Claim: Climate Driven Human Extinction “in the coming decades or sooner”

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Toronto Now reporter Zach Ruiter has called the imminent extinction of mankind based on all the different climate scare stories he has read.

Are we headed for near-term human extinction?

Recent studies suggest it is irresponsible to rule out the possibility after last week’s “warning to humanity” from more than 15,000 climate change scientists

BY ZACH RUITER NOVEMBER 22, 2017 3:34 PM

“warning to humanity” raising the spectre “of potentially catastrophic climate change… from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and agricultural production – particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption,” was published in the journal BioScience last week.

More than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries endorsed the caution, which comes on the 25th anniversary of a letter released by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1992, advising that “a great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.”

[Several speculative climate scare stories – methane, ocean acidification, ice free arctic, decline of sulphate aerosols from coal]

The take-away

Out of control climate change means feedback mechanisms may accelerate beyond any capacity of human control. The occurrences discussed in this article are five of some 60 known weather-related phenomenon, which can lead to what climate scientist James Hansen has termed the “Venus Syndrome,” where oceans would boil and the surface temperature of earth could reach 462 degrees Celsius. Along the way humans could expect to die in resource wars, starvation due to food systems collapse or lethal heat exposure.

Given all that remains unknown and what is at stake with climate change, is it irresponsible to rule out the possibility of human extinction in the coming decades or sooner?

Read more: https://nowtoronto.com/news/are-we-headed-for-near-term-human-extinction/

The simplest argument against Hansen’s boiling oceans fallacy is the Earth’s geological history and a bit of common sense.

Past CO2 levels were much higher than CO2 levels in today’s carbon dioxide starved world. The Cretaceous, the final age of the dinosaurs, averaged 1700ppm CO2 – over 4x today’s CO2 levels. If CO2 was capable of driving the oceans to boiling point, this catastrophe would have already occurred long ago.

Humans would survive any lesser global warming disaster. Imagine for a moment we’re all wrong, that regional Northern temperatures soar by 27F (15C) in the next century. Britain, Northern Europe and the Northern states of the USA would still be colder than the current temperature of my subtropical hometown. Some already hot places might become inhospitable, but vast regions of the world – Northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland, Antarctica – would actually become a lot more benign for habitation by tropical species like human beings.

Whatever climate change the next century brings, and the evidence to date is “not a lot”, climate change will not cause the imminent extinction of humanity.

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Allan MacRae
November 23, 2017 6:10 pm

To be clear, the alarmists hypo is future CATASTROPHIC HUMANMADE GLOBAL WARMING due to increased atmospheric CO2, allegedly caused by fossil fuel combustion.

There is NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE that catastrophic warming is going to occur, and ample evidence that it will not.

“It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Allan MacRae
Reply to  Allan MacRae
November 23, 2017 6:16 pm

Incidentally, I predicted in 2002 that global cooling to commence by 2020-2030. I am now leaning toward ~2020.
Even moderate cooling is more harmful to humanity and the environment than moderate warming.
Bundle up!

Jones
November 23, 2017 6:10 pm

I do find myself wondering why my CO2 fire extinguisher doesn’t just melt from the 100% CO2 it contains?

Alex
Reply to  Jones
November 23, 2017 7:36 pm

It’s because your extinguisher is full of natural CO2. If it was full of manmade CO2 then you would be dead already.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  Jones
November 24, 2017 6:38 am

Good question.
It’s because of it’s steel casing prevents visible light in. If it were made of glass, the few things that absorb light in side would turn so hot, it would have melted indeed.

That’s why (I presume) they don’t use CO2 in insulating glazing. Wood windows would burn, and plastic would melt, as the glass would, too.

That’s also why you HAVE to ensure good ventilation in homes. Otherwise, your breathing and sweating would bring CO2 and water high enough for fire to start from GHE. You don’t even need much. Remember that on Venus, temp is 735 K / 462 °C / 863 °F, more than enough to start a fire, and that’s just because of GHE.

Or not.

Jones
Reply to  paqyfelyc
November 24, 2017 1:27 pm

Alex & paq,

Thank you both very kindly. My confusion has now lifted.

The only flaw I can see in you argument Alex is that surely the CO2 in the extinguisher WAS manufactured by man (or woman of course) in order to get it in there? So I’m back to my original point.

J

November 23, 2017 6:11 pm

All these predictions are patently wrong. MY prediction is the one to heed, and it is this: In coming decades, human intelligence will hover on extinction, as brain-dead zombies rise to full power and control the planet.

It’s happening now. Can’t you see it? If no,then please invest in a reliable pair of brain-dead zombie glasses.

Your children will appreciate this responsible step towards proper stewardship of the globe.

I see brain-dead people. [said with cold-weather condensation breath]

Reply to  Robert Kernodle
November 23, 2017 6:16 pm

Robert, that is a very good description of Leftist Democrats……..

Reply to  Robert Kernodle
November 23, 2017 6:55 pm

There are lots of zombies in northern Ontario. Methinks it has something to do with drug and alcohol abuse. But it could be climate change. Probably climate change. Actually, it is absolutely because of climate change.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Robert Kernodle
November 23, 2017 8:32 pm

Regarding zombies:

Gabro
November 23, 2017 6:17 pm

Primates evolved in the Cretaceous Period or Paleogene Epoch when the world was much warmer and richer in CO2. Based on fossil evidence, the earliest known true primates, represented by the genus Teilhardina, date to 55.8 million years old, ie around the time of the PETM hot spike. Molecular clocks push the origin of primates back possibly as far as the late Cretaceous, ie 74 Ma or even earlier.

The split between prosimians (lorises and lemurs) and simians (tarsiers, monkeys and apes) occurred around 63 Ma, again based upon clocks, not rocks. Tarsiers diverged some 58 Ma. Apes separated from Old World monkeys around the Oligocene-Miocene transition, when the world was still much warmer than now and CO2-enriched, although cooler than during the Eocene.
comment image

Hence, we’re adapted to warmer climate. Humans are able to live in more hostile environments than other apes, thanks to our cultural rather than biological adaptations, although some populations have evolved heritable adaptations, too.

Warmer is better. “Global warming” doesn’t threaten human extinction in the least.

tony mcleod
Reply to  Gabro
November 23, 2017 6:24 pm

“Humans are able to live in more hostile environments than other apes…”

Therefore

“Warmer is better”.

Uh huh.

Russ R.
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 6:47 pm

We are essentially hairless apes. That means we have survived through natural selection to thrive in areas that are tropical. We have no natural ability to survive in most of the climates of the Earth. We have done so only through the use of fire, clothing, and non-naturally occurring dwellings.
Would you like to make the case that colder is better for us than warmer? Or are you under the delusion that the ubermensch will dial in the perfect climate if we surrender our Liberty?
And when they fail to deliver???

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 6:50 pm

Humans evolved in one of the hottest places on the planet, Central East Africa. All our closest relatives are all tropical species. We had to invent ways to take our tropical climate around the globe.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:01 pm

What part of “tropical animal” and “naked ape” don’t you understand?

Only stone tools, control of fire, an omnivorous diet and the ability to make clothes allowed us to leave tropical and subtropical Africa, then the same latitudes of Asia and Australia for northern Eurasia and North America, thence South America, including to the hostile environment of Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.

Some other primates have adapted to the temperate zone, but we’re the only one which lives in polar regions and high temperate latitudes. Even Japanese macaques didn’t make it to Hokkaido.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:06 pm

To believe in CACA, you need to d@ny objective reality.

Extreme Hiatus
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:12 pm

I for one am only a mostly hairless ape. In recent years I have become more hairless, probably due to the ongoing ravages of climate change.

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:17 pm

“Warmer is better”. Has to the most infantile form of denialism.

It is equally accurate to argue human civilisation and it’s myriad technological complexities may have never evolved had East Africa not dried out forcing us out onto the savannah, blah, blah, blah.

So is drier better?

Or maybe it as the cold that allowed our species to explode geographically 60ky and start serious tool-making. So maybe cold is better.

You have no better reason to claim warm is better other than it confirms your bias.

I’d say anything outside a narrow temperature range is going to really screw with our modern living arrangements and that includes anything more than a fraction of a degree warmer.

Move to Delhi and tell me warmer is good. Smfh.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:42 pm

tony mcleod November 23, 2017 at 7:17 pm

Sorry, Tony, but you suffer from an extreme case of d@nialism. I’m providing you with inconvenient truths, which would be self-evident to anyone who had studied human history and archaeology with an open mind.

During the LGM, human population was tiny. During the balmy Holocene, it has exploded. What more evidence do you need?

Agriculture wasn’t possible before at the earliest 13,500 years ago in the areas in which it originated, because they were too cold, dry, windy, dusty and low in CO2. That was subtropical China. In most places where it began, it was even later than that, say 9000 years ago.

Why do you suppose that the warmest millennia of the Holocene are called the Climatic Optimum? That’s when there was the most vegetation. Vast forests. The spread of agriculture. The Green Sahara.

Not to recognize obvious, objective reality is the height of d@nialism.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:45 pm

tony mcleod November 23, 2017 at 7:17 pm

Forgot to comment on Delhi.

Have you really not noticed that those places which first developed huge populations were India and southern China, ie where it’s hot and moist? There are deserts in both countries, too, but that’s not where high population densities first arose. And where dry, its was in hot river valleys like Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus where civilization got started.

Obviously people like to live in the climate of Delhi. About a billion people do so.

You have to be brainwashed to be so blind to reality.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:47 pm

Millions if not tens of millions have been killed in winter thanks to the CACA Cult starving them of heat. Deaths from hot spells, not so much. Just stay wet and sleep on the roof.

Earthling2
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:49 pm

Well Tony, you write much better than Crackers, and seem to be as friendly as Griff, but haven’t seen you around here much. But really, do you not think the smidgeon of the warming we have had since the LIA is not an insurance policy on some catastrophic bout of short term global cooling? For whatever reason that could cause that, probably some major vulcanism timed to cause maximum carnage with agriculture. I am talking about a major failure of crops in the northern hemisphere that would not be available to feed 7.5 billion people. That does keep me up at night when I think about it.

Humanity has never been at this intersection before, but what we do see in nature is that large populations of anything always get trimmed back the first time anything goes wrong that made them so successful to begin with. It is because of global warming the last 12,000 years why our species has become so successful, and it is because of fossil fuels why we have exploded in every way possible since about 1750. I think most of us agree that the good Earth has warmed up about 1 degree since then, and maybe part of that is due to humans. Hard to argue that 7.5 billion people wouldn’t cause any warming. But if we lost that 1 degree, we would be squarely back in LIA territory, and I for one embrace the warming. As compared to cooling. I am sure you must agree with this?

Phoenix44
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 1:30 am

Tony McLeod. Anything more than a fraction of a degree? That’s utter nonsense. Each day varies more than that in most places at any given single time, let alone averages over a season. If summers in the U.K. average 0.1 degree warmer for ever no-one will ever notice.

You claim to be open-minded then spout such Alarmist drivel that only someone determined to be Alarmist could possibly believe.

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 6:25 am

I see that your comment in reply to Gabro, was dead on arrival.

He is correct that Humans came from a warm climate,much warmer than today which you irrationally ignore. We came from Africa,that was very warm.

Face it Tony, your comments in the thread doesn’t inspire anyone, since you don’t know how to make a COGENT reply to anything.

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 12:38 pm

You’re mixing up weather with climate Phoenix44, to different beasties laddie.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 1:05 pm

Earthling2 November 23, 2017 at 8:49 pm

Famines were common during the LIA, bringing mass starvation and often societal collapse to continent after continent for centuries following the balmy MWP, when population boomed. Ditto global pandemic diseases. And war, of course, not that the MWP didn’t also feature frequent warfare, but not mass slaughter on the scale of the Thirty Years’ War or Taiping Rebellion.

The bounty of the MWP made the knightly warhorse possible.

Joe
November 23, 2017 6:31 pm

Let’s see, if we can drive CO2 to 2000ppm, plant life will bloom, increase oxygen to 30%, then we will have the right conditions to resurrect dinosaurs, and Jurassic Park will be real possibility instead of just a movie

R. Shearer
Reply to  Joe
November 23, 2017 7:24 pm

You have a problem with mass balance of both fossil fuels and chemistry of photosynthesis.

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  Joe
November 23, 2017 10:51 pm

30% !? Let’s not go there.
“In the United States regulations define oxygen-enriched mixtures or atmospheres as those containing more than 23.5% oxygen by volume. In oxygen enriched atmospheres, the reactivity of oxygen significantly increases the risk of ignition and fire.”
http://www.airproducts.com/~/media/Files/PDF/company/safetygram-33.pdf

paqyfelyc
Reply to  Joe
November 24, 2017 6:57 am

It is thought that O2 reached a maximum of 35% during carboniferous era.
Obviously, more CO2 nowadays means LESS oxygen, not more (oxygen contain of atmosphere is reduced, but in so minute quantity it doesn’t matter). It makes sense, since human burning of fossil fuel use oxygen, it doesn’t liberate more; and doesn’t consume other gas, either, so why would oxygen proportion increase ?

R.S. Brown
November 23, 2017 6:33 pm

Go for two or five year bonds, skip the ten & thirty year long bonds,
you’ll never get paid back.

You’ll save by rolling over to a new thirty year fixed rate mortgage..,
there won’t be anyone to collect those last few years of payments.

November 23, 2017 6:49 pm

Do these idiots not understand that Venus is a lot closer to the sun and their day is some 116 of our days, hence the same side of the surfaces faces the sun 116 times longer, not to mention the atmosphere is 90x denser.

NME666
Reply to  J. Richard Wakefield
November 23, 2017 7:23 pm

butt the sccs (so called climate scientists) on earth are a lot denser than the sccs on Venus!!

Gabro
Reply to  J. Richard Wakefield
November 23, 2017 7:40 pm

I don’t see how people can become convinced that atmospheric density has not effect on surface temperature.

Due to reflection from its upper cloud banks and absorption of downwelling solar irradiance in its thick atmosphere, the surface of Venus actually receives less insolation than does Earth. CACA adherents blame its 96% CO2 air for high surface temperature by slowing outgoing radiation. But in that case, why is Mars, also with an atmosphere ~96% CO2, not much warmer?

At least part of the answer must be the density of their atmospheres, ie high in Venus’ case and low in Mars’. Other factors of course enter into the equation, such as weaker irradiance for Mars and slow rotation for Venus. But even factoring in insolation at the Martian surface, it’s way too cold for a significant GHE from all that CO2.

Some numbers:

Incoming solar radiation; Reflected back to space; Absorbed in atmosphere; Surface temperature.

Venus: 645 W/m^2; 515 W/m^2; 130 W/m^2; 460 degrees C.

Earth: 342 W/m^2; 100 W/m^2; 242 W/m^2; 15 degrees C.

Solar irradiance at Mars’ mean distance from the Sun is around 590 W/m^2. This is about 44% of Earth’s solar constant (1350 W/m^2). I haven’t computed average insolation, given Mars’ rotational and orbital figures. Yet its average temperature, at around -50 degrees C, is much colder than expected simply from less powerful sunlight.

Reply to  Gabro
November 24, 2017 3:25 am

Venus solar day lasts 2688 hours.

Earth warms up 1C every hour when the Sun is up. What would happen if lasted 2688 hours long rather than 12.

Answer 460C surface temperature with extremely thick atmosphere.

Venus’ rotation rate explains the whole thing.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  Gabro
November 24, 2017 8:01 am

+1 Gabro,
although on Earth the and 242 W/m^2 are “Absorbed in atmosphere and surface”, not just “Absorbed in atmosphere” (as in Venus, whose surface don’t see the sunlight at all). And it is better to use Kelvin temperature : 288 K for Earth, 735 K for Venus. Radiating power is in ^4 of Kelvin temperature, meaning the 2.55 higher temperature translate into 42x higher power on Venus, while the primary power (sunlight) is only 55% of Earth’s.

Earth as already >90% efficient GHE, with only ~40 W/m^2 escaping directly from surface out of ~450 W/m^2 it emits (conduction and convection included, not just radiation). Adjusted for that, the actual power on Earth ~to compare to a supposed 100% efficient venusian GHE receiving 130 W is still 202 W, 50% higher. So if GHG explained surface temperature all alone, Earth should be hotter than Venus, not the other way round.
GHE as much more to do with lapse rate and weight of atmosphere, than it as to do with GHG. But then again, this simple and “inconvienient” truth prevents any repent-and-obey-or-doomsday propaganda.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  Gabro
November 24, 2017 8:24 am


Rotation explains just nothing. Actually, Venusian wind are so strong that the temperature is pretty much the same everywhere on Venus, on the polar dark side as in the equatorial daylight.
That’s the atmosphere weight and height that explains the whole thing.
Earth atmosphere act as if all radiation from Earth to space came from the -18°C altitude, which is only a few km high, and lapse rate transform that into a surface temperature 33°C higher
Venus atmosphere is 250km thick, it acts as if all radiation from Venus to space came from the 130W equivalent temperature altitude, which is tens of km high in Venus, and lapse rate transforms that into a surface temperature ~700°C higher

AndyG55
Reply to  Gabro
November 27, 2017 11:35 am

“Venus’ rotation rate explains the whole thing.”

And yet the temperature on the night side is only marginally difference from the day side.

So much atmospheric pressure, the energy cannot escape.

Unlike on Earth with its somewhat tenuous atmosphere, where we get rapid cooling at night.

November 23, 2017 7:03 pm

Well, the evidence IS there! The first serious indicator is the psychological meltdown of the weak-minded journalists and assorted alarmists there’s no denying that that is happening right now before our eyes 😉

November 23, 2017 7:03 pm

If there is a catastrophe on the human population, it won’t be because GMST has risen by 1deg C.

It will be because some group has assumed moral authority to impose genicide on another group. They will Call it “progressive love for humanity” that so many must become roadkill in the highway to Dystopia.

tony mcleod
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
November 23, 2017 7:23 pm

No, it will be 3 or 4 degrees and it’s baked in.
See Zickfeld and Herrington, 2015, and Frölicher, Winton & Sarmiento, 2014.

R. Shearer
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:33 pm

It seems you may be a pathological liar.

Zickfield and Herrington said, “Our results indicate that as CO2 continues to accumulate in the atmosphere, the full warming effect of an emission may take several decades, if not centuries to emerge. A large fraction of the warming, however, will be realized relatively quickly (93% of the peak warming is realized 10 years after the emissions for the 1000 PgC pulse). This implies that the warming commitment from past CO2 emissions is small, and that future warming will largely be determined by current and future CO2 emissions. Each additional CO2 emission will contribute to warming that will persist almost indefinitely. Thus, emission reductions implemented today will equally benefit current and future generations.”

Frölicher, Winton & Sarmiento concluded, “Our study shows that global mean temperature may even increase after zero carbon emissions, because of feedback effects arising in response to the magnitude and geographic structure of ocean heat uptake. Thus, estimates of allowable carbon emissions required to remain below the 2 ◦C global warming target may be significantly lower than previously thought. A better
understanding and monitoring of how ocean circulation changes impact regional ocean heat uptake and thus efficacy is necessary to narrow uncertainties in climate change projections.”

Extreme Hiatus
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:41 pm

Oh I see. I can’t see where anything says that “IT WILL BE 3 or 4 degrees” because it is “baked in” there somewhere.

Makes sense. Just like a cake with hidden raisins or something.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:42 pm

No. Not even close. But your assertions definitely are half-baked.

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:54 pm

tony,

For 3 to 4 deg C to occur would require CO2 doubled and then doubled again. So starting at 285, then –> 570 –> then 1140 ppm. That would you to your dangerous 3 to 4 deg C. But we run out of fossil fuel around 800 ppm. So don’t worry. It can’t happen. And plants are lovin’ the extra fertilizer.

You’ve been lied to and you’ve been educated/indoctrinated in those lies. It’s not really your fault you believe those lies. You should ask for your university/college to reimburse your tuition.

Joel O’Bryan, PhD

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:56 pm

Lindzen and Choi, 2011 (revised from 2009) estimated ECS at 0.7 K (with the confidence interval 0.5K – 1.3 K at 99% levels). Much of this GHE has already occurred, thanks to the rise from ~280 ppm in AD 1850 to ~400 ppm now (~43% gain), and the logarithmic nature of the temperature response to increased essential trace gas in the air.

Thus the effect of more CO2 is not the primary reason for the possible warming of perhaps a degree C since AD 1850. The vital trace gas plant food might have contributed 0.3 degrees C of this beneficial warming.

Extreme Hiatus
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 7:58 pm

Look at the bright side. One crystal ball says it could be 3-4 C hotter. But the internationally acclaimed climate expert James Hansen said it could get to 426 C, which would be considerably worse than we thought. I’m estimating a rise of from 0 to 426 C and leaning toward the low end of that.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:00 pm

PS:

This result also implies that net feedbacks in the climate system are negative, as would be expected on a self-regulating water world. The lab effect is around 1.2 degrees C, without real world feedbacks. IPCC imagines without any scientific basis that net feedbacks are positive in order to derive its unphysical “estimate” of 1.5 to 4.5 K temperature increase from a doubling of beneficial plant food in the air.

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:05 pm

Um no. Unless you disagree that AGW is a thing, then…who needs science.

See how you go with this recipe.

1 Humans have changed the GHG concentration in the atmoshpere.
2 As predicted by the physics that appears to have warmed things up.
3 The maximum effect of those GHG have (CO2 anyway) lags decades to centuries after they are emitted.
4. We will be emitting a lot more before we are done. 500 – 600ppm seems un-preventable.
5. It will take a thousand years for 80% of that extra CO2 to be reabsorbed.

That’s what I call baked in. 3-4 degrees is incredibly conservative.

Pathological liar…I don’t think you know what that means.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:06 pm

joelobryan November 23, 2017 at 7:54 pm

Since global average temperature was about 7 degrees C warmer than now when our ape ancestors evolved, and they lived in tropical and subtropical latitudes, a 3 or 4 degree C increase would be great for our species and family. Unfortunately, nothing even close to that, as you note, is going to happen over the next century or millennium, even if we burned all recoverable fossil fuels.

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:09 pm

Further, in the past abrubt climate change has accompanied rates of CO2 change far smaller than this one.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:14 pm

tony mcleod November 23, 2017 at 8:05 pm

Nothing even remotely close to 3 degrees C is baked in. There is no way that 600 ppm, ie a bit more than a doubling over presumed AD 1850 levels, can possibly warm Earth by that much.

Geologic history alone shows it so, as indeed does the best physics, based upon actual observations rather than GIGO model output. In 1979, Charney relied on none other than the astronomical Dr. Hansen for the higher (4 degrees C) of the two guesses he used to “derive” the average values of 3 degrees C, to which he attached an arbitrary 0.5 degrees margin of error.

Manabe: 2 degrees C;
Hansen: 4 degrees C, and
Fudge factor: 0.5 degrees C, hence
“Canonical” range: 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C.

Science!

As I said, half-baked WAGs.

The central value from actual observations, as noted above, is rather 0.7 degrees C, not 3.0. The unscientific IPCC is off by about a factor of four.

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:16 pm

tony mcleod November 23, 2017 at 8:09 pm

Please provide some examples.

If so, which I doubt, it doesn’t matter, since the rate doesn’t matter. We’re now starting from such a low level, that there is no precedent. The climate of the past 2.6 million years is unprecedently frigid, and CO2 has very rarely been lower than now during the past at least 600 million years.

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:26 pm

Show me a lie Joel. That is not merely an opinion (I hastily add).

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:27 pm

Tony,

How long does CO2 stay in the air?

http://euanmearns.com/the-residence-time-of-co2-in-the-atmosphere-is-33-years/

“An important consideration in estimating future greenhouse warming risks is how long CO2 remains in the atmosphere. Here I present the results of a simple mass balance model that provides a near-perfect fit between CO2 emissions and observed atmospheric CO2 using a CO2 residence time of 33 years. This, however, is significantly longer than 36 peer reviewed estimates that cluster between 5 and 15 years and much shorter than IPCC’s estimates of 100 years or longer, hence the question mark in the title.”

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Carbon-dioxide-residence-time.jpg

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:30 pm

tony,

Any one who has to invoke “abrupt climate change” due to increasing CO2 must also surely accept in magic, crystal power under their mattress, and unicorns. Abrupt CC is not science. It is fiction. Hollywood fiction.

If there is any lesson from paleo-records, it is that he Earth’s biosphere has acquired magnificent feedbacks, negative feedbacks, that have kept climate stability. The thing that Earth cannot compensate for are insolation changes, the Malinkovitch cycles. Thus Earth has bounced into deep glacial periods every 100K yr for the last million years. And there is not one damn thing mankind can do about Malinkovitch cycles but build in resilience to human society with technology and creative sources of energy (like nuclear).

tony, Quite honestly, it would behoove you to learn some real science and physics of Earth’s glacial cycles, and not the propaganda that you’ve been taught.

Joel O’Bryan, PhD

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:30 pm

Tony,

I just showed you a lie which you swallowed:

“It will take a thousand years for 80% of that extra CO2 to be reabsorbed.”

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:46 pm

tony said,

“Show me a lie Joel. That is not merely an opinion (I hastily add).”

Okay. All the future warming due to CO2 is based on models, called GCMs (general circulation models, the supercomputer huge multi-million dollar expenditures of electricity and salaries to run). But the models run way hot when they attempt to close their energy budgets at the TOA. Something is fundamentally worng with the models. But do they admit that? No. They adjust the convection and preciptation parameters for the future to get them to output a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees C or so for 2X Co2. Completely subjective. Pulling it out of their ass after the models have failed.

So they tune/calibrate on the past to “calibrate” you might claim.

Well they have to tune in huge amounts of aerosols to increase albedo to get them to run cool enough to match past temperatures of the past late-20th Century tuning period. Dr Trenberth has lamented that these aerosols adjustments are unfortunate and likely unwarranted, i.e. a real problem (note they cannot tune in precipitation, like they do for the future, to the past because the actual rainfall records would not support such an adjustment.).

So in the past the modellers adjust in aerosols to cool the results. In the future projections, they tune in precipitation to cool they outputs to 3-4 degrees. Complete junk. They are subjectively tuning failed models to get a desired output. The cliamte modeles are total and complete Junk Science.

Let me repeat that for you Tony: the models are Junk Science. Subjectively tuned. Complete crap.

And if you do not understand that Tony, you are a hopeless religious believer in the the religion of Climate Change.

Joel O’Bryan, PhD

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:47 pm

I am not referring to maximum time of residence but the lag from emission date to date of maximum affect, which according to the study I cited above is on the scale of decades to centuries depending on the size of the pulse.

And instead of having me track the origins of your that graph through a maze of denier blogs you could have just directed me to the IPCC where they estimate a CO2 molecule will remain in the atmoshere for 5-200 years.
https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/016.htm

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 8:56 pm

And if you do not understand that Tony, you are a hopeless religious believer in the the religion of Climate Change.

You opinion may be correct Joel (it is convincing) but I did stress that I will not accept opinions as evidence. You alluded to a lament by Trenberth. That is a pretty weak “lie”.

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 9:25 pm

Not my opinion Tony.

From Trenberth’s: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00294.1
Conclusion:
“Yet, closure of the observed energy budget over the past 5 years remains largely elusive for interannual variations (Trenberth 2009; Trenberth and Fasullo 2010). While some of the previously missing energy is accounted for, substantial discrepancies between OHC and CERES at interannual time scales persist and are especially prominent during 2008/09. Thus, state-of-the-art observations and basic analysis are unable to completely account for recent energy variability at interannual time scales, since they provide either an incoherent narrative or imply error bars too large to make the products useful.

Trenberth’s lament on aerosols is carefully hidden in the intro, how they really do not know post-Penatubo how to keep the atmosphere cool enough in the models without using aerosols to match observation.
Read it closely if you can. The models are crap.

Your belief that 3 – 4 deg C is baked in is based on crap you’ve been led to believe is science. It is not science. It is pseudo-science. If you believe it, then you might as believe in magic too.

tony mcleod
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 23, 2017 9:42 pm

You’re completely dismissing the whole thing as what? Exaggerated? Overly cautious? A way to make money? Some here believe its about world domination. What do you believe?

All based on…anything else? Its 7 years old. You don’t think there have been any improvements or refinements since then?

drednicolson
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 6:26 am

Demand evidence, change standard of evidence, disqualify presented evidence with new standard, repeat.

Seems argument from invincible ignorance is all Ol’Tony has got.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 8:45 am

tony mcleod
Well ,Tony, if it is already baked in, trying to stop it is just pointless (*). Just adapt, benefit as much as possible, and shut up, instead of whining.

(*) Pointless indeed: the doom promised for 2100 would actually occur in 2101 instead. Who really believing in the claimed doom would arrange for such a plan, promising a mere one year delay? so much effort for so limited result, seriously?comment image

Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 1:51 pm

abrupt climate change based on small changes in Co2 is a patently false claim by Tony

Tony is the epitome of the standard AGW facebook group warrior, big on words, short on solid evidence

Fact midget

Gabro
Reply to  tony mcleod
November 24, 2017 2:00 pm

tony mcleod November 23, 2017 at 8:47 pm

Euan Means shows how he derived his estimate. Please comment on his work, not where I accessed it. IPCC’s range of 5 to 200 years is absurd. The fact is, nobody knows all the sources and sinks or how they will process additional beneficial plant food in the air.

You have cited no study at all. You merely claimed 1000 years for 80% of man-made CO2 to be reabsorbed. I’ve asked you for the source, but you can’t provide it.

I know that Wallace “Father of Global Warming” Broecker once mentioned 1000 years in passing in an interview, but it was an unsupported assertion.

Here are some actual data for you. More than 90% of the A-bomb test 14C in atmospheric CO2 left the air in about 40 years, not more than 1000.

https://cams.llnl.gov/cams-competencies/forensics/14c-bomb-pulse-forensics

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-82882ff4f610093e5cdef044f1e30147-c

This comports well with Means’ results. The claim of the “Father of Global Warming”, not so much.

Extreme Hiatus
November 23, 2017 7:06 pm

Allllrighty then. 462 C. That would do it.

And I think I may have read somewhere that somebody once said that it could get even hotter. Hot enough to boil space or something.

Logoswrench
November 23, 2017 7:11 pm

There’s definitely a syndrome here but don’t blame Venus. Good night what is wrong with these nut bags?

marty
November 23, 2017 7:17 pm

OK,OK, I will sell my diesel tomorrow! 🙂

BoyfromTottenham
November 23, 2017 7:22 pm

This sounds a lot like someone shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre causing a panic which could have bad consequences, which I believe is grounds for prosecution in some jurisdictions. Now, who should get prosecuted in this case, the irresponsible journalist and/or his employer, or the irresponsible scientists that he quoted?

Extreme Hiatus
Reply to  BoyfromTottenham
November 23, 2017 7:36 pm

I think that prosecution would fail. Their lawyer could reasonably argue that what they were screaming was so ridiculous that no one would be expected to believe it.

F. Leghorn
Reply to  Extreme Hiatus
November 23, 2017 8:49 pm

That would be true with an educated populace. Not in this dumbed down world.

November 23, 2017 7:26 pm

In case anyone thinks that this twit is part of the mainstream media, NOW is a free paper that doesn’t actually have reporters. They will print more or less any nonsense that is sent to them. Fact checking doesn’t appear to be part of their culture. Even the MSM aren’t THAT silly (usually)

Actually, you have to feel sorry for this guy. He probably doesn’t sleep well. He may have a hard time functioning because of the weight of worry, fear and guilt. This is the kind of demented thinking that we have to try and counter. An uphill battle if there ever was one.

marty
November 23, 2017 7:31 pm

There are always some jerks who believe in the end of the world. I’ve seen so many world downs, I can not count them anymore. First the ice age, then the forest dying, the acid rain, the ozone hole, the millennium error, the planet Nibru, or the comet Apophis, the Mayan calendar. Now and then you hear something about asteroids or gamma ray bursts. Well, there really is a threat. The universe is a dangerous place. Surely, anytime a new threat comes up. And there were already several mass extinctions on earth. But the likelihood that any of those arrive in our lifetime is negligible.

R. Shearer
Reply to  marty
November 23, 2017 7:45 pm
Grumpy
November 23, 2017 7:35 pm

Hey, he’ll froze over in 2016 ( ‘da Cubs won game 7) and since there’s a delayed cooling effect for that to reach the surface I suggest getting prepared to bundle up.

westernwei
November 23, 2017 7:36 pm

Last time I looked, there is a little bit of land available in Canada and Russia should things start heating up. Just saying. Perhaps even Greenland would become green again as it once was. I’ll wait and see what happens before I jump off a building.

westernwei
November 23, 2017 7:36 pm

Last time I looked, there is a little bit of land available in Canada and Russia should things start heating up. Just saying. Perhaps even Greenland would become green again as it once was. I’ll wait and see what happens before I jump off a building.

F. Leghorn
November 23, 2017 8:35 pm

where oceans would boil and the surface temperature of earth could reach 462 degrees Celsius.

It’s a darn good thing we have air conditioning, huh? Otherwise it would just be too hot.

November 23, 2017 8:36 pm

Yawn….this is exactly what we have been hearing for the past 40 years, and precisely nothing at all has happened that is of the slightest interest, impact or importance. What does worry me is what these lunatics who have whipped themselves up into a state of intellectual frenzy will do next. Geo-climate engineering, ‘Carbon’ trading schemes, Energy restrictions, “Green” Energy subsidies, Transport Taxation, and the like have the potential to cause real damage to society, mankind and in the name of “Saving the Planet” will cause many deaths from poverty, cold and starvation.

November 23, 2017 8:54 pm

Really Eric! A Toronto Journalist! And he’s a decade out of date. Even some of the “greats” of climate boffinois, after a good shellacking by sceptics, the Pause, observations vs projections using climate sensitivities as high as 6, have been schlepping back and, recognizing that even if we arsonized world coal seams and hydrocarbon wells and squeezed the bellies of all the cattle real hard, we would still need a few million Hiroshima bombs to squeak by 1.5C and that 2C beanstock (‘Jack and the’ ) estimate is a sign the researcher needs psychiatric attention. I’m referring to the statement

“Out of control climate change means feedback mechanisms may accelerate beyond any capacity of human control.”

We now know human control of climate and humans isn’t going to happen. Although they may be right about some humans being out of control. I believe it was one of Trump’s executive orders that restored common sense, although I understand Oreskes and Cook are going to soldier on without it.

willhaas
November 23, 2017 10:06 pm

Based upon the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to suppor the idea the the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero.

The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is full of holes. The largest of which is that the radiant grenhouse effect, upon which the AGW conjecture depends, has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction.

The reason that the surface of Venus is so hot is that not only is Venus closer to the sun than the Earth but the surface pressure on Venus is more than 90 times more than it is on Earth. If the CO2 in the atmosphere caused a radiant greenhouse effect then the surface pressure on Venus should be much hotter than it actually is. There is no evident of an existance of a radiant greenhouse effect on Venus. The atmosphere’s warming effect on Venus is all caused by the surface pressure, the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the depth of the troposphere. There is no evidence that mankind’s burning of fossil fuels has caused a change of the average surface pressure on the Earth.

There is no scientific consenus regarding the AGW conjecture. Sceintists have never registered and voted on the matter. It would not have meant anything if they had because science is not a democracy. Scientific theories are not validated through a voting process. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation.

There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuel but climate change is not one of them.

Michael 2
November 23, 2017 10:58 pm

“from more than 15,000 climate change scientists”

Does anyone have a list of names? Who pays for 15,000 climate change scientists? What an absurd waste of probably public money. Can we get along with only 10,000 climate change scientists?

Michael 2
Reply to  Michael 2
November 23, 2017 11:41 pm

Trying to chase down the source it seems to come from one James Powell, an echo of John Cook and Naomi Oreskes. http://www.jamespowell.org/

Apparently there’s not just 15,000 climate scientists, but 70,000. Incredible and hugely wasteful since apparently they all say the same thing (at taxpayer expense most likely).

Not only that, but this vast pool of scientists apparently only publish a little over 2,000 papers per year. He expressly declares that every paper, no matter the subject, implicitly endorses AGW if it isn’t one of the four or so that expressly deny it.

“6. Based on past experience, I know that some will object to my results because, they will say, a given article is “not about global warming” and therefore should not have been included in my database. An example is an article from 2013 titled “Investigation on critical breakdown electric field of hot sulfur hexafluoride/carbon tetrafluoride mixtures for high voltage circuit breaker applications.” It is surely true that if all one knows is the title of this article, it does not appear to be about global warming. But its authors say it is: the first line of the abstract reads, “Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) gas, widely used in high-voltage circuit breakers, has a high global warming potential and hence substitutes are being sought.” The use of “global warming” in the abstract is the reason this article came up in my WoS search. Rather than deciding for myself whether a given article is “about global warming,” whatever that means exactly, and thus introducing more subjectivity, I let the WoS and authors decide.”
http://www.jamespowell.org/Method/method.html

Well obviously people are going to put “global warming” in their papers to get government funding and signal their virtue. But a paper on sulfur hexafloride gas in circuit breakers is not about global warming and the engineer/scientist studying sulfur hexafloride gas in circuit breakers is not a “climate scientist”.

[shaking head in dismay at the state of American science]

NorwegianSceptic
Reply to  Michael 2
November 24, 2017 1:35 am

Great example, I wonder how many others of the same kind there are. Senseless Waste of money, and tragic impact on science.

Martin A
November 23, 2017 11:32 pm

“… Whenever I hear that 2016 (or 2017) is the warmest year EVER, I can’t help but recall that human civilization is flourishing as never before. So we’ve taken these “blows” and not only survived, but prospered. Even the occasional weather disaster has not changed this trajectory.”

Steve McIntyre

Manfred
November 23, 2017 11:44 pm

Really little different to the fellow I used to see walking about London with a board front and back strung from his raincoat clad shoulders, “Repent. The end is nigh.” And to think all this was after the asteroid impact that extinguished the dinos. Today, the greatest threat to civilised society is the ideology of scientivists.