UN: Global Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide at Record Level, Exceed Worst-Case Projections

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Nov 21, 5:03 AM EST

UN: Concentrations of greenhouse gases hit record

GENEVA (AP) -- The U.N. weather agency says concentrations of global warming gases are at record levels from emissions that exceed scientists' worst-case scenarios.

The World Meteorological Organization says heat-trapping carbon dioxide concentrations in the air have reached 389 parts per million - the highest such concentrations since the start of the industrial era in 1750.

WMO says that reflects a 20 percent increase in nitrous oxide, 39 percent rise in CO2 and 158 percent jump in methane since then.

Its report Monday cites fossil fuel-burning, loss of forests that absorb CO2 and use of fertilizer as main culprits.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UN_GREENHOUSE_GASES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

---

https://twitter.com/#!/AP/status/138562212380950528

@AP
The Associated Press
UN weather agency: Global concentrations of carbon dioxide at record level, exceed worst-case projections:

[SpiralHawk]

1. Thanks a big stinking diaperload, Republicons

Your deliberate, evil denial of facts and of reality, and your god-forsaken avarice and greed, are the root of this huge planetary problem.

[glinda]

7. +1

[Javaman]

2. No shit. Lasted models have it a 7.5 degree rise by the end of the century...

that's a civilization ender.

even if it's half that, it's still a civilization ender.

and yet, the world dicks around with trying to figure out a way to fix it's economy while at the same to time making sure the rich still make massive coin.
(that's what that is really all about)

See you on the refugee boats crossing into the sunken areas of lower Manhattan.

[Locrian]

3. sometimes I think they know...

Sometimes I think they know that it's effectively game over and they're just grabbing as much as they can to prepare for the worst.

Wouldn't surprise me, given their weakness of character and cowardice.

[Javaman]

4. When you see the wealthy applying for Canadian citizenship...

and buying huge tracts of land in the Northwest territory, then it will be really a time to worry.

however, if they don't, they will be marching right along side us during the great migration.

But like any narcissist or someone with a massive ego, they will try and buy their way out of their problems.

It will be interesting to see how the rich adapt to a society were practical skills out rank wealth.

[Bigmack]

5. Surprise! Who could have EVER guessed that

things would get THIS bad? And by the by, you DON'T want to think of fleeing here to the Pacific Northwest....It's gonna be the WORST EVER here - hotter than hell itself, so nope, you poor slobs in the southeast and southwest don't wanna come up here. You'd hate it up here.......... Ms Bigmack

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

[FirstLight]

8. i have said for a while

That all the models are off... that things will continue to feedback faster than expected. we are the frog in the boiling pot, no doubt.

even if we just stopped everything, right now...we are all screwn.
All I can hope for is that it helps the higher elevations here by lessening the snow in winter...as I sit here in the cold, i wish for some tropical weather...but ya, it isn't funny at all.

[blackspade]

9. Humanity is in orbit around the drain.

And the republicons and their corporate masters are swimming toward it!

[MemeSmith]

10. Permanence is an illusion

14,000 years ago, not a very long time, in the lifetime of the Earth, the North polar icecap extended as far south as my current location. Today, the polar icecap is more than a thousand miles North of here.

We had no control over the processes that brought about that change, just as we have no control over whatever else Nature has in store for us.

Sure, we need to put our own house in order and tidy up our act, but even if we do, there are absolutely no guarantees.

Our craving for the illusion of permanence is at odds with the lessons of history. The planet changes. It just does. Even if we stop causing changes ourselves, they won't stop coming.

[Iwasthere]

11. Is this any reason to speed up the process?

And if there is any doubt we should error on the side of our planet. Perhaps you are one of those that believes Jesus is coming soon anyway, so none of it matters?

[MemeSmith]

14. Jesus? Me? LOL

Evangelical atheist, mate. No rapture, here.

[NickB79]

12. Ah, the ole Rush Limbaugh "we are too insignificant to affect the planet" line again

Which has been proven over and over again to be bull.

Just one example: we could initiate a multi-decade global cool-down within ONE HOUR, right now. Want to know how?

Start an all-out global nuclear war and see a global nuclear winter set in within a year of the nukes dropping.

Yet, some people still can't figure out that emitting BILLIONS of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, for decades straight, will have an effect on climate?

Wow, just....wow.

[MemeSmith]

16. Wow, just wow

How does the observation that particles cool the atmosphere have anything to do with the theory that carbon dioxide catastrophically warms the atmosphere?

That's a straw man argument.

The climate models used to generate the threat of catastrophic warming rightly allow that carbon dioxide is an extremely minor component of the greenhouse gas makeup of the atmosphere, dwarfed almost into insignificance by water vapour.

The models' prediciton of catastrophic warming is based on the assumption, I'll repeat that, the assumption, that the effect of water vapour in response to increased carbon will be positive feedback.

Because of this assumption, the models predicted, some decades ago, that we would witness this catastrophic warming before the concentrations of carbon greenhouse gases that we see today.

The models were wrong. The actual obseved warming has been a fraction of that predicted by the assumpion based models. Also, despite the reported acceleration of greenhouse gas emissions in recent years, what warming there was stopped in the mid 1990s and has, by the admission of the most vehemently pro AGW scientists, been undetectable since.

By Kevin Trenberth's own admission, in the leaked Climategate emails, their inability to explain the absence of warming is a travesty. Of course, they were telling the truth privately to each other. Not what they were telling us.

You trust these people, if you want to. Based on this track record. I'm waiting until the jury comes in.


Edit: inemperate language.

[NickB79]

19. The models have been repeatedly verified to real-world data

The Muller study, just recently released, used literally MILLIONS of data points from 39,000 sites collected over decades, and they reinforced previous climate models that showed the planet warmed 1C in 50 years: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Skeptic-finds-he-now-agrees-global-warming-is-real-2243593.php

The kicker? Muller was a prominent climate sceptic before he finished his work, and he now publicly accepts that the planet is warming.

The very fact that you even bring up the now-discredited ClimateGate pseudoscandal speaks volumes, and not in a good way.

Furthermore:

"How does the observation that particles cool the atmosphere have anything to do with the theory that carbon dioxide catastrophically warms the atmosphere?"

Um, maybe because we have verified, for the past 100+ years of study, that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas? And we have the fossil evidence to boot?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/11/17/science-mass-extinction.html

"Worst extinction ever linked to massive CO2 spill"

snip

"The precise timing coincides with a huge outpouring of carbon dioxide and methane from volcanic lava flows in northwest Asia known as the Siberian traps.

"That led to cascading effect — global warming, aridity in various areas, giant wildfires, acidification of the ocean," said Charles Henderson, a geosciences professor at the University of Calgary who co-authored the paper with a large international team."

[MemeSmith]

22. On speaking volumes

Muller went to press in a media blitz before the study was peer reviewed.

His co-author, Prof. Judith Curry said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.

http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/mail-on-best/

Climategate shamed science and did a disservice to the reputation of scientists everywhere. This has only been exacerbated by the in-house whitewash 'investigations' that have been carried out since, the largest by an adjudicator who was on the payroll of the very people that he was supposed to be investigating.

This is the stuff that worries me. It's just shady behaviour. Like the peer-review process that turns out not to be as we would expect, but a small club of like minded thinkers 'peer reviewing' each others work and shutting out their critics from access to their tame publications. It's as if they're afraid of open scrutiny. They look like people who have something to hide and I just can't trust that.

If they would just start walking and talking straight, I might be able to take them seriously. I don't have a problem with them being right. If they turn out to be right, I'll be fine with that. I just have a problem with them acting hooky.

Michael Mann could release his disputed emails, for a start, and they could all read the Freedom of Information Acts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Shady, shady shady.


Edit: She didn't say it. I took it out.

[NickB79]

31. Judith Curry's claims are, shall we say, less than reputable

See a good analysis of her record here: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/11/11/207018/judith-curry-climate-science/

I addressed the rest of your post in post #29.

[MemeSmith]

33. Seems strange

If she's so unreliable, why was she chosen as co-author of the BEST study?

And regardless of her past track record of commenting on things that she hasn't apparently read, in this case, she's commenting on her own publications. Surely, she's an informed voice, in that instance.

[NickB79]

34. Because the one who chose her was a well-known AGW skeptic?

And he wanted to have a scientist by his side that shared his beliefs, especially since a good portion of his funding came from the Koch brothers, renowned Republican shills?

The difference seems to be that, when confronted by overwhelming evidence (that he himself helped gather and compile) that the planet has warmed, Mr. Muller was able to separate his political motives from his scientific ones while Mrs. Curry wasn't.

[MemeSmith]

26. Fossil evidence?

The key words in the extinction story are 'linked' 'coincides' and 'said'

The latter indicating that the statement beginning, 'That led to...' is an opinion.

The carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere continues to increase, year on year, yet the temperature rise stopped 15 years ago. The hottest year on record was 1938. The latest (lower) high was 1998.

It's not as cut and dried as they make out.

[NickB79]

30. The temperature stopped rising 15 years ago? Really?

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html

"NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries"

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html

"NOAA: 2010 Tied For Warmest Year on Record"

But please, go on, this is amusing.

[NickB79]

13. We have no control over the processes? "Next Ice Age Delayed by Global Warming, Study Says"

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090903-arctic-warming-ice-age.html

"By looking even farther back in time, Miller and colleagues' newest study reveals that the 20th century's abrupt warming may have in fact interrupted millennia of steady cooling.

It's "pretty clear that the most reasonable explanation for that reversal is due to increasing greenhouse gases," Miller said.

The researchers' computer climate models dovetails with field data such as sediment cores and tree rings, which "really … solidifies our understanding," he said.

Eventually Earth will slip again into the pattern of cyclical ice ages, Miller added, but it may be thousands of years before that happens."

Those ice sheets you mentioned? Our release of CO2 has actually prevented their reformation by many thousands of years now.

Still want to assert we have no control?

[MemeSmith]

15. Not what I said.

We had no control over the process that ended the last ice age.

We will have no control over 'whatever else' Nature has to throw at us. This is not a carbon comment, but a 'who knows what could happen' comment.

The point is, we crave permanence and seek to defeat global warming by moderating greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever the effect of that action, it will not stop the planet changing, in possibly catastrophic ways, through processes that we are powerless to influence.

It's not a climate science observation. It's an observation of human psychology.

[NickB79]

20. "We have no control over the process that ended the last ice age"

And yet, I posted a link to a study that confirms that we are ACTIVELY DELAYING the onset of the next one. Talk about control, delaying a global ice age by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years.

If humans are the cause of the planet warming (and the recent Muller study did confirm that the planet is warming), then Nature is not the one throwing global warming at the planet; we are. And so far, no other significant sources of the confirmed 1.6 degree C warming have been identified other than human activity.

[MemeSmith]

24. If you use quotation marks, it's best to actually quote

Had no control, not have no control

The ice age ended and we didn't end it.

We may be holding up the next one. Different argument.

We can't stop an asteroid, or a caldera or a mega tsunami.

Even if we can stop global warming, we won't have permanence.

You can't stop change. In some form or another, there will always be change. There always has been.

[MemeSmith]

27. Not those guys again!!!

"To estimate past temperatures, the research team looked at Arctic lake sediments and at previously published data of glacial ice cores and tree rings."

Previously published data of tree rings?

I wonder who published them.

Shady.

[NickB79]

32. There have been literally thousands of studies of tree rings in relation to past climates

They are very well-studied and their accuracy has been repeatedly verified. There is even an entire scientific society devoted to the study of tree rings: http://www.treeringsociety.org/index.html

If you find that shady, there isn't much left for you in the scientific world, I'm afraid. You'd be better off just going full-blown Young Earth Creationist at that point.http://www.treeringsociety.org/index.html

[MemeSmith]

17. For clarity

I used to believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. That's what I was told by the media and I had no reason to think that 'scientists' might not be truthful.

When I belived in it, I had no emotional problem believing in it, or material reason to prefer to not believe in it.

What changed was that I found out that the people who I was relying upon to inform me about this were acting in ways that I found at the very least highly suspicious.

This doesn't prove that their assertions will ultimately prove to be unfounded.

It was enough, though, to stop me blindly believing them.

[NickB79]

21. What "highly suspicious" behavior by climate scientists made you change your mind?

And I really hope you don't say Climategate, because the scientists involved in it have been cleared, repeatedly, of any wrong-doing. It ranks right up there with the Birther movement, asking for the President's birth certificate.

[MemeSmith]

23. Whitewashed

They were 'cleared' by a guy that they hired. His investigation did not even consider the emails that covered their alleged misdeeds. Their critics were not invited to contribute to the 'investigation.'

That's the highly suspicious behaviour that I'm talking about. It goes layer upon layer.

What were they cleared of? Nothing. It was proven that they used cherry picked tree ring data to produce a flat hockey stick shaft in their graph, then engaged in 'Mike's Nature trick' to 'hide the decline' by chopping off the most recent tree ring proxy data, because it showed cooling during the late 20th Century, that did not fit their story. They cobbled a cherry picked instrument record onto the end of the tree ring shaft, to produce the rising hockey stick blade that they published.

Did they tell us that they had done that?

Did they tell us that if you inject white noise into their data processing model, it churns out a hockey stick, because of the fudge factors in the code that are, in a stroke of uncharacteristic directness, called 'fudge factor' ?

Shady.

Did they tell us that the tree ring proxy data had been inverted during the Medieval Warm period, to flatten the chart, so that they could hide that the Medieval Warm period was warmer than today?

Shady.

Go ahead. Trust them. They may yet be proven right.

I'll wait until they start walking straight.

[NickB79]

29. There were SIX seperate investigations, led by multiple people and independent scientists

Cleared by Penn State: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climategate-scientist-cleared-in-inquiry-again

Cleared by the US Dept. of Commerce Inspector General: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/02/24/science-climategate-noaa.html

Cleared by the The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/30/tech/main6347584.shtml

A summary of all the different investigations and their conclusions: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html

All of your claims were reviewed by people far more educated than either of us, and all were found to be baseless.

But please go on. Your ignorance of this topic is quite educational to the rest of us.

[MemeSmith]

25. Change my mind?

That's possibly a bit strong.

I stopped believing them. That's not the same as believing the contrary.

It's more of a sulky yet to be convinced position. Once bitten, etc.

[MemeSmith]

18. Whatever else...

This phrase in the above post does not refer to climate change, but to another possible catastrophic process, like the Yellowstone caldera, or an asteroid strike, or the Canary Islands splitting and causing a mega tsunami to take out the Eastern seaboard.

Permanence is an illusion. That's all I'm saying. And our reflex clinging to that illusion is not a demonstration of our strength.

[saras]

28. Really strange version of "climategate"

The version I encountered can be summarized as such - global warming was so important, and happening so fast, that scientists were publishing every study, even ones with really wide error margins, in the hope that other scientists could use the data anyways.

At some point they discovered that the climate deniers were cherry-picking all the studies with wide error margins, and asserting that "the truth" was way over in the extreme of one error margin.

In response to this, they quit publishing inferior studies.

End of story.