Climate Change: Still Worse Than You Think

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:




Climate Change: Still Worse Than You Think

— By Kevin Drum
| Fri Jul. 8, 2011 2:55 AM PDT


While I was on vacation last week I took a side trip to New Haven to visit Jeff Park, an old high school friend who's now a geology professor at Yale. We ate some pizza at Frank Pepe, walked around the campus a bit, and then dropped by his office, where he had a stack of reprints of his latest journal article. Take one, he said. Maybe it'll be good fodder for the blog.

The title is a mouthful: "Geologic constraints on the glacial amplification of Phanerozoic climate sensitivity," coauthored with Dana Royer. (The Phanerozoic, in case it's slipped your mind, is the geologic eon spanning approximately the last 500 million years.) Roughly speaking, the article is an updated look at a computer model that estimates how much climate reacts to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The model originally concluded that a doubling of CO2 produces a temperature increase just under three degrees Celsius, an estimate that's in pretty good agreement with other models. So far, so good. But 500 million years is a long time, and several researchers have proposed that climate sensitivity might vary over that period depending on whether or not the earth is in an ice age. So in the new paper, the authors modeled glacial and non-glacial eras separately. And the best fit with the data suggests that climate sensitivity does indeed change depending on glaciation. In fact, during an ice age, the most probable climate sensitivity is six to eight degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2, more than twice the previous estimate.

Why do we care? As the authors drily put it, "Because the human species lives in a glacial interval of Earth history, this modeling result has more than academic interest." You see, the most recent ice age in human history is the one that started about 30 million years ago and continues to the present day. We're living through a glacial interval right now, and that means that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere might produce a temperature increase of six to eight degrees Celsius, not the mere three degrees Celsius most commonly estimated. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/07/climate-change

[daleanime]

1. Nothing to see here, move along....

:banghead: :cry:

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Good thing we are doing FUCKALL about it.

[The Doctor.]

3. The problem with trying to explain this to the morons

is that they simply picture the temperature going up by a few degrees across the board. They can't wrap their pointy little heads around the 'Heat=Energy' concept.

I deal with a few such idiots on a regular basis.

[daleanime]

5. It's not that they can't....

they don't like where it's leads them, so they simply won't.:argh:

[The Doctor.]

20. I'm fairly certain it's a pre-conscious process.

One that protects them from realization.

[pintobean]

14. .

[The Doctor.]

19. Huh?

No one's a genuis in this case, just morons who can't grasp shit. Or was that somehow 'ironical'?

(I miss stuff sometimes.)

[pintobean]

23. The OP appears to be

trying to educate skeptics. There are plenty of them here at DU. Rather than comment on the article, you've taken the opportunity to insult those who don't agree with you. It seems counter-productive to me. Isn't the idea to convince them? Who's going to be open minded when they're being called morons and idiots with pointy little heads?

[The Doctor.]

29. Wow. You really *don't* interact much with the wildlife, do you?

I do.

A lot on line, but also in person. You know, face-to-face.

I can tell you this; I call no one 'moron/idiot/dumbfuck/shithead/"pointy"' until I have given them abundant opportunity to listen, think, ask, and learn. When they prove that they cannot handle just the first step, then I simply call them what they are, because it will never make any difference what anyone says to them after that. The fun part, I've found, is that in directly insulting people (works best in person), I can draw their attention directly to a single point and have another go at it. Sometimes insulting people (again, better in person) for not understanding something makes them decide to listen because at that point they'd love to prove me wrong about THEM. It's rare, but it has happened a few times. I'd tell you about it, but you'll probably start making 'Penthouse Forum' references or something.

The notion that insulting someone makes them more ignorant is only true when;

a) It is done before attempting earnest discussion

-and-

b) If the person is predisposed toward ignorance to begin with.

The people that I am talking about already qualify for the label. They are skeptics because they are afraid and brainwashed. You can wag your finger until it turns blue, it is not going to change the fact that there is no Emily Post solution to this mindset. It can only be dealt with by forcing them to see their ignorance for themselves, and make them angry enough that they want to do something about it. Anger creates engagement. When properly incited, the 'subject' goes from 'motivated reasoning/ignorance' to 'motivated listening'.

I've used it, it works.

What doesn't work is being 'nice' with people who are just interested in shouting you down, ignoring what you have to say, or otherwise scoring 'righteousness points'

:think:

[pintobean]

31. "I miss stuff sometimes."

yup

[The Doctor.]

32. Ah! What a perfect example!

A thinly-veiled insult. One that insinuates some aspect of the exchange has gone over my head or otherwise escaped me.

Well-played! And a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how a non-ignorant person deals with insults. (Which I'm sure was your intention, otherwise you would appear to be some sort of hypocrite for insulting me which is obviously not the case)

Here's how:

"Hmmm... Pintobean, you seem to be suggesting a deficit of some kind on my part. You obviously have an understanding of something that I do not. Would you be so kind as to explain?"

Now, at this point, upon hearing such a response from a climate skeptic, I would be all too happy to 'team up' with them and fill in any missing concepts that would help them gain an understanding of climate change.

But that's me.

Now that you have successfully used the 'insult imperative' to spur me to inquire why you would suggest such a thing, you have an opportunity to explain yourself.

Right?

;)

[pintobean]

33. I see no need to explain.

Rather than run around in circles with you, I think I'll go read the Penthouse Forum.
Have a nice day.

[The Doctor.]

34. Buh-bye now!

:hi:



Come back when you have something of actual substance to say.

[stuntcat]

4. k

:kick:

the only thing I will ever be glad for from now on is how old I am. What we're doing has broken my heart, and what I'll see in my next 40 years horrifies me. But at least I'm not a little kid.

Well I have a feeling the Selfish gene is getting stronger and stronger in humans, especially 1st-worlders. So maybe when my fecund neighbors' toddlers reach my age they won't care so much what's happening and what their existence had to do with it. The mass-extinction, oceans dying, it will all be just another regular ol' fact of life for them :shrug: They were lucky to be born where they were, they'll always have everything they need.

[upi402]

6. I meet deniers all the time.

They are on 'full ignore'.
I'm worn down trying to fight the BS that the media has spread. I've fought this for decades and I just give up.

The media is the problem and we do nothing about that either. Until it's fixed, nothing gets better.

[Long Shadow]

7. Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one

that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.

Even Phil Jones, the CRU director at the centre of last year's 'Climategate' leaked email scandal, was forced to admit in a littlenoticed BBC online interview that there has been 'no statistically significant warming' since 1995.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335798/Global-warming-halted-Thats-happened-warmest-year-record.html#ixzz1RijlFCyn

[Gregorian]

9. That isn't unexpected. There's a lag between emissions and warming.

That's as unsurprising as saying one still feels well when they have certain types of cancer.

[Long Shadow]

12. The major weakness of the working hypothesis is the minuscule dataset

on which it is based.

The history of the Earth spans 4.6 billion years, the dataset of the working hypothesis only covers about 130 years.

There is much more to learn about the Earth's climate and anyone who claims to have all the answers is not an honest scientist.

[Gregorian]

16. We can see the forest for the trees.

Fluid modeling is extremely accurate. So is our thermal modeling. Machine computational methods are magnitudes beyond what they were 20 years ago.

It's a done deal. We know what is happening. Not in one point on the planet, per se. But on the overall planet. That is not the most difficult problem to solve. The regulating factors are known. There are no surprises, except in some of the different modes of thermal damage that are happening.

You can't burn enough fuel to emit giga tons of carbon dioxide, and not have horrible stuff happen to the planet. And it has happened. Now we get to sit and watch the disaster unfold.

[SpiralHawk]

22. You obviously are unaware that the Earth is only 5,491 years old

you need to read The Bible to bone up on your so-called 'facts'

[hatrack]

26. Nice strawman in that closing sentence - enjoy your stay.

BTW, the timescale that "matters" can be drawn any number of ways:

Since modern humans evolved (+/- 100,000 yrs. bpe)
Since the invention of agriculture (+/- 10,000 yrs. bpe)
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1715)
Since Arhennius published his early greenhouse theory (1896)
Since Keeling began recording trace gases at Mauna Loa (1958)

You might also want to consider removing the first couple of billion years from your ideal climate record, since the Earth didn't have an atmosphere early on.

Kind of hard to decry the weakness of a dataset that doesn't include climate data from the time when there was no "climate" as we would understand it - unless showers of meteors, blasting UV and eruptions of magma count. Nice try, though.

[Jim__]

10. Some context on the Phil Jones quote.

From here:

BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Phil Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?

Phil Jones: I'm 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 - there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

[robdogbucky]

17. You mean that fake email controversy just before the climate summit?

"...According to sceptics, the emails showed scientists manipulating climate data and suppressing their critics.<3> The story gained traction in the traditional media as negotiations over climate change mitigation began in Copenhagen on December 7, leading scientists and policy makers to speculate that the release of emails was a smear campaign intended to undermine the conference.

Six committees investigated the allegations and published reports detailing their findings.<5> Climate scientists were criticized for their disorganized methods, bunker mentality and lack of transparency, but none of the inquiries found evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct. The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged.<6> Climate scientists and organisations pledged to restore public confidence in the research process by improving data management and opening up access to data...

...Among the scientists whose e-mails were disclosed, the CRU's researchers said in a statement that the e-mails had been taken out of context and merely reflected an honest exchange of ideas. Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center, said that sceptics were "taking these words totally out of context to make something trivial appear nefarious",<11> and called the entire incident a careful, "high-level, orchestrated smear campaign to distract the public about the nature of the climate change problem."<56> Kevin E. Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said that he was appalled at the release of the e-mails but thought that it might backfire against climate sceptics, as the messages would show "the integrity of scientists."<13> He also said that climate change sceptics had selectively quoted words and phrases out of context, and that the timing suggested an attempt to undermine talks at the December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.<57> Tom Wigley, a former director of the CRU and now head of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, condemned the threats that he and other colleagues had received as "truly stomach-turning", and commented: "None of it affects the science one iota. Accusations of data distortion or faking are baseless. I can rebut and explain all of the apparently incriminating e-mails that I have looked at, but it is going to be very time consuming to do so..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy




Leaked emails mark dangerous shift in climate denial strategy

Instead of targeting high-profile science communicators, climate deniers are now encouraging mistrust of those who collect and interpret global warming data. The theft and web publication by climate change deniers of private emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit is an extremely worrying development in the tortured politics of global warming.

Although high-profile individuals have been targeted and unfairly vilified before – Pennsylvania University's Michael Mann comes to mind, with his "hockey stick" palaeoclimate graph – most of the ire of the denial movement has so far been reserved for big-hitters like Al Gore. Gore can take it. Politics is his job.

But the "exposure" of private correspondence from a much larger group of scientists – and the out-of-context quotation of certain sentences as "revealing" some hidden subterfuge – suggests a dangerous shift in strategy. Instead of targeting the science communicators (myself included), the deniers are now declaring war on the scientists themselves. Like the creationists they unconsciously mimic, they make no distinction between the political and the scientific sphere – it is open season in both.

And the strategy is simple. Given that scientists are one of society's most trusted groups (unlike journalists or politicians), the climate denial movement has begun a battle to undermine public trust in climate scientists themselves. No more will the legions of anonymous researchers who collect and interpret data from meteorological stations, satellites and ice cores be considered above the fray – they now run the risk of personal attacks, exposure of their private lives and vilification...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/no...




Source: The Guardian

Republicans kill global warming committee

Thursday 6 January 2011

Kate Sheppard for Mother Jones


The kick-off of the 112th Congress on Wednesday also marked the end of an era in the House – the demise of a committee devoted solely to climate change and energy issues. The Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, created by Nancy Pelosi in 2006, has been shuttered under the new Republican leadership. In the final days of the committee, staffers released a report on what the committee accomplished in its brief tenure – an epitaph of sorts.

Tackling issues from the politicisation of climate science to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, the committee held 80 hearings and briefings. It played a role in shaping policy for the 2007 energy bill, the 2009 stimulus package (which included $90bn <$58bn> in energy, efficiency, and other green elements), and, of course, the 2009 climate bill (the one that never became law, of course, because the Senate didn't act on it).

The final report concludes with the question of whether the United States will respond to all the information that the committee has compiled during its lifespan on the climate and energy challenge:


Someday, our children and grandchildren will look back on the record of the Select Committee. That record will reflect a respectful and rigorous debate and an unprecedented understanding of the challenges before us. Whether or not they will see that this generation has taken the bold action required by these challenges remains to be seen.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/06/repub...




Who's Funding and Pushing Climate Change Denial:
"Here's a guide to the dozen loudest components of the climate disinformation machine.

No. 1: ExxonMobil
No. 2: Lord Christopher Monckton
No. 3: American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
No. 4: Plants Need C02
No. 5: American Petroleum Institute (A.K.A. Energy Citizens)
No. 6: Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (A.K.A. ClimateDepot.com)
No. 7: The Heartland Institute
No. 8: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (A.K.A. The Idso Family)
No. 9: FreedomWorks
No. 10: Tennessee Center for Policy Research (A.K.A. Carnival of Climate Change)
No. 11: Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security (A.K.A. FACES of Coal)
No. 12: Institute for Energy Research (A.K.A. American Energy Alliance)

<http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2009/12/dirty-do... >





Let us not forget the Cheney WH had that climate report 'edited' by a former lobbyist for Petr Ind

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.ht...

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. Good news, everyone! Global warming since 1995 'now significant'

If a trend meets the 95% threshold, it basically means that the odds of it being down to chance are less than one in 20.

Last year's analysis, which went to 2009, did not reach this threshold; but adding data for 2010 takes it over the line.

"The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn't significant at the standard 95% level that people use," Professor Jones told BBC News.

"Basically what's changed is one more year . That period 1995-2009 was just 15 years - and because of the uncertainty in estimating trends over short periods, an extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510

This was, of course, because 1995 had been chosen as the most recent year for which it was not at the 95% level, because that kept the period short. The questioner already knew what the analysis said, and just wanted to get Jones to say it in the Q&A session.

So, now that point is out of the way, is there anything else that makes you feel the scientific consensus is not "a sufficient explanation for what is going on"?

[Gregorian]

8. It's not happy, so no one wants to hear it. It means they'd have to change.

It's looking more and more like we're just a bunch of monkeys.

The sea of cars is growing larger and larger. Fossil fuel use is going up and up.

We're going the wrong way. And just try telling someone to be responsible. I have. On this forum. It's obvious that there is a very small minority on this planet who have taken it upon themselves to curb their personal behavior.

Until this subject gets something other than combatant responses. Until this is more than just whining. And hopefully before much longer, people will begin to see this as the single most important issue of all.

I can see hardly anyone has read this thread. That is very telling.

[FirstLight]

11. honestly, is there anything that we can do?

Even if we had a global renaissance and the technology magically appeared to start us on the right path TODAY, we are still screwn.
Ironic that we face peak oil issues...when we would have been so much better off if it had run out 50 or more years ago...

Now all we can do is watch, we are about to witness the bottleneck of our species...

and it isn't coming in the next 100 years, or even the next 50... try 20 or less.
All the models are 'off' they keep telling us this in increments so as not to cause mass hysteria... but the point is that the CO2 levels are higher than they modeled for, and the continued increase and feedback loop of melting ice is making it worse every year.
ya, we live in interesting times.


silly humans...fighting wars over OIL, when we could be doing so much more

[daleanime]

13. One thing keeps me going.....

we changed the world by accident, what could we do on purpose?

[FirstLight]

15. I like that

until i thought of the negative possibilities of the statement... :scared:

I have called it "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" for a long time, not sure what else to hope for at this point...

[pitohui]

21. we would have to HAVE a purpose...but yeah, good thought

right now, those that have the power to make changes only have the purpose of lining their own pockets at public expense

i've done all most people can do, don't have kids, don't commute to a job, recycle (but more often re-use, commercial recycling is a hoax around here), use those al gore light bulbs and so on

yet, i feel that all i've really done is create a few more carbon credits so the other7 billion people can continue on in their heedless way

we're not all on the same team and those who use the most energy are the extremely wealthy, we could go a long way toward making the world a fairer longer-lived place by putting a cap on how a big a macmansion one man or one family is allowed to have...but we won't even do that...everything is for the rich, nothing is for the poor or for the animals or for the planet

[CleanGreenFuture]

27. One sure thing is this: taking into account peak oil together with climate change,

and morally bankrupt and intensely corrupt financial and political systems, the future is going to be anything but mundane and boring.

Indeed, it will be terrifying and dangerous and heartbreaking and dark for most, for others it's a unique opportunity to witness an epic paradigm shift in all of human history.

[TheKentuckian]

18. I hope not worse than I think. Probably but one can only digest so much at a time.

[G_j]

24. you bet it is!!! K&R

:scared:

[InvisibleTouch]

25. There have actually been some good popular movies...

...that have addressed climate crisis and the catastrophic effects thereof. I wish they had been more impactful on the psyche of the general population, rather than just seen as entertainment to be viewed and forgotten. Sure, the stories were dramatized because they *were* meant as entertainment, but they were also warnings, with some good science and legitimate speculation thrown in. Just like "The Day After" may have helped scare the world back from the nuclear brink, I would have hoped that "The Day After Tomorrow" would have done the same for climate crisis. Another great one that I have enjoyed lately is "Category 6: Day of Destruction," which was originally a made-for-TV movie (like "The Day After"), which is available on DVD now. Dealt very intensively with weather instability driven by climate upheaval - and it even slapped down one character who tried to use the tired old saw, "It's an unproven theory." And it addressed the endless greed of consumption, as well as the dangers of nuclear power.

We need more of such movies. Yes, they are going to be "popularized" as entertainment, but that's what will draw people to see them. And maybe the message will start sinking in.

[Cereal Kyller]

30. k&r THAT!