Global Warming: Getting Closer to the ‘We’re Fscked” Moment
Posted by
Kevin
So, yeah, that global warming thing. Seems it’s gonna be pretty bad:
Global warming is destroying species, raising sea levels and threatening millions of poor people, the United Nations’ top scientific panel will say today in a report that U.N. officials hope will help mobilize the world into taking tougher actions on climate change.
The report argues that only firm action, including putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions, will avoid more catastrophic events. Those actions will take a small part of the world’s economic growth but will be substantially less than the costs of doing nothing, the report will say.
And it seems that some of the deniers were right about one thing: the IPCC was not entirely accurate. Unfortunately for them, the effects of climate change are happening much more quickly than the IPCC claims:
Even though the synthesis report is more alarming than its predecessors, some researchers believe that it still understates the trajectory of global warming and its impact. The I.P.C.C.’s scientific process, which takes five years of study and writing from start to finish, cannot take into account the very latest data on climate change or economic trends, which show larger than predicted development and energy use in China.
“The world is already at or above the worst case scenarios in terms of emissions,” said Gernot Klepper, of the Kiel Institute for World Economy in Kiel, Germany. “In terms of emissions, we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the I.P.C.C., and by some estimates we are above that red line.”
Climate change is real and it is happening rather quickly. It is going to kill a lot of people, displace countless others, and disrupt the farming and economic patterns of the entire globe. It is long past time people got past their “I hate hippies” hang ups and started treating this problem as if we were all adults. In exchange for a minor, temporary blip in economic growth, we can literally save millions and avert a catastrophe. That has to be mor eimportant than the profits of a handful of campaign donors and your dislike of long hair and bad acid rock.
Because in twenty years, when your children and your grandchildren are asking you how the hell did you let this happen, I don’t think they are going to be sympathetic to “James Inhofe said the dirty f*cking hippy scientists were wrong!”
You are so funny.
Comment 11/19/2007
If you can’t trust the UN, who can you trust?
Comment 11/19/2007
Where were all the predicted major hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific this year (85 perrcent chance of be above normal - MISSSSED!!)Extreme weather has always occurred in the past, more severe than now. Do some research and look at the records, not just the weather an hour ago. Why is most of the Antartic cooling? (NASA Chart here):
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17257
I’ve been a meteorologist 32 years and so far I see nothing unusual in weather today. Bangladesh has Always had severe storms, not just today. Hurricanes have been more numerous in the past (according to Accuweather, Katrina was only the 23rd strongest hurricane on record - the 1900 Galveston hurricane was by far the strongest).
Open your mind to all research - the science is NOT settled. Our grandkids will look back on this climate alarmism and ask how we could be so foolish to be suckered into panic.
Comment 11/19/2007
Ken
Your claim about the science not being settled is a lie. There is no other way to say it. The presence of a few people clinging to their pet theories in the face of overwhelming evidence is not the sign of a dispute, any more than the existence of flat earthers proves that the earth may not be round.
And, before we get into more denier nonsense like the above, her eis a great refutation of the usual lines of nonsense.
Comment 11/19/2007
Wait, your argument is that becasue parts of the Artic are cooling, that the rest of it is not actually melting? Ya missed a few steps there, mate.
And if the revbuttals are a joke, then please, enlighten us. It shold be easy for you to show the flaws in them.
Comment 11/19/2007
Ken
Umm, climate models have always predicted that some portions of the planet would cool under global warming. If you don’t know that, what the hell are you doing talking about this? And what does that have to do with the point that global warming is going to cause — and is already causing — deletrious climate ceffects. Yo are arguing that because the small portion of the cookie you are looking at doesn’t have any chocalte in it then it cannot possibly be a chocolate chip cookie!
s for your points:
1) Quote the whle thing, please:
if not the MWP, then maybe the last interglacial (125,000 years ago) or the Pliocene (three million years ago). Whether those variations were caused by solar forcing, the Earth’s orbital wobbles or continental configurations, none of those causes apply today. Evidence for a Mediaeval Warm Period outside Europe is patchy at best, and is often not contemporary with the warmth in Europe. As the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) puts it: “The idea of a global or hemispheric Mediaeval Warm Period that was warmer than today has turned out to be incorrect”. Additionally, although the Arctic was warmer in the 1930s than in the following few decades, it is now warmer still.
I see nothing in there that supports your point. In fct, quite the opposite
2)You are not telling the truth:
Variability from year to year is expected, and picking a specific warm year to start an analysis is “cherry-picking”; if you picked 1997 or 1999 you would see a sharper rise. Even so, the linear trends since 1998 are still positive.
3)Again, selective quoting:
However, models are tested and validated against all sorts of data. Over the last 20 years they have become able to simulate more physical, chemical and biological processes, and work on smaller spatial scales. The 2007 IPCC report produced regional climate projections in detail that would have been impossible in its 2001 assessment. All of the robust results from modelling have both theoretical and observational support.
4)Unless you can provide link, I am going to go with the scientists on this one:
As there has been no positive trend in any solar index since the 1960s (and possibly a small negative trend), solar forcing cannot be responsible for the recent temperature trends. The difference between the solar minimum and solar maximum over the 11-year solar cycle is 10 times smaller than the effect of greenhouse gases over the same interval.
Oh, and he cloud stuff? Weak work at best, deliberately misleading at worse — I have already dealt with here.
To be blunt, you either didn;t red the entire thing or your desire to put the DFH in their place has so clouded your intellect that you cannot recognize when your arguments are being refuted.
Comment 11/20/2007
All I have to say is, is it hot in here or is it just me
Comment 11/20/2007
Meanwhile, unusually cold weather and early snow allows Swiss ski resorts to open earlier than usual, snow falls in Argentina and South Africa. Ski resorts in North Carolina open early. Get those coats on; it’s getting hot.
Comment 11/20/2007
El sistema global esta BAJO CONTROL BUM.
Comment 11/20/2007
I tried to be cordial in my earlier post and hoped you’d respond with a similar repose. Oh well…
Like I said before, I believe in global warming, just not the hysteria you and the IPCC spout out. Why are you so afraid of differing views? Saying the science is settled tells me you’re scared of debating and have a closed mind. To be blunt, it’s impossible to talk with a statue.
You quoted:
“if not the MWP, then maybe the last interglacial (125,000 years ago) or the Pliocene (three million years ago). Whether those variations were caused by solar forcing, the Earth’s orbital wobbles or continental configurations, none of those causes apply today.” Why don’t those causes apply today? How does anybody know that? How can you say that there’s NO Natural cause of global warming and that all or most is caused by humans? A lightning-caused forest fire, for instance, puts out CO2 also, having nothing to do with humans. Trees put out CO2 every fall when they lose their leaves. Is this human caused?
As far as the chocolate chip cookie analogy, it’s not just a small part of the planet that’s cooling or remaing about the same. Look at this map from NASA of the temperature trends the past 10 years and look at the cooling (blue), white (little temperature change) and red (warming). Looking at that map, I’d estimate at least a third of the planet cooling or remaing the same. Notice the SIGNIFICANT cooling in the Canadian Arctic (the IPCC also says that northern Canada will have increased snow, as well as Antartica). Here’s the link:
http://www.trainweather.com/TempChangeMap1997-2006%28NASA%29.jpg
My earlier post on the sun’s influence on clouds came from the recent National Geographic program on the sun (in early November). It was one of their Naked Science programs. It said that the sun’s radiance does indeed correlate with a warming earth, but it wasn’t because of the increased heat, but other causes, which scientists are investigating. But it definitely does have an effect. Check out NG onine.
I wanted to say in my original post that extreme weather always occurred in the past and that there’s no evidence that these severe events are getting more frequent or more severe. Show me the evidence that they are. For instance, the 1938 hurricane that hit the northeast part of the country and the 1900 Galveston hurricane are cases in point. It’s all happened before and I have yet to see evidence that weather is getting more extreme. You say it is. Give me some links on specific events that prove that we’re getting more extreme weather (not just rehash the IPCC’s summary, which after realizing that almost 2,000 of those IPCC reviewers are NOT scientists I have little faith in).
Simply saying that we’re detecting more severe weather doesn’t prove that we’re actually having more severe weather - it just shows that observations of extreme events are much better than in the past - we’d never have found and reported an F1 tornado back in the 1920s if it occurred in a remote area. Today that F1 tornado would be seen or radar and reported immediately to the whole world.
Look at some of the comments of climatologists and meteoroloists who’ve been around for years who disagree with the paranoia surrounding this issue. Such as Dr. Gray, the hurricane predictor; the former head of the Weather Channel Mr. Coleman; Joe Pastardi of Accuweather. Do you deny that these experts also have a valid point? If you do deny that, why? You seem to be believe non-scientist’s views on climate change but not real meteorologists. What are you afraid of? Why are you cherry-picking who you believe and who you don’t belive?
Why haven’t you commented on the new NASA finding that the warming in the Arctic may not be all caused by global warming, but instead a change in wind patterns. Do you simply ignore new studies that don’t fit your warming alarmists opinions? Here’s tha link again. I’d love to see your comment on it:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2007/2007111325923.html
As a side note, the Washington Post reported yesterday that the UNAID, a part of the UN, said it has overestimated the severity and expanse of AIDS worldwide for about 10 years, and there were critics who said they did this in order to obtain increased funding by scaring people. Could the UN’s IPCC be doing the same thing?
Like I said, show me links to specific events that prove we’re have all these detrimental effects today caused by global warming. No, the recent Bankladesh typhoon doesn’t count since there was a worse one there 10 years and 20 years ago.
Kevin, what is your field of science? I’d like to know. If you’re not a climatologist or meterologist, and are just relaying stuff you’ve read, I’d like to know.
Comment 11/20/2007
Ken
You were not cordial - -you deliberately lied. You selectively quoted in order to give the impression that something said something it did not. And, I might add, you did not try to defend those actions in this point, you simple moved onto other issues, another dishonest tactic.
Another quick point: you are constantly using hurricanes as your measuring stick. I assume that you know that the link between hurricanes and global warming is the least understood/defined. And if you did not know that before you started posting here, you did afterwards because I mentioned it myself. No mention of droughts, of excessive rain, etc. One would think you were deliberately trying to give the impression that uncertainty over hurricanes was the entire story. You also kep saying things like “there was a severe storm in 1900″ as if the contention of climate scientists ws that global warming is, right now, causing storms more severe than ever before when the actual contention is that there frequency of severe storms will increase. Agan, it seems that you are being deliberately deceptive.
Third: as I have said before, the scientific consensuses is what matters, not the outlying opinions. If your meteorological friends were convincing to other scientists, then there would not be the overwhelming consensus, would there? Don’t invent scientific conspiracies involving the desperate quest for money (if scientists wanted to make money, they could just take the oil industry money and be living quite a bit better than on an university salary) to explain the easily explainable: the science supports the climate change position.
Fourth: I don’t know why you are ignoring this, but you are. Your points about “1/3 of the planet is cooling” aren’t probabative because climate change models predict that some portions of the planet will get cooler and others will warm. Again, it appears that yo are deliberately trying to imply something false; that unless the entire planet gets uniformly warmer global warming must be false. There is no other reason to bring up this red herring again and again.
Fifth: you keep saying non-scientists, even though the post in question is a link to an IPC report. Again, one would think that you are deliberately trying to imply that there is debate among scientists on this issue when in fact there is strong consensus.
Sixth: your comment bout the UNAID report is mendacious. You say that critics claim that the UNAID deliberately lied about the spread of aids in order to get more money and then, without providing a shred of evidence, not even so much as a link to the original article, you segue into demanding to know if climate scientists are deliberately distorting climate science to get more money — again, without even the hint of proof.
Seven: again, you lied by omission. You claim that the link shows that te ric changes have nothing to do with global wamring: the link does not say that:
“Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming,” said Morison.
“While some 1990s climate trends, such as declines in Arctic sea ice extent, have continued, these results suggest at least for the ‘wet’ part of the Arctic – the Arctic Ocean – circulation reverted to conditions like those prevalent before the 1990s,” he added.
…. The Arctic Oscillation was fairly stable until about 1970, but then varied on more or less decadal time scales, with signs of an underlying upward trend, until the late 1990s, when it again stabilized. During its strong counterclockwise phase in the 1990s, the Arctic environment changed markedly, with the upper Arctic Ocean undergoing major changes that persisted into this century. Many scientists viewed the changes as evidence of an ongoing climate shift, raising concerns about the effects of global warming on the Arctic.
Morison said data gathered by GRACE and the bottom pressure gauges since publication of the paper earlier this year highlight how short-lived the ocean circulation changes can be. The newer data indicate the bottom pressure has increased back toward its 2002 level. “The winter of 2006-2007 was another high Arctic Oscillation year and summer sea ice extent reached a new minimum,” he said. “It is too early to say, but it looks as though the Arctic Ocean is ready to start swinging back to the counterclockwise circulation pattern of the 1990s again.”
Morison cautioned that while the recent decadal-scale changes in the circulation of the Arctic Ocean may not appear to be directly tied to global warming, most climate models predict the Arctic Oscillation will become even more strongly counterclockwise in the future. “The events of the 1990s may well be a preview of how the Arctic will respond over longer periods of time in a warming world,” he said.
So the author himself claims that some of the affects are continuing, that the effect started in the 1970s out of pretty much nowhere (possible tie to climate change), that not all of the effect can be contributed to the decadal changes, that this primarily ffects just the ocean part of the Artic, and that global warming will force changes that will re-enforce the effect of the 1990s. Again, it appears that you are deliberately leaving out relevant information to make your case stronger than it actually is. Do I even need to mention that this does nothing to explain the rapid warming in the antarctic? We are back to your strnage refusal to acknowledge that global climate change does not men a universal rise in temperatures all over the globe.
Eight: global warming is having demonstrable effects right now: animal habitats shifting, contributing to more and more severe droughts, helping to destroy coral reefs and so on. This is not hard information to find.
Comment 11/20/2007
kenzrw, why do you keep harping on extreme weather events? You are disputing a claim that has not been made. Some scientists have predicted that weather might become more extreme in the future as the globe continues to warm and climate shifts occur, but this is certainly not the basis for the IPCC’s call to action. The real problems are not expected to relate to weather events, but rather climatic ones.
The alarm stems from the fact that reducing greenhouse gas warming is a very, very slow process. SO if we wait until we are at the brink before we take action, the overshoot that occurs will put us well past the brink. Put another way, by the time Morris and his head-in-the-sand, I-saw-snow-yesterday, crowd are convinced, we will be well beyond the point of averting a disaster (if we are not there already). So perhaps a bit of general alarm is called for in order to get the people moving towards a solution. Hell, if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, we would still be debating the pros and cons of joining the Allies in Europe. (A moderately off-base remark, but December 7 is right around the corner..)
Comment 11/20/2007
“Your claim about the science not being settled is a lie.”
What a shocker! I thought you enlightened liberals didn’t call people with whom you disagree liars.
Comment 11/20/2007
And there is the difference. Kevin calls a specific statement a lie (which I don’t condone) and Fred calls large groups of people liars and assorted other names most ofen hard on the playground.
Comment 11/20/2007
No doubt that global warming is very debated. I, however, have never heard that man is causing global cooling. For this - all I can say is that I hope that the people that believe this is natural are not wrong. But if man is causing at least part of the problem then why not do all we can.
Are you familiar with the ground floor movement to take solar to the masses by a company called Citizenre? They are trying market solar with an approach similar to satelite TV, cellular telephones, and alarm systems. That is to provide the customer a complete solar system with no upfront charges and make money from a service contract. In this case the service contract would be a rent agreement. They intend to put a complete solar system on a clients home. When the system produces electricity, it will lower the bill from the current utility provider. In most cases the savings from the lower bill will more than cover the rent fee that the company intends to charge. The company currently has no product available but intends to deploy in the middle of 2008. They are currently taking reservations and have 25,500 takers so far. I have written several articles on this company in my blog and even have a couple of vidoes that I have recorded at wwwsolarjoules.com. Feel free to take a look. I welcome comments. As in any start up business, a chance exists that they may never get off the ground and fulfill any preorders, but if this is the case - the potential client has not lost anything. If you cannot afford the upfront cost of solar today, this may turn out to be a great alternative.
This solution would mean that we could produce at least a little less polution and would be a great step “just in case”.
If anyone would like company information you can go to www.jointhesolution.com/razmataz.
Comment 11/21/2007
Is there a length restriction on this blog? I spent 15 minutes replying to Kevin and Ted, but it came back as ’spam’ and awating moderation. Who’s the moderator? It was a long post, but not spam.
Ken (kenzrw - seeing if this email also bounces)
Comment 11/21/2007
Ted, that was a good post regarding extreme weather events. You daid “You are disputing a claim that has not been made.” I know that increased extreme events is forecat to occur in the future, but the media and some in the public are saying it’s already occurring and I contend that it is not. I suspect that many just hear ‘extreme weather’ and ignore the fact that it’s only a forecast, not occurring today (yet). It may in the future.
And I have no problems with starting to cut back on greenhouse gases today, but I just don’t like exagerating facts to create alarm to do that. Just tell people the facts that we need to start. I know sometimes we need a kick in the pants, but scaring people is not the way, in my opinion. Here some ways I’d cut back on personal greenhouse gas emissions:
http://www.trainweather.com/green.html
Kevin, I didn’t say that the new NASA study on the Arctic implied that GW was not partly responsible, but that there were other causes of the warming besides global warming. I said they simply implied there could be other causes.
I’ve noticed that you’ve removed all my previous posts. Too many facts for you?
Ken
Comment 11/21/2007
Ken
“I’ve noticed that you’ve removed all my previous posts. Too many facts for you”
No, for some reason your comments tripped the spam filter. I restored the three I could fine (we get about 1500 pieces of spam caught a day) but now that I have restored you manually, the spam filter should let you through without trouble. You might want to not hyperlink links for the next comment or two. That sometimes seems to be a trigger. Once its decided you are spam, it removes you from the comment sections, so thats why your earlier posts were removed.
“I suspect that many just hear ‘extreme weather’ and ignore the fact that it’s only a forecast, not occurring today (yet). It may in the future.”
Only if you don’t count drought as extreme weather, which I suppose id a debatable point. But, as the links I put up showed, there isn’t any doubt that climate change is having a bad effect already.
“Kevin, I didn’t say that the new NASA study on the Arctic implied that GW was not partly responsible, but that there were other causes of the warming besides global warming. I said they simply implied there could be other causes.”
Yep, I mis-read that comment and I apologize.
But in the context of your other posts, you seem to be trying to deny the scientific consensus and minimize the damage global wamirng is already causing and is predicted to cause. So
1)If thew weight of scientific consensuses does not convince you, what would? Why are you convinced that a handful of people are right when the vast majority of scientist sin their field disagree. What is so convincing about those arguments?
2)Why should we have faith in the conclusions of the global warming denial population as a whole when their conclusions have gone form “its not real” to “its not man made” to “its not dangerous”? In other words, their own statements have gradually gotten closer to the scientific consensus. Why is that not evidence that their research is either lagging, lacking, or suffering from either outside influence or their own pre-conceived notions?
3)Do you or do you not deny that climate change is, today, already having a dangerous imapct on the world?
ON EDIT: And I should probably apologize for calling you a liar. But the selective quoting irritated me, so I was more combative than I probably should have been. Having said that, though, it was selective quoting on the matter and I still don’t find your point convincing.
Comment 11/21/2007