUST still expend billions on useless renewables and other Climate Change nonsense.” That’s what I read.
“ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions”
I agree with Cyrus. Whether you like what he’s saying or not, it hasn’t changed. Reducing emissions is urgent, in order to reduce the amount of CO2 in air within decades, and stabilize climate on a century scale.
Nick,
Nine years ago, Hansen figured we had a decade to act. In 2007, https://thinkprogress.org/hansen-stands-by-coal-train-death-train-analogy-61dc43e8906a said:
See the link for various stronger statements.
You are correct Ric. Nick Stokes is trying to sugar coat the atrocious actions, comments, and assertions by these people. Why skeptics are the same as war criminals, remember Nick ? Remember the wanted posters at the Paris Scam a Thon? Remember the language used to silence skeptics or actions taken by state attorney generals ? The threat was never some decades out. No price was too large to pay for saving the planet. Destroying the west’s economies, political systems and way of life was a given. Action had to be taken immediately, tipping points and run a way greenhouse conditions would turn the earth into a hellish cauldron within 10 years. The science was settled for all the deiners of gravity, evolution, mentally sick ( articles have been published), problem with authority, don’t understand science, and my favorite, ” you’re not a climate scientist ” , what papers have you published ? ” ….. I remember very clearly the last 20 years Nick. And like most here, have volumes of saved pdf ‘s stating such things.
Ric,
I’m not sure why people think it is so important to parse Hansen’s statements so obsessively. But at least if it needs doing, they should be read. Hansen has always wanted urgent action to limit emissions. That is what is needed to get GHG amount down. But as he says in this statement as always, that won’t happen immediately – it would take decades. And, again as he says in the latest, if action on emissions is delayed, then more drastic action later will be needed.
That’s Hansen’s view. It may well be that people won’t do it. That isn’t his fault. He tried.
Nick Stokes
December 3, 2016 at 5:32 pm
Why do you want to reduce emissions of CO2? Actual pollution, yes, but emissions of an essential trace gas? Are you nuts?
CO2 going from 300 to 400 ppm has been a great boon to the world. Continuing to 500 and 600 would be better still.
There is no correlation between the growth in CO2 since WWII and global temperature. From 1945 to 1977, CO2 increased monotonously, while earth cooled dramatically. Then for about 20 years, the planet warmed slightly, accidentally coinciding with a continued rise in CO2 at about the same rate. After 1998, temperatures were about flat, again despite the same monotonous increase in CO2. So climbing CO2 has coincided with 32 years of pronounced cooling, 21 years of slight warming and 18 years of no trend.
So, no worries. But if continued CO2 gains does eventually barely warm the planet, that’s good, too. What catastrophic consequences do you imagine would befall the world at 500 ppm, for instance? Would have to be pretty bad to offset all the good done by greener planet enjoying more plant food in its air.
Don’t shoot … let ’em burn !