Arctic Ice Loss Driven By Natural Swings, Not Just Mankind, Says Study (reuters.com)

Alister Doyle, reporting for Reuters: Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday. The study indicates that an ice-free Arctic Ocean, often feared to be just years away, in one of the starkest signs of man-made global warming, could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler mode. Natural variations in the Arctic climate "may be responsible for about 30-50 percent of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979," the U.S.-based team of scientists wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change. Sea ice has shrunk steadily and hit a record low in September 2012 -- late summer in the Arctic -- in satellite records dating back to 1979. The ice is now around the smallest for mid-March, rivaling winter lows set in 2016 and 2015. The study, separating man-made from natural influences in the Arctic atmospheric circulation, said that a decades-long natural warming of the Arctic climate might be tied to shifts as far away as the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Comments

I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[passionplay]

Why does it take 37 years to show nature is responsible? Something doesn't smell right.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Khashishi]

Nature is responsible for 30-50%. That still leaves 50-70% responsibility to mankind.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Dr_Terminus]

Just a bad summary... this article is better: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

"Anthropogenic forcing is still dominant -- it's still the key player," said first author Qinghua Ding, a climate scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara who holds an affiliate position at the UW, where he began the work as a research scientist in the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory. "But we found that natural variability has helped to accelerate this melting, especially over the past 20 years." ...

"In the long term, say 50 to 100 years, the natural internal variability will be overwhelmed by increasing greenhouse gases," Ding said. "But to predict what will happen in the next few decades, we need to understand both parts."

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Archangel Michael]

Guestimation of ranges based on no science what-so-ever. Good one.

Re: I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Just hold on! Wait a minute! I saw an xkcd comic that proved that humans were irrefutably responsible for global warming. It even had a hand-drawn graph showing this to be the case! I don't see how you can possibly argue against cutting edge climate research like that.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

Guestimation of ranges based on no science what-so-ever. Good one.

What? It's based on the study that is being discussed here. Based on the article, I don't have enough details about the study to find how they came up with those figures, but neither do you have enough information to say that it was based on "no science what-so-ever".

Re: I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[NatasRevol]

I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

Are you seriously saying that you can determine the cause of the warming just by looking at the temperature graphs alone? How is that supposed to work?

And how can you possibly have so much certainty as to be able to make the utterly fantastic leap that all the climate scientists in the world are lying just to make a buck. Don't tell me that you can also see psychological insights in temperature graphs too. I can't wait until you start solving crimes by barometric pressure readings.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, he's got to say anthropogenic is biggest, otherwise no more funding.

Hopefully Trump will make these guys able to tell scientific truth instead of toeing a IPCC party line.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/14/arctic-ice-loss-driven-by-natural-swings-not-just-mankind-study/

There has been historically both more and less arctic ice. Antarctic ice is at very high levels now.
The satellite record only goes back to 1979, lots of earth history before that. ;-}

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[khallow]

Sorry. We just can't muster the energy to effect climactic changes on that scale, short of having a Nuclear War.

A nuclear war doesn't involve that much energy either. Every bit of heat generated on Earth's surface is radiated to space in short order. I would guess within a couple of weeks. We don't freeze to death because solar power and to a much lesser extent geothermal heat continues to heat the surface of Earth.

What increased levels of CO2 change is the amount of infrared frequency heat radiated to space. This is why the "greenhouse effect" got its name. CO2 and a number of other "greenhouse gases" are transparent at visual light frequencies, the peak energy frequencies of solar energy hitting Earth, but more opaque to the infra-red frequencies, which are the peak energy frequencies of heat on Earth radiated to space. So more CO2 means that some heat is absorbed by the atmosphere instead of being radiated to space. That is the mechanism of global warming.

As I recall, the amount of heating at present levels of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is thought to be 1.5 C per doubling of CO2. As you may notice, this is far from the IPCC's claimed 3 C per doubling of CO2 in long term heating. That is based on assumptions about positive feedback effects which the IPCC has yet to fully demonstrate (though two commonly mentioned mechanisms are reduced snow cover (which reduces the Earth's albedo at mid to high latitudes) and methane release from warming tundra and clathrate deposits in oceans).

So to summarize, global warming is not due to human activity directly heating the Earth. Instead, it's due to CO2 and similar gases hindering the cooling of Earth as well as significant alleged positive feedback. Humans produce a lot of those gases, and unlike most of the natural processes, it's a large net release with a slightly different isotope mix than decaying plant matter. So we do have a significant increase in the last couple of centuries in CO2 with some supporting evidence that it is mostly due to human activity.

We also have some crude radiative models that explain most of the current warming by themselves. So it is not a stretch to say that we have evidence that human activity is responsible for at least a significant portion of current warming, perhaps even most of it.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the AGW nutters have an agenda to make lots of money by trying to bury the facts. That's why none of them will ever provide evident when asked for it. They want you to just take them at their word, much like a religious/cult leader would.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Anonymous Coward]

He absolutely has all of the information he needs to say "no science whatsoever". The article didn't provide the methods that the author used to reach such a conclusion and the burden of proof is solely theirs. Until they provide that information, everybody SHOULD be sceptical as to how and where they pulled those numbers from.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Namarrgon]

See here.

Re: I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

At least knowing it's due to naturally occurring phenomenon will allow us to avoid harmful carbon taxes that won't actually do anything to solve the problem.

Except that is not what this study found. Since man-made warming plays the larger role, it seems that carbon taxes will do something to solve the problem. And I think that you will find that the effect of carbon taxes on the environmental would not be described as harmful.

Of course, if all you are interested in is the economy, then it will survive and grow just like it has despite the abolition of slavery, etc.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[h33t l4x0r]

He's talking about Nuclear Winter, which would cool things down a bit, but maybe still not the ideal solution.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Muros]

Why does it take 37 years to show nature is responsible?

Something doesn't smell right.

What do you mean, "nature is responsible"? The article basically says that, despite global warming, weather is still variable.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

The article doesn't need to prove anything, other than cite the study, because it isn't science. It is just news about the science. I am sure that the study itself, which was made by scientists and published in a scientific journal, would actually show their workings; otherwise they would not get published. But the fact that we haven't seen the study is not itself evidence that the figures were based on "no science what-so-ever".

If you walk into a room with your eyes closed, you cannot definitively say that there isn't a red ball in the room. All you can say is that you can't see a red ball. Similarly, if you haven't read the paper, you can't say that the percentages are unproven. All you can say is that you haven't seen the proof.

Should the original poster have read the study before discussing the percentages? If this were an academic discussion or an official policy document then absolutely. But this is just a forum on the internet, occupied by deniers who make no effort to prove their own claims. Regurgitating figures from the article is a step up for a lot of people around here who never get past reading the headlines.

Re: I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

Even if you eliminate the human element completely, then the same end result will still occur, although it may take longer to get to that point.

That is an unsupported supposition. As we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the temperature keeps on rising. Even if we reduce it, we only slow the rate of increase. It will continue this way until we can eventually get our emissions under the level that can be dissipated and absorbed naturally.

On the other hand, the natural swing found by the study will most likely swing back to become cooler again. It will not result in the same runaway warming that we are causing. There are other long term changes happening too, but they are much slower than we are experiencing now and will therefore be more manageable by humans, animals and plants alike.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[pslytely psycho]

And the funny part is the cite doesn't even make his point.
From that link:
Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday.

Do people really believe that no one was accounting that nature drives part of the process? It's never been claimed we cause 100%, we've always know natural processes were involved as well. The only question is how much. If deniers can only bring our contribution down to 50%, then they have proven themselves wrong.

Hopefully that makes some sense, pretty buzzed right now....I have weird days off.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[rtb61]

How about this, fairies and pixies may, I repeat 'may' and I do not mean the month of May but http://www.dictionary.com/brow..., just so there is not doubt, well there is actually a whole lot of doubt but now to get back to the point, fairies and pixies may be responsible for all global warming.

So the new corporate double speak science, things might happen, forget the old fashioned, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... In newspeak science, things might happen and things may happen and likely and probably and scientific testing has to only sort of be replicable, sometimes, maybe.

If the scientist can not commit to the report, why the fuck should we.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Altrag]

Trouble with a nuclear winter, beyond the obvious, is that it would almost certainly be a temporary event. Within a decade or so a much of the particulates that were blasted into the air will have fallen back down to earth and things would get back to normal fairly quickly after that, temperature-wise. There's been a handful of recorded volcano blasts that were large enough to have this sort of effect (look up Year without a Summer) and even the biggest such events renormalized within a couple of years.

Of course a global nuclear war would probably protect against climate change in the sense that killing off large portions of the human population would reduce our emissions significantly. So there's that.

Re: I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Its crazy how the liberals always say the racist shit.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

Thanks for the link. I shall read through that once I have had a few coffees to get the brain going!

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[riverat1]

Considering that Antarctic ice has been at record levels the last few years, this seems to correlate pretty well with that...

Except since October of 2016 Antarctic sea ice has be mostly at record low levels.

Interactive sea ice graph

You'll have to click on the "Antarctic" button and use the legend on the right to highlight different years. I suggest you highlight 2016 then start clicking other years on and off to make the comparison.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[TheFakeTimCook]

Are you seriously saying that you can determine the cause of the warming just by looking at the temperature graphs alone? How is that supposed to work?

And how can you possibly have so much certainty as to be able to make the utterly fantastic leap that all the climate scientists in the world are lying just to make a buck. Don't tell me that you can also see psychological insights in temperature graphs too. I can't wait until you start solving crimes by barometric pressure readings.

Don't be willfully obtuse.

I never said all the climate scientists in the world are lying; just a large number of them.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[DamnOregonian]

Sorry. We just can't muster the energy to effect climactic changes on that scale, short of having a Nuclear War.

We need to muster very little energy in fact. Just as you can raise the temperature in your home, by kilowatts, with just a few newtons of force. Closing your window.

Re: I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[endercase]

Yeah, because evidence, documentation, and replication is how science works.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

I never said all the climate scientists in the world are lying; just a large number of them.

So the rest of the scientists have to be complicit by remaining silent. The more likely answer is that you are wrong. You can't get enough information just by looking at the temperature graphs to falsify all the research done in this field.

Saying that we are in a "warming period" is meaningless. That is just saying that it is getting warmer because it is getting warmer. Why is it a warming period? There must be some physics behind it. Is it because of all the greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere is trapping the heat? If not, what is the mechanism that is causing the temperature increase, and how do you explain that the rate of increase is far in excess of what normally happens with natural variation?

The scientists who you deride show their workings, give tables of data and publish their formulas. All you can do is to tell us to just look at the temperature graph for the last century. If you want to prove the scientists to be wrong and corrupt then you have to provide some actual proof. And while you are proving that the science is wrong, you also need to prove your assertion that the scientists are willfully corrupt and are deliberately lying in order to receive grant money.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Gadget_Guy]

Are you saying that the article is wrong and that there hasn't just been a study about Arctic ice loss by Qinghua Ding of the University of California (and others) published in the journal Nature Climate Change? Because that is what the article is about. Why would you not believe that? Surely that is not something that really needs to be proven.

If you want the proof of what the study talked about then you should grab a copy of the journal because that is where you will find it (quite correctly). This was the point of my original post to which you replied. Since you didn't seem to understand the difference between a study and news of a study then I don't think you will be able to comprehend the science behind the study, so maybe it is not worth bothering to get the journal.

Maybe next time, try to read the entire first sentence before replying.

Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts

[Namarrgon]

I was wrong - that's an older paper. See this thread for the right one.

Scary stuff

[reginaldo]

I have some future oceanfront property in Kansas if anyone is looking. One question I have is: At what point does global warming become so evident that there is no more argument as to whether it is occurring, and the argument becomes what do we do about it? I'm pretty sure we should already be there, but we aren't.

Re:Scary stuff

[Triklyn]

propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.

Re:Scary stuff

[SpankiMonki]

what do we do about it?

Move to higher ground.

Re:Scary stuff

[Computershack]

One question I have is: At what point does global warming become so evident that there is no more argument as to whether it is occurring, and the argument becomes what do we do about it? I'm pretty sure we should already be there, but we aren't.

Harldy anyone disputes the fact there is global warming. The dispute is over how much of it we're causing and whether or not its actually abnormal given that in the history of the planet it has been far warmer many many times over the millennia. Then there's what we should do about it and given how almost every other month something new is being found out about our climate and what affects it I hardly think we're in a position to be deliberately messing about with it. Sure reduce/eliminate what we put in the air etc but when you start doing things like schemes to reflect the sun, artificially forcing rain etc then we may find we're doing more harm than good.

Re:Scary stuff

[Rob Y.]

How about a partial solution (increased efficiency) that would be relatively painless while there are still low-hanging SUV's to be picked, and might buy us some time to figure out how to really solve the problem without bouncing us into the dark ages? Nobody's saying to simply stop using fossil fuels right now - but certainly we can use less of them - and pollute the environment less while doing it. But of course, folks like you will raise red herrings about the dark ages as an excuse to do nothing. So why would you want to do nothing, again? Is your last name Koch? Why would even Koch want to do nothing, come to think of it...

Re:Scary stuff

[skids]

At what point does global warming become so evident...the argument becomes what do we do about it?

Answer: At no point will some people who are $10K short of buying that in-ground pool for their summer home not seek to elude paying towards communal goals.

Re:Scary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

future oceanfront property in Kansas

Funny, but happened in the past too and I'm certain you can't blame that on mankind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interior_Seaway

Re:Scary stuff

[beelsebob]

I mean, there are plenty of bits of progress that don't take us back to the dark ages being proposed.

For example, lets invest heavily in solar, wind and nuclear power.

Even those are opposed by the coal/oil drilling nut jobs.

Re:Scary stuff

[electroniceric]

Doing something about it requires economic adjustments and likely some sacrifices, at least for some people in the short term.

Because a lot of people have their incomes, wealth, and material comfort tied to the current carbon-intensive economy, most doing something about it takes a back seat to current economic wants. That's true for very rich oil barons who don't want to see any laws or regulations interfere with oil production and regular folks who want run their ACs all summer with low power bills.

Sad to say it, but it's hard to see how most people make it their problem until the ocean arrives at their doorstep in Kansas.

Re:Scary stuff

[Archangel Michael]

certainly we can use less of them

I can't tell you how many liberals I know use Amazon Delivery for something they forgot at the store ... because they are too lazy and can't wait till the next time they drive by.

Rich Liberals who love to tell us the world is burning/melting because of AGW, but still fly around the world on private jets to private islands and gated communities, who arrive in three car SUV entourages.

The only authentic liberal I know of is Ed Begley, who lives like he preaches. I don't agree with him on much, but at least he does what he says.

Re:Scary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that it's inaction that is most likely to bounce us into the dark ages, right? Famine leading to societal breakdown is a significant risk with climate change. Creating millions of new jobs building and installing solar panels and wind turbines and improved energy infrastructure is far less likely to lead to catastrophic consequences.

Re:Scary stuff

[mspring]

I'm asking myself whether the deniers will then still be known. And whether they should / can be held accountable?

Re:Scary stuff

[demonlapin]

FWIW, air conditioning in hot climates is substantially less energy-intensive than heating in cold ones.

Re:Scary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

In all likelihood, we probably already are at that point... from a historical perspective. I'm reasonably sure that scientists and historians looking back on us from a couple centuries from now will be able to point to all sorts of incontrovertible evidence. The problem is that we're living it right now, and it's pretty much impossible to discern the important stuff from the unimportant stuff. It's a hindsight problem.

Re:Scary stuff

[Vrekais]

Delivery is a red herring though, having items delivered is likely a more efficient use of fuel than using a car to get items for single household. A delivery driver can server a 1 or 2 dozen families a day for approximately 6-7 hours of driving. If at a low estimate 12 families instead drove themselves to the shop (or possibly several shops) with an average round trip of an hour that's already more fuel burned and 12 times as much traffic capacity taken up. I don't have a car though so delivery is often a necessity for me, there's a limit to what I can carry.

I agree that people can be lazy and after instant gratification, and the SUV fashion is getting out of hand considering how often I see them being driven as a daily commuter vehicle with a single occupant.

Re:Scary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read the summary? The so-called "deniers" are mostly interested in knowing how much climate change is caused by human activity and how much is "natural" warming.

Re:Scary stuff

[Penguinisto]

Delivery is a red herring though, having items delivered is likely a more efficient use of fuel than using a car to get items for single household.

Where I live, population density is 14/sq mi. It's more efficient in my case to drive into town once a month or so in a larger vehicle, load up on everything I need for the month, come back, and not burn any fuel after that (I work remotely). If I missed something, I do without it until the next time I go out (barring actual emergencies, e.g. a suddenly dead well pump or a solar inverter that goes on the fritz, though I do keep spares on-hand for both).

In GP's assertion, a 1 lb. item burns an impressive amount of fuel-per-pound for that UPS/FedEx/Whatever truck if it's just the one item, even if the truck were to only go a block out of its way... even worse when its cumulative, which was his point.

PS: I don't own an SUV.

Re:Scary stuff

[khallow]

They all like to disguise the argument "we do nothing, and fuck everyone that isn't me" as "well, the evidence really isn't very strong, I mean, I'm not convinced it's really happening"

I agree those people exist. But we also have people who want to fuck over billions of people to show how much they care about the environment. Those people tend to wax poetic about how much future harm they're supposedly preventing.

Re:Scary stuff

[neilo_1701D]

I mean, there are plenty of bits of progress that don't take us back to the dark ages being proposed.

For example, lets invest heavily in solar, wind and nuclear power.

Even those are opposed by the coal/oil drilling nut jobs.

Q: What did South Australia have before candles?

A: Electricity.

Have a look at the South Australian experiment in renewable energy: http://search.abc.net.au/s/sea...

Re:Scary stuff

[ThosLives]

I think the bigger issue is that some people can sacrifice basically their entire standard of living and it still won't guarantee a particular outcome. And this isn't even on the backs of the "wealthy fossil fuel barons" - this is just the average everyday person.

So it boils down to "absolutely everyone must do something" and the backlash of "who are you to tell me what I should do."

So then you get into "since everyone isn't doing it, I'm not going to sacrifice..." and nothing happens. Basically you have to accept forced behaviors or penalties - which a substantial portion of the population (not just in the US, by the way) takes issue with.

Re:Scary stuff

[tlhIngan]

Harldy anyone disputes the fact there is global warming. The dispute is over how much of it we're causing and whether or not its actually abnormal given that in the history of the planet it has been far warmer many many times over the millennia. Then there's what we should do about it and given how almost every other month something new is being found out about our climate and what affects it I hardly think we're in a position to be deliberately messing about with it. Sure reduce/eliminate what we put in the air etc but when you start doing things like schemes to reflect the sun, artificially forcing rain etc then we may find we're doing more harm than good.

ObXKCD: https://xkcd.com/1732/

If the chart is accurate, "far warmer many many times" is inaccurate - we're at the peak already and even the most harsh scenarios for reversing it will have the climate get warmer still.

Re: Scary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see. Humans like 75* f or so.
A hot place, near lethal for many activities, is 100*f
A similarly cold place is therefore 50*
If it is fifty degrees, I can wear pajamas under my jeans and shirt and be fine walking around.

Cheap flannel jammies are what $10? How much air con can you buy for $10? Please include air conditioner, power grid, generators and fuel cycle in your breakdown. And the road to transport the machinery used for it. American slaves and even Ancient Egyptians could make cotton cloth without power tools or a power grid, so those costs are all on you.

You want to go farther north and south? Lets go 50* off comfortable. 125* in the American south in a heat wave noon day sun and, what, 25* in northern Canada on average, give or take, along the birder where 90% of them live.

Oh and for nighttime, when you sleep add a nice, off brand $20 blanket. Good for ten, twenty years if you're poor enough to care about such trivial amounts.

How do you achieve insulation cheaply from 125* ambient air and a 100* human body? What's that? You can't? Then foad.

Re:Scary stuff

[sims 2]

Is that because of the higher efficiency of heat pump systems vs burning fuel directly? If so can you push ground source heat pumps far enough to do the same?

Re:Scary stuff

[narf0708]

propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.

Nuclear energy. It's clean, it's safe, and it would be cheap if it weren't for paranoid over-regulation. Yes, some safety regulation is needed, but the nuclear industry has far more than it needs, which only restricts its much needed development.

Re:Scary stuff

[thegarbz]

That depends on the temperature differential and the technology used.

Or in the case of a heatpump (all ACs, but not all heaters) just the temperature differential.

Re:Scary stuff

[h33t l4x0r]

Why would even Koch want to do nothing, come to think of it...

The Kochs are lizard people. Their hatchlings will thrive in a post climate change environment.

Re:Scary stuff

[Koby77]

That XKCD comic WOULD be very scary, if it was accurate. But it is not. The hockey stick runaway temperatures since 1900 never happened.

http://notrickszone.com/2017/0...

Re:Scary stuff

[jxander]

One question I have is: At what point does global warming become so evident that there is no more argument as to whether it is occurring, and the argument becomes what do we do about it? I'm pretty sure we should already be there, but we aren't.

My question is: At what point does global warming no longer become the impetus for switching to renewable energy. Even if burning fossil fuels didn't cause any harm to the environment (which of course it does, but that's not the point right now) they are a very temporary solution. There's only so much oil and coal in the ground, and we're going to run out at some point. Switching to renewable energy sources is simply the pragmatic option. The longer we wait, the more of an emergency it becomes when it does run out, and we're left with hundreds of coal fired plants with nothing to fire.

Plus it makes financial sense. For anyone in a sunny region, solar panels provide very good ROI. Not investing is throwing away money.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

>propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.
Okay.

Phase in a massive carbon tax on fossil fuels, proceeds to be immediately distributed among the population. No net effect on the finances of the average consumer, but anyone using more efficient of non-fossil energy sources anywhere in the supply chain would immediately enjoy a price advantage over their carbon-powered competition. Let market forces sort out the best low-carbon solution(s) from there.

Re:Scary stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because cherrypicked and misleadingly-plotted graphs on a partisan blog are the gold standard of scientific proof.

If you disbelieve the science, then do some f-ing work and disprove it. There's a Nobel prize waiting for the person who can do that. The rest of us can only sit around and marvel that everyone who attempts this, ends up believing in the existing consensus.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

I really want to agree, but even today we see countless examples in the US and abroad of the existing regulations getting ignored, "special allowances" being granted, corners getting cut, etc.

Lets see some real accountability among those making the choices, and I'd be all for it - I mean if a plant suffers a meltdown or other environmentally contaminating disaster that should have been avoidable, let's see the entire board and executive staff be immediately put to death - after all they're the ones with the responsibility and authority to make sure the plant is built and run correctly and safely with adequate oversight, and their negligence just shortened the lives of everyone exposed to that radiation over the next several centuries

So long as the plants are run by corporations that funnel all the profits into the hands of individuals who face little to no personal responsibility for their negligence, it's really hard to justify the sorts of risks involved with nuclear power.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

In fairness, that chart only covers the last 20,000 years, barely an eye-blink in the 4.5-billion year history of the world. It has indeed been far warmer many times in the past - just never in the history of the human species.

We know we're flirting with disaster precisely because there's lots of evidence that the planetary climate is bistable, and has transitioned many times between the current ice age state to a much warmer tropical/desert state. A transition that usually wreaks utter havoc on the global ecosystem that takes many millenia to recover from.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

Exactly, it's happened many times for many different reasons, and it's always been bad news for pretty much everything alive during the transition.

This time we're the reason.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

Um, no, not really.

It's a *lot* more efficient to heat something by one degree than to cool it by one degree same amount. Heating is typically pushing 100% efficiency, unless you do something stupid like turning heat into electricity someplace else, and then turn that electricity back into heat where you want it. Even then though it's usually substantially more efficient than cooling systems, which typically use that inefficient electricity to drive a similarly inefficient heat pump.

Re:Scary stuff

[yndrd1984]

If that is true, where are the brownouts and rolling blackouts in cold climates? They are prevalent in urban centers in the high heat of the summer, but entirely absent in cold climates.

Why would natural gas furnaces cause brownouts?

Re:Scary stuff

[yndrd1984]

Yes to both.

Re:Scary stuff

[yndrd1984]

It's a *lot* more efficient to heat something by one degree than to cool it by one degree same amount.

No. Weirdly enough, it's pretty much the same.

Heating is typically pushing 100% efficiency...

Sure. But for the same amount of energy you can pump several times as much heat in or out.

That might sound like it's breaking the laws of thermodynamics, but because the efficiency of a heat engine can't exceed the ratio of the temperatures it's working with, there's no 'free' energy.

Re: Scary stuff

[yndrd1984]

I don't know what to make of this. The GP is talking about heat pumps, which heat more efficiently than burning fuel and both heat and cool at about the same efficiency, and the fact that on average people need more heating than cooling due to temperature differences where people live usually being larger where it's cold.

125* in the American south in a heat wave noon day sun and, what, 25* in northern Canada on average

The American South has never gotten that hot, while it's 10* in Iowa (not Canada) right now. And that's the point - on a record-setting 115* day in Georgia they're pushing a 40* temperature difference, while a -5* day in Iowa (happens most years) it's twice that - and because of the way temperature gradients work, that means 4 times the energy required to keep up with heat flow.

A hot place, near lethal for many activities, is 100*f ... How do you achieve insulation cheaply from 125* ambient air and a 100* human body?

Healthy people can get along (uncomfortably) even at 134* (US record high in Death Valley) if they limit their activity and have plenty of water, while I don't think a blanket is going to do much for you at -45* (record cold at same location), let alone a place that gets really cold.

Re:Scary stuff

[Altrag]

Even that dispute is stupid. Say that someone discovered that global warming was 100% natural and humans were completely innocent. That doesn't change the fact that mass extinctions and suffering will be the result. We should still consider trying to do something about it (though in that case it would necessarily be something more extreme than "switch to renewable energy.")

For a similar example, if we saw a texas-sized meteor hurtling toward earth.. by your logic we should just watch as it kills us all because hey, its a natural phenomena and its happened before in earth's history!

I mean there really isn't any "dispute" that its man made either -- the dispute is about how many rich people would have to be very slightly less rich in order to start reversing the effects. But its a dumb argument no matter what the result because at the end of the day, its bad for life as we know it regardless of any hundred-million-year-past history of the planet.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

Brilliant.

Re:Scary stuff

[Orgasmatron]

Did you not notice that the hockey stick nearly disappeared a some years ago? One day, it was everywhere you looked. Now you rarely see it except in deep disguise, like that comic strip turned sideways.

That's because a couple of statisticians disproved it, back in like 2003 or so. And by "disproved it", I mean into tiny pieces that were then burned and the ashes dropped into a volcano. Several members of the Hockey Team (their term for themselves) then destroyed what was left of their credibility by attempting to un-disprove it

Climate "science" is, apparently, done by guys that sorta half remember the one stats course they took in high school. Every time you look around these days, you find that someone else with a post-secondary knowledge of statistics has peeled back another sheet of faux-brick wallpaper they've been using to make their styrofoam outhouse look like a stone castle. See, Patrick Frank for an excellent example. Or click around a bit on this site to see what the Statistician to the Stars has to say.

Re:Scary stuff

[Orgasmatron]

the dispute is about how many rich people would have to be very slightly less rich in order to start reversing the effects

Ahh, our old friend, class warfare. Where else can you see a comfortably wealthy person tightening a noose around his own neck at the urging of one rich person, thinking it is somehow going to strangle a different rich person, who is nowhere to be found, and most certainly doesn't have a noose around his neck?

Re:Scary stuff

[religionofpeas]

How about the same solution we'll use when fossil fuels run out, but we'll just get a head start ?

Re:Scary stuff

[Vrekais]

I concede that you're method is higly efficient. My example was really for urban areas where assumptions could be made about deliveries per vehicle and the effect the extra traffic would have on congestions/fuel efficiency of other road users.

Re:Scary stuff

[bluefoxlucid]

Melting arctic sea ice won't raise sea levels.

Re:Scary stuff

[Triklyn]

ride a bike. or is your time too valuable to save the environment?

Re:Scary stuff

[Triklyn]

i'd be all for that, except for the pesky environmental regulation of course.

Re:Scary stuff

[tbannist]

Did you not notice that the hockey stick nearly disappeared a some years ago?

No, actually I didn't really. You might not see it because "climate skeptics" have largely conceded that the fight against the Hockey Stick has been resoundingly lost. If your main sources of information on climate science disagree with the consensus, they are naturally going to avoid reminding you that they resoundingly lost that battle.

One day, it was everywhere you looked. Now you rarely see it except in deep disguise, like that comic strip turned sideways.

Wait. You think "deep disguise" is rotating something 90 degrees?

That's because a couple of statisticians disproved it, back in like 2003 or so. And by "disproved it", I mean into tiny pieces that were then burned and the ashes dropped into a volcano.

Actually, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick showed that the statistical methods used were not the best methods and that the choice of methods contributed a small bias to the graph. The graphs were redone with different methods and the results were almost identical. From Wikipedia:

More than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, have supported the broad consensus shown in the original 1998 hockey-stick graph, with variations in how flat the pre-20th century "shaft" appears. The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report cited 14 reconstructions, 10 of which covered 1,000 years or longer, to support its strengthened conclusion that it was likely that Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the 20th century were the highest in at least the past 1,300 years. Over a dozen subsequent reconstructions, including Mann et al. 2008 and PAGES 2k Consortium 2013, have supported these general conclusions.

If I'm reading that correctly, the Hockey Stick graph has been re-affirmed and shown to be essentially correct by no less than 26 subsequent papers from a variety of authors, using a variety of data sources and statistical methods. On the other hand, the number of papers that did the research and didn't get a hockey stick graph appears to be zero.

I guess that means your position has been cut into "tiny pieces that were then burned and the ashes dropped into a volcano."

Re:Scary stuff

[Dripdry]

Not much, sorry to sound difficult.
Honestly, it's not the warming that's a problem. It's the huge swings in temperature and chaotic weather that are going to (and are) causing big problems.

Re:Scary stuff

[Rob Y.]

That applies to those who profit from polluting industries - it doesn't apply to the hordes of (mostly Republican) voters who uncritically go along with it because they've been seduced by big money pandering on unrelated issues. It's one thing to vote for politicians that pander to you about something you care about, but must you twist yourself into knots to claim to 'believe' stuff that actually works against your interests?

And whether you believe higher fuel efficiency standards will actually help or not, the same dynamic holds in other areas. Many (quite likely a majority) of Trump voters do not want the ACA repealed - or at least they want it replaced with something that will provide them with better coverage at a lower cost to them. That's what they were promised, after all. The recent MSNBC West Virginia town hall with Chris Hayes and Bernie Sanders talking to a room full of Trump voters drew cheers for just about everything Sanders said - most of which was the polar opposite of what those Trump voters are actually going to get. And when that's explained to them by sympathetic old uncle Bernie, they get it. They even get that Obamacare itself is a net plus fror them. If only uncle Bernie had been more emphatic at the time about how that nasty Hillary Clinton was actually going to provide them policies more in line with what they want than their Trump vote crapshoot will...

Re:Scary stuff

[Triklyn]

interesting, what would be the downstream consequences of that?

transportation expense, delivery expense. your goods don't magically arrive on the shelves after all.

would that bump up the cost of manufacture in america? slow down the yadda yadda? what would that do to manufacturing incentives for companies based in the US, would it incentivize relocating manufacturing overseas even more than it is currently? when not only the cost of labor is significantly cheaper, but the energy as well?

tourism is a 1.5 trillion dollar industry apparently.

https://www.statista.com/topic...

1 trillion in direct spending, of that 800 billion was by domestic travelers. transportation cost increases would hit that thing like a bag of bricks.

Re:Scary stuff

[DamnOregonian]

In GP's assertion, a 1 lb. item burns an impressive amount of fuel-per-pound for that UPS/FedEx/Whatever truck if it's just the one item, even if the truck were to only go a block out of its way... even worse when its cumulative, which was his point.

I don't understand what you and GP are trying to say... I mean, of course a 1lb item for a truck is terrible efficiency. A truck will be more efficient than a car only if the truck is loaded more than a car in terms of ratio of carried weight vs. weight of the vehicle.

In no way will the efficiency of any commuter vehicle touch the efficiency of a loaded truck, though. Your commuter vehicle, loaded with as many groceries as you like, will always spend the majority of its energy moving its own weight. That ratio reverses with a loaded truck.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

To be truly effective I'd imagine we'd want such a carbon tax to be as international as possible, with proportional tariffs against non-participants to keep from tilting the playing field overmuch.

And yes, it would most certainly boost the cost of producing and transporting almost everything, that's kind of the point. The cost would then be passed on to the consumer, who gets a monthly (or whatever) "carbon tax rebate" which offsets the increased cost of buying things so that the average consumer ends up breaking even. Anyone who has a lower-than-average carbon footprint comes out ahead, and anyone with an above-average carbon footprint pays more. Any use of non-fossil energy anywhere in a product's supply chain is reflected in a lower sticker prices downstream, providing immediate monetary incentive for conscientious consumers and business owners to lower their carbon footprint.

There's a reason carbon taxes have been fought against so hard by the fossil fuel industry - they promise to be easy to implement and extremely effective.

As for tourism - trans-Atlantic flights average 75mpg/person for around 1300 miles, or about 18 gallons. A $5/gallon carbon tax would add only $90 to the price of a ticket - probably not enough to make a big difference in the total cost of a trip. There's also the possibility of waiving such taxes for international flights if it proves to be an issue.

Re:Scary stuff

[xession]

Sadly, I don't believe you've had the pleasure of discussing this matter with the average Kansan.

According to a large portion of folks here, its always been the same every year and only idiot lefty propagandists could believe that tiny humans could influence the huge earth.

Re:Scary stuff

[DamnOregonian]

Nuclear energy. It's clean, it's safe, and it would be cheap if it weren't for paranoid over-regulation. Yes, some safety regulation is needed, but the nuclear industry has far more than it needs, which only restricts its much needed development.

Man... I want to agree with you...
I want more nuclear, but I think you're off the rails with some of your assertions.

It's clean

No- no it fucking is not. Its waste is however highly concentrated and easily sequestered, politics aside, unlike other unclean power generation forms.

it's safe

Except when it's not. Nothing but *very* fucking stringent oversight makes that energy source safe. Don't fool yourself- you're dealing with the power of the atom here. Ionizing radiation and fissile byproducts is no fucking joke, and aren't remotely safe.

and it would be cheap if it weren't for paranoid over-regulation

And unsafe. Cheap and unsafe. We have enough of that now, thanks.

Yes, some safety regulation is needed, but the nuclear industry has far more than it needs, which only restricts its much needed development

I'm sorry, your argument should scare people *away* from nuclear power. I can only hope that if we re-embrace fission energy (and I hope we do), then saner minds than yours are at he helm.

Fission energy isn't something we can be reckless with. I have faith in humanities ability to control it, but I do *NOT* have faith in capitalism's desire to keep it safe. The amount of fucks the CEO has to give falls off at the inverse square of the distance of his house from the plant.

Re:Scary stuff

[Triklyn]

domestic tourism, which involves often-times involves a crap-ton of driving an represents a good 1 percent of our gdp i think.

Re:Scary stuff

[riverat1]

I have some future oceanfront property in Kansas if anyone is looking.

Unfortunately for you the lowest elevation in Kansas is 679 feet. Even if all of the ice in the world were to melt it would only raise sea levels by around 230 feet. Even if you add in a couple of hundred feet for expansion of the oceans from the water heating up you're still not going to get oceanfront property in Kansas.

Re:Scary stuff

[khallow]

Yes, that is a common argument of the second group. That anyone who shows concern over their virtue signaling is really a covertly selfish person who has come up with a sensible objection merely to hide their true intentions.

Re:Scary stuff

[Immerman]

That might take a nosedive. Or perhaps the market for planes, traines, and rental EVs would boom - the cost of fuel is only a small fraction of the cost of any of those options, and it's often argued that renting a car for long trips is actually cheaper than subjecting your own car to the wear and tear of the journey (plus you can get a vehicle much better suited to road trips than what you usually drive)

Re:Scary stuff

[Orgasmatron]

All of those 26 papers are based on the same one incestuous pile of self-confirmation as the original. You should read the actual papers some time. Be warned that you need to understand statistics to see what is happening behind the curtain.

Basically, each "proxy" is a statistical model, not a physical one, and the knobs and parameters of that model are tweaked by comparing it to the other "proxies". If the first model had been trained against stock market data, it would be obvious that there is no such "variety of data sources".

Re:Scary stuff

[0111 1110]

propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.

For first world countries? How about copying France? Gradual changeover to nuclear power generation + electrified highways and cheaper more practical electric vehiicles. The only problem is that currently this is a rich person solution and only first world countries can do it. Maybe if nuclear becomes more ubiquitous it will get cheaper but currently nuclear generated electricity is kind of expensive. The real real problem is it's hard to imagine a lot of poor/primitive countries getting up to speed in the next century or two.

Re:Scary stuff

[david_thornley]

In which case you'd think a climate scientist would go through the papers and show the problems. Not all are ignorant of statistics, and it wouldn't take all that much money to check the statistics. It would be a way for a new climate scientist to make a big splash in the field.

So, going from your hypothesis, we can make reasonable predictions and find them to differ from observation. Scientifically, then, what you say is probably wrong.

Re:Scary stuff

[david_thornley]

Sure. But for the same amount of energy you can pump several times as much heat in or out.

Depending on the temperature differential and the efficiency of the heat pump. It gets too cold around here for standard heat pumps to be as efficient as burning stuff. There are places where geothermal energy is close enough to be useful in a heat pump, but not where my house is.

However, it's still cheaper to heat. I've got a portable heat pump in my dining room, primarily used to cool it (although we've used it to warm up when we had boiler problems). It takes a certain amount of power, which comes out as heat somewhere. If it's inside, it reduces the cooling efficiency and raises the heating efficiency slightly.

Re:Scary stuff

[Archangel Michael]

I'll give you my case. On my way to / from work, I pass the most expensive grocery store in my town. I do not shop there normally, but if we need one to 4 items, I'll shop there, even though I'll spend a few extra bucks doing so. It is literally 100 ft off the road. I won't order things on Amazon just because "i forgot".

I know liberals who don't go the same effort because "waste of time" or whatever excuse, and order from Amazon, and have it on their doorstep the next day. Meanwhile they complain daily about AGW, Dakota Access, Big Oil .... never once considering the fact that they themselves can spend an extra moment stoppign at one of the stores they pass by, because it isn't convenient enough.

If you are REALLY concerned with BigOil / AGW and the "Endless War for Oil", you'd reduce your fossil fuel use to ZERO (or as close as you can get) before you tell everyone else to do the same thing.

Re:Scary stuff

[Orgasmatron]

It's been done. By statisticians, by physicists, by chemists, by people with decades of experience making models that are tested against reality.

People who dispute the narrative are attacked and smeared. Their arguments are largely ignored while the whole climate establishment and their friendly media go into a frenzy searching for dirt on the heretic.

There is no fucking science here. There is no honesty, no humility. These are not people eager to gain a better understanding of reality by hearing about their mistakes.

Re:Scary stuff

[david_thornley]

Got any actual citations? I find the idea ridiculous on the face of it. Numerous scientific organizations are very concerned about global warming, many of which don't cater to climate scientists. You're talking about conspiracies of physicists, chemists, and other scientists.

The "smearing" sounds like projection. Deniers often attack scientific reputations because wither the denier is wrong or the scientists are fraudulent. I've seen no evidence of smearing beyond what people doing bad science get.

And, once more, you're claiming that an entire branch of science is a fraud, despite being practiced worldwide by people with all sorts of funding support. That's the sort of extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, which deniers do not supply.

Re:Scary stuff

[DamnOregonian]

I'm not actually arguing that I disagree with the logic of just stopping by the grocery store, I'm just saying the claim of energy usage is simply wrong.
The cost of shipping any individual item when done in bulk is vastly more efficient than even what it takes for you to pull off into that grocery store and restart your car... There's just no way around it. The efficiency ratio for your car vs. a delivery truck can best be described as using a locomotive to to move a single rail car, even when factoring in that it's only a small diversion from a path you otherwise would have taken. I'd stop at the grocery store too- the efficiency claim is just wrong on its face.

Now, diverting the conversation to a political one, and using such general labels such as "liberals" kind of makes me doubt any kind of conversation with you can even be constructive, but I'm a generous liberal, and even trolls need to eat.

One can complain about a systemic problem and fight against the problem without committing themselves to solely undertake the action the system needs to take. In fact, one would even call that fucking logical.

You don't change an entrenched system by crossing your arms and doing what the system needs to do in a huff. The system just laughs at you.
If leaded gasoline and CFCs had been tackled only by concerned consumers refraining from using those things, abso-fucking-lutely nothing would have been accomplished. Your argument is bullshit. Cheers.

Re:Scary stuff

[tbannist]

It's been done. By statisticians, by physicists, by chemists, by people with decades of experience making models that are tested against reality.

That would be amazing, if it were true. There have been a few valid criticisms of the Hockey Stick graph, but the anti-climate change media have consistently exaggerated the size of the scope of the criticisms, and the criticisms were addressed. When the problems were fixed, the results were slightly different but basically the same. As I previously said the Hockey stick has been replicated at least 26 times by different authors, with different methods and different data. You, on the other hand, tried to hand wave away the peer reviewed, replicated science because you don't like the conclusion.

People who dispute the narrative are attacked and smeared.

So are the people who uphold the narrative, or are you only counting attacks on "your side"?

Their arguments are largely ignored while the whole climate establishment and their friendly media go into a frenzy searching for dirt on the heretic.

Actually, regardless of what the media or the public says about them, their arguments are actually examined and incorporated into the science, if they have validity. That's why Michael Mann has updated his Hockey Stick each time valid criticism has been offered. For example he changed the methods used when the methods were shown to have introduced a bias into the graph, and when the argument was made that the tree ring data wasn't robust enough to support the conclusions, he removed the tree ring data, and used different proxies instead and got the same result.

There is no fucking science here. There is no honesty, no humility.

What is this if not, "ignoring their arguments" and "attacking and smearing" the people you disagree with. But I'm sure that it's perfectly fine when you do it, right?

These are not people eager to gain a better understanding of reality by hearing about their mistakes.

Very few people are, however, the people you criticize have repeated demonstrated that they actually do act where there is real evidence that they've made a mistake. I doubt you can say the same.

We know this, everyone in the world says.

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural swings are evident with the seasons, periodic shifts based on geo-solar geometry, probably sun cycles and everything else in the universe - *BUT the base/background temperature before those variations *IS* increasing *AS* we have measured C02 and greenhouse insulating gases, methane etc, reaching historic (in paleological terms, during all of human civilization and a long time before that, millions of years) proportions of our atmosphere. We know we've caused some acidifying of the oceans, which with warming dissolves further frozen/captured methane and such gasses at the bottom of the ocean and brings that into our atmosphere in a positive feedback loop which we can never control...

What of this one study exonerates BILLIONS of tailpipes in the world and TRILLIONS of tons of coal burned ongoing? None of it.

But watch them try to run with this deliberate, intentional misunderstanding of what actually was confirmed by this study. Watch and see.

Re:We know this, everyone in the world says.

[reginaldo]

I agree. This is something of a glass-half-full study. So 30-50% of arctic ice cap melt is natural. What of the other 50-70%? It is already misunderstood. It's interesting how different media sources are covering this study: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...

Who are these scientists?

[PPH]

And why haven't they been sent to the Ministry of Truth for reeducation yet?

percentages

[OlRickDawson]

Finally a study that shows percentages.The politicals have have claimed that climate change is either 100% man-made or 100% natural, depending upon which side of the argument they were on. Reasonable people knew that it had to be a bit of both, but there never seemed to be any studies that showed what the percentages of each it was.

Re:percentages

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question is just how reliable are those percentages...

Re: percentages

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't understand distributions. It has to either be all or nothing. If humans contribute 40% to global warming and nature contributes 60%, the majority of people will fall into "well nature is doing it too" BS, deflecting the significance of their own contribution.

I'm all for honest reporting but I don't trust trust the average US citizen for reading, interpreting, and reacting to study results--nor do I trust media outlets with agendas that could care less about the environment. I can see the Fox headlines now "Nature contributes 60% of global warming, Obama cover up to kill coal" never discussing the significance of the other 40% side of the story.

Re:percentages

[Megol]

First I call bullshit on your black and white description of politicians. You may remember it like that (and other people too) but what I remember is strong anti-AGW advocates admitting that _some_ contributions could be due to human activities. The AGW (scientific) group will almost always at least indirectly point out that some effects could be natural.

And then I will call bullshit one the later part too. It isn't reasonable to assume, without backing evidence, that an issue _is_ a grey area. Without supporting evidence that some natural process (or processes) lead to increased global temperatures it could be that the AGW is so strong that a natural cooling process is disrupted. So unless your bit-of-both claim includes 0% and negative percentages it simply isn't a reasonable position.

Re:percentages

[Megol]

The proper paper should have error bars and assumptions listed. Otherwise I'd assume they are 100% unreliable.

Re:percentages

[quantaman]

Finally a study that shows percentages.The politicals have have claimed that climate change is either 100% man-made or 100% natural, depending upon which side of the argument they were on. Reasonable people knew that it had to be a bit of both, but there never seemed to be any studies that showed what the percentages of each it was.

Globally almost 100% man-made is accurate because natural climate variations simply aren't that fast enough to be a big contributor.

However, local climates are more variable, particularly the Arctic, so percentages come into play. From the article it sounds like previous research simply didn't have enough data to make useful percentage estimates.

Re:percentages

[khallow]

Globally almost 100% man-made is accurate because natural climate variations simply aren't that fast enough to be a big contributor.

I disagree. If one looks at recent global temperature, one sees significant variation. For example, the five year temperature anomaly average for 1954 is less than a tenth of a degree higher than the start of the graph at 1880. (about -0.13 C versus -0.2 C). But there was a low of -0.4 C and a high of 0.1 C in that same period separated by a little more than three decades.

That indicates to me significant variation in an important climate parameter.

Re:percentages

[riverat1]

Finally a study that shows percentages.The politicals have have claimed that climate change is either 100% man-made or 100% natural, depending upon which side of the argument they were on. Reasonable people knew that it had to be a bit of both, but there never seemed to be any studies that showed what the percentages of each it was.

What makes me a bit skeptical of this study is that they're essentially saying that the natural variations for nearly 40 years (since 1979 when the satellites went up) are all in one direction to reduce Arctic sea ice. That would be unusual without some pretty obvious natural factor we could point to that made it happen. I understand there can be large variations from year to year in Arctic sea ice depending on weather. The record low sea ice in 2007 was set up by a weather pattern that transported large amounts of sea ice through the Fram Strait (between Greenland and Svalbard). Other years where that doesn't happen don't see such dramatic changes. But for natural variation to always come down on one side of the ledger there needs to be something pushing it that way.

Re:From the "no shit" department

[Anonymous Coward]

"It would be stranger to think that humans are the primary driver of sea ice increase or decrease today." - Without knowing how feedback loops of insulating gasses accumulating in our atmosphere are a result of 200+ years of worldwide deforestation, acidification, burning of underground concentrated carbon sources, was related to.. human activity? You think that's not knowable? 96-97% of scientists in the field disagree with you on that point. The others are paid to hedge, or have some ideological bent towards that end, for better or worse. The planet HAS been affected by human civilization though I and every other climatologist will tell you, we cannot say EXACTLY how, nor EXACTLY what will come of it. The jist is the same. The direction is unchanged. The magnitude is serious, dire. And it's happening VERY quickly for a geologic phenomena, and WHILE we measure historic levels of certain indicator gasses in the atmosphere.

Go outside and enjoy it instead of trying to pretend human civilization hasn't altered the planet we live on. The science will be there, refining itself, making better projections and modeling more accurately as it goes. Any offspring of yours will see it, should they be so fortunate or unfortunate.

Sincerely,

BD

Snow storm?

[number6x]

Very low rates of commenting today. Could it be the blizzard on the east coast keeping everyone busy?

Good to see it's not all robots posting here.

Back on topic, it's an interesting read. 30-50% may be natural climate trend and the rest man made (50-70%) man made.

It may be good science, but showing 50-70% man made probably won't go down well with the current administration. <sarcasm> Prepare to have the budget cut for this "U.S.-based team of scientists", unless they get their alt-facts corrected.</sarcasm>

Re:Snow storm?

[Midnight_Falcon]

I'm pretty sure I learned in high school (graduated 2002) in Earth Science (1998, freshman year) that global warming was part of a tropical age-ice age cycle, an ice age being defined as there being ice at the poles of the Earth. That said, I was also taught that climate change is due to greenhouse gases etc causing this to accelerate far faster than the historical record for transition into a tropical age.

So, I don't know what's new about this theory aside from the fact it can be diced up into "alternative facts" that say hey! look! climate change (somewhat) natural! ... but we've known all along manmade climate change is most of the problem.

Re:Snow storm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very low rates of commenting today.

Try browsing at -1. Whenever this topic comes up there are a lot of good comments that end up modded down because they don't toe the "correct" political and academic lines.

It's actually quite ironic. A fundamental part of science is its combative nature. Theories don't just stand alone. Rather, they are pitted against one another, and are subjected to the highest possible degrees of scrutiny, questioning and doubt.

This combative nature is actually what separates science from religion. Religion pushes predefined notions, and seeks to suppress any and all dissenting opinions, along with suppressing any sort of scrutiny. Science, on the other hand, is all about considering as many theories as possible, and constructively weighing them against one another and against observations and collected data.

If we were applying the basic standards of science here, then Slashdot would disable moderating for these sorts of submissions. Ideas would be shared and discussed, rather than oppressed through downmodding. The fact that we see so much downmodding here just goes to show that we aren't having anything remotely like a scientific-based discussion. What we're having here is essentially a religious inquisition.

Re:Snow storm?

[number6x]

Great comment.

I think a lot of the scientific debate has been about the models that project the changes into the future. I'm amazed at how accurate the Shell Oil researchers were with their predictions.

Re:Snow storm?

[TimothyHollins]

I thought climate change was a Chinese hoax? Or is it only a 50-70% hoax now?

Re: Snow storm?

[orlanz]

I was thinking that a 20% uncertainty was kind of shitty. They could have said 30% natural, 50% man made, and 20% unknown. That's pretty bad for an analysis.

Re:Snow storm?

[cbeaudry]

The problem is you graduated in 2002. If you had graduated in 1972, this propaganda had not yet been introduced to the education system.

Re:Snow storm?

[Midnight_Falcon]

Interestingly enough my Earth Science teacher bore a strong resemblance to Steve Bannon. He was super right-wing republican, he was "alt-right" before alt-right existed as a term. Also this was an all-boys, Catholic high school -- definitely conservative. Definitely full of Giuliani-era Republicans.

He tried to each us that despite CO2 being linked to global warming, much nastier gasses used to come out of cars and were made into plain ol' CO2 by catalytic converters.

So he definitely inserted propaganda into the education system but I think it was from the alternate end of the spectrum...

Re:Snow storm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory xkcd still tells it better than anyone and touch of humour: https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: Snow storm?

[sg_oneill]

Climates are not simple systems , I think everyone agrees on that much. Knowledge of CO2s infra-red properties leading to the greenhouse effect has been around since about the 1870s (and scientists then where quite worried about it particularly in context to the widespread use of coal industry and oil lamps), the question has really been "how much have we put out there (almost more an economic question) and how does that extra thermal load affect things, the answers to which started emerging in the 1970. I think the pop science publications made more significance out of the whole ice age cycle than actual research scientists did.

Re:Snow storm?

[Barsteward]

one of the researchers commenting was from the University of California and you know you can't truth anyone from there ;)

Re:Snow storm?

[minogully]

Science doesn't blindly share and discuss ideas. The ideas that have already been proven incorrect are pushed away as a waste of time. For example, any theory trying to make the case that the earth is flat is no longer constructively weighed against other theories.

I suspect we've reached a tipping point in the science of Anthropogenic Climate Change that dissenting views are similarly cast aside as a waste of time.

Re:Snow storm?

[rickb928]

Correct. In 1972 you would have been taught that the Looming-Ice-Age warnings were loony, but that we were in fact in a somewhat exceptional warming era. And that we need not worry, these things somehow work out, and even if they do not we have no power to influence global climate.

This being taught in the Northeastern U.S., where we noticed it seemed to rain on the weekends more than we would have liked. And the lakes and ponds were yielding water rich in iron. And the pine forests were doing very well indeed. And the band played on.

Re:Snow storm?

[phlinn]

I wonder if the previous post was thinking of Marcott's statement about the paper rather than the paper itself. "Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. "

Re: Snow storm?

[JohnMathon]

Archimedes showed 2000 years ago that sea ice doesn't affect sea levels. No other effect from melting sea ice is proven. Plankton, seals, polar bears have been expanding in population. This hysteria over sea ice is evidence how dumb liberals are. It makes no difference if all the sea ice melted tomorrow. Nothing would happen. They say they think some things will happen but they are always wrong. Every single thing they ever said is wrong and has been wrong. If you think they've been right let me know because they were wrong. There has never been a worse "science..". Literally everything they ever predicted was wrong. If you believe a word you are in a filter bubble.

Re: Snow storm?

[endercase]

That isn't really how statistical uncertainty works.

Re:Snow storm?

[ale2011]

> Anthropogenic Climate Change

The real issue shouldn't be how mach man contributed to the change, but how much man can contribute to (slowing down) the change. That looking for a culprit sounds childish.

Re:Snow storm?

[0111 1110]

In 1972 you would have been taught that the Looming-Ice-Age warnings were loony

Is this coming from your own memory? At what grade/level were you taught about climate change stuff? I remember all the ice age stuff being in the popular press in the late 70s but was too young to have been 'taught' anything on the subject. I wasn't aware that it was considered loony. Unproven or speculative maybe, but not loony.

All I can vouch for is that at the end of the 80s and start of the 90s the current paradigm of anthropogenic warming + armageddon wasn't yet being universally taught at university level as if it were a slamdunk: just one possible theory in need of more data. I would imagine that textbooks have changed since then. The Truth has moved on I guess.

Re: Snow storm?

[rickb928]

My freshman Earth Science Teacher in 1969 was aware of the burgeoning climate change movement. By senior year it was noticable to my O chem teacher, part of a discussion of systems and such.

Ah dan't know....

[no-body]

is somebody paying for this under the table or what?
Aren't there $ billions on the table and under even more....

It started with industrialization and now, all of a sudden, a high % is nature.
Gimme a major break here!

Re:There is no global warming

[OrangeTide]

We won't need it when we're all dead!

not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[number6x]

Read the article...

30-50% of the warming is due to natural, not man made, effects.

Or, as scientists have been saying for decades, the majority of the warming (50 - 70%) is due to man made effects.

This includes scientists at shell oil and Exxon-Mobil. I remember debate class in high school, fall of 1979, our team was 'pro' nuclear power. We used research from oil companies about the dangers of global warming as one one the arguments in favor of expanding nuclear power use. We won the debate, despite the fact that the 3 mile island accident happened in spring of '79. That made it a very tough debate to win the pro nuclear side of the argument.

Re: not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's take humans out of the picture completely, so that only the natural causes remain. So now nature is responsible for 100% of the change, even if it may now happen slower. The end result is the same, though, even with the human impact completely removed: the climate change will still happen. This goes to show that the human impact is irrelevant. The change will happen even if there are no human influences.

Re: not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[Immerman]

Not hardly.

Picture a gerbil in a ball running back and forth up the slopes of a skateboarder's half-pipe - that's your "natural contributions" - there is no steady long-term push in either direction, at worst you get a few decades or centuries of climate anomalies before whatever forcing factor is causing it subsides. The gerbil's never going to be able to make it up that slope.

Now picture what happens if you start building a bunch of fans or something that blow up one side of the half-pipe hard enough to push the ball 70% of the way up the slope. That's the human contribution, and the gerbil is now going to be able to get a *lot* further up the slope than it would on it's own.

And if you keep adding more fans, and the wind-assisted gerbil manages to make it to the top? Well that's the tipping point - the climate enters a runaway greenhouse process, as it has many times in the past, and we leave the ice age that has gripped the planet for the entire history of our species and transition over the course of a few millenia to a tropical/desert "warm Earth" state, as it has many times in the past. And that transition period is going to be a bitch.

Re:not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[religionofpeas]

Read the article... 30-50% of the warming is due to natural, not man made, effects.

Not warming, but Arctic ice loss. Local climates, such as the Arctic, are sensitive to existing heat moving around the Earth in a different pattern, but global warming is much less affected by that. Global warming is 110% man made, and -10% natural.

Re: not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[minogully]

So now nature is responsible for 100% of the change, even if it may now happen slower. The end result is the same, though, even with the human impact completely removed: the climate change will still happen.

What you don't get is that no one thinks that climate change in and of itself is bad. The problem is the rate at which the climate is changing, which you have admitted is accelerated thanks to humans.

As you are aware, a changing climate forces the organisms that live in that climate to either adapt or relocate. Having a rapidly changing climate removes evolution as a method of adaptation in all organisms except those that have short enough reproductive cycles (ex. bacteria).

So bacteria will most definitely be fine. Birds will probably be fine since they can relocate so easily. But will the birds' food sources be able to adapt? You get the idea.

Re: not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[Immerman]

The fossil record has preserved evidence of many previous transitions, and and it's usually accompanied by good-sized extinction events. That bodes ill for anyone living through it, especially considering we're already in the midst of a pretty major human-caused extinction event - ecological viability could be severely compromised.

And weather will almost certainly become extremely unpredictable as global climates rapidly change. It does not bode well for a species which relies on agriculture for survival when you have no idea what this year's weather will be like when planting your crops.

Re: not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[Dripdry]

Sorry, no, wrong focus. You lose, but get a copy of our home game!
The change over the last 20 or so years has contributed to that. We don't know that would look like in the future.

What we *do* know is that if humans keep emitting CO2, the atmosphere will warm.

Re: not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement.

[david_thornley]

First, there's some reason to believe we're in a very slow temperature decline due to natural causes, so the natural climate change won't necessarily take us in the same direction. Second, the problem is not so much that things are warming up as that things are warming up really fast. If the temperature change took place over several thousand years, it wouldn't be nearly as significant.as a change over a century.

Direct link to paper

[Namarrgon]

Ding Q, J. M. Wallace, D. S. Battisti, E. J. Steig, A. J. E. Gallant, H. J. Ki, L Geng: Tropical forcing of the recent rapid Arctic warming in northeastern Canada and Greenland, [PDF] Nature, 509, 209-212, (2014)

Re:Direct link to paper

[the phantom]

This is not the paper described in the summary, but rather an older paper with some of the same authors. The paper referenced in the summary was published online yesterday in Nature Climate Change. I'm sorry that I can't give a direct link to a .pdf (yay for paywalls keeping all of the non-ivory tower plebs out! huzzah!), but for those with access, the paper can be found at Influence of high-latitude atmospheric circulation changes on summertime Arctic sea ice. For those without access to an academic library, the first author provides an email contact. One presumes that a polite request would yield the full text of the paper.

Re:Direct link to paper

[Namarrgon]

Thanks for the correction. The new paper doesn't appear on Qinghua Ding's publications page, and I've yet to find a non-paywalled link.

Re:Climate "science" has never been consistent.

[Anonymous Coward]

If fighting pollution is your goal, then funding useless academic studies into "global cooling"/"global warming"/"climate change"/"whatever-the-next-nonsensical-theory-will-be-called" is the worst way of achieving it. Generating massaged data for political reasons is the epitome of waste.

If you want to see real change, move those resources over to engineers instead. Allow them to dedicate these resources toward finding ways to obtain power from cleaner energy sources. Allow them to dedicate those resources toward creating improved vehicles with fewer emissions. Allow them to dedicate those resources toward developing more efficient farming, livestock and agricultural techniques and technologies.

Improved technology will solve the problems you describe. But that won't happen as long as more money and resources flow to "scientists" and politicians rather than to real engineers.

Re:Climate "science" has never been consistent.

[Gadget_Guy]

Care to specify which sentences, or are you going to just continue to vaguely decry it as lies without actually addressing anything head on?

Ah, but that would be feeding the trolls. But if you look at the one bit of evidence that was provided (the link to Wikipedia article on global cooling), you find that this is the second sentence:

This hypothesis had little support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the full scope of the scientific climate literature, which showed a larger and faster-growing body of literature projecting future warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.

This directly contradicts the timeline presented that the science lacked consistency. The other massive claim is that there has been no real action to cut down on emissions. This ignores that we are moving to energy efficient products (even to the extent of banning the non-efficient versions). It ignores the construction of renewable and low emission power plants and the phasing out of old, dirty plants. It is such a stupid claim, and an obvious troll.

The rest is just the usual denier bullshit that has been addressed time and time again.

Science versus politics

[Okian Warrior]

I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.

As much as people like to insult and deride the other side, there are valid concerns there. The concerns are so large and looming that the "correct" side has lost a lot of credibility. I think a lot of the public is noticing the elephant in the room, and this is giving the deniers leverage in the minds of the people.

Rather than continue to insult and deride, perhaps it's time to address the credibility gaps.

Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer. Specifically, Bill Nye, who is the global warming champion, didn't have an answer to that question.

Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?

Point 3: Also from Scott Adams is the observation that NO other complex model has ever had predictive value, and why should we believe that this one does?

Point4: From my view, climate change is closely tied with the actions that "we must do to save ourselves!", and those actions are always a) part of the liberal agenda, b) involve reducing our standard of living, and c) negatively impact most people while further lining the pockets of the rich and powerful.

Nowhere do we see proposals that make more electricity available to more people, nowhere does anyone point out that 85% of all resources are used by industry (therefore reducing home electricity consumption is less effective), no one proposes solutions for a decentralized grid, or reducing consumption by giving everyone fast internet access (doing things online generally uses much fewer resources than in person), or changing tax rules to promote telecommuting, or any of a hundred other easy changes that would make our lives better while being more efficient. It's always about enduring more hardship.

Point5: From my view, the "correct side" has lost a lot of credibility simply by their actions over the last 3 months.

If "that side" will riot over the outcome of a fair election, headline unsubstantiated lies, leak secret information for political assassination, call for literal assassination, how is it that they have any credibility over other issues?

Leonardo DiCaprio flies an eyebrow artist 7,000 miles to do his eyebrows, and we're supposed to believe him about global warming?

It's not that I don't believe in the science behind global warming, I do.

I just don't believe in the politics of global warming, that's all.

Re:Science versus politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post makes very interesting points, and I believe that, indeed, more clarity on these issues would greatly benefit the public and thus social policy.

Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?

Regarding your Point 2, the thing with scientific models, particularly the complex ones, is that they are - by their very nature - false, and based on trade-offs. Science of course is not based on 'the one truth', and is more of a progressive repeat-and-improve sort of endeavour, but most models really are essentially wrong and known to be inconsistent with established data. Models are not like laws, which are supposed to be accurate, complete, and definitive. Models are based on assumptions that are often simply incorrect, at best partial, and only useful in their limited application. Their value is in being instrumental to get useful results or predictions in a particular domain. Which is why you need multiple models to get a patchwork understanding of a developing field - that should all get unified into something consistent eventually.

So, yeah, scientists should agree on the best theory and use that. But science is hard and sometimes very slow. Like, decades slow. I don't blame public personalities for not explaining how models work to a public that only reacts to soundbites and would plaster media with "CLIMATE SCIENCE DEBUNKED - MODELS KNOWN TO BE FALSE" the very next day.

Re:Science versus politics

[Immerman]

If all you've heard is "we need to lower everyone's quality of life", then I suspect you've been listening primarily to sources contributing to the smear campaign, because I've heard a great deal of things along the lines of "let's promote transitioning to other energy sources" and "Let's move government subsidies from fossil fuels to emerging alternatives".

The science of anthropogenic global warming itself is actually quite simple - adding more insulation slows heat loss, and the planet has to get hotter until it resumes radiating heat as fast as it's getting it from the sun.

Crude back of the napkin calculations ignoring all subtleties and knock-on effects (the vast majority of which will make things worse): water vapor and CO2 combined are responsible for the vast majority of the greenhouse effect. There's about 10x as much water vapor in the atmosphere as CO2, so assuming both molecules are similarly potent infrared scatterers, CO2 is responsible for about 10% of the total planetary insulation. Human activity since the industrial revolution is clearly responsible for about 25% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, meaning we've increased total planetary insulation by about 2.5%. To restore the energy balance, the planet must therefore radiate about 2.5% more energy. Thermal radiation increases with the 4th power of temperature, so we can therefore expect planetary temperature to increase by a factor of (1.025)^(1/4) = 1.0062, or 0.62%. Current average temperature of the planet is 289K, so that translates to an increase of 1.8C, or 3.2*F, possibly not enough to be devastating on it's own, but quite sufficient to potentially allow normal variability to push things past a tipping point so that the planet transitions back to a tropical/desert state, probably killing most life in the process (a warm Earth is potentially more hospitable, but the transition periods have generally not been kind). And of course that's also only the expected change if we managed to completely halt the increase of CO2 today, which is all but impossible.

Where the model gets complicated is trying to make it predictive in the face of a chaotic system - there's *lots* of different forces in play, and to actually become meaningfully predictive you have to take into consideration at least the overwhelming majority (by effect weight). You don't need any of that to know that "doing X is going to be very bad", but you *do* need it if it's clear that "doing X" will continue despite your warnings, and you want to be able to predict what exactly "very bad" is likely to mean so that you can start preparing for it.

Basically, most of the climate science for the last few decades or so has had little to do with proving human responsibility - that was already done many decades ago and the observations are continuing to support those crude predictions relatively well. Current research is trying to make the model usefully predictive so that we can pinpoint where exactly the tipping point is (have we passed it already? Is there realistic hope for avoiding it?), as well as giving us as much warning as possible as to what we need to prepare for.

For example, over a decade ago I attended a talk by a group who had run by far the most detailed simulation of expected climate change effects in California over the next few decades - which predicted that within ~30 (50? I forget) years California would no longer have any substantial snow pack, meaning their water would come almost entirely as floods. Their recommendation was to start building dams immediately since due to the engineering and political challenges, dams have an expected 20+ year lag between when the decision to build them is made, and when they're actually completed. Got to start the process today if you want to have them finished in time to be useful. Thus far, their predictions seem to be holding up fairly well.

As for DiCaprio's hygiene choices - so he's a hypocrite, so what? So am I for that matter, though I don't have the resources to be nearly so excessive

Re:Science versus politics

[Bender0x7D1]

Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer.

The answer is 50-70% according to this latest research.

Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?

Define "best model". For example, one model may be the best method for describing Europe and the Arctic. Another may be the best for describing ocean temperatures. One may be the best for the years 1998-2003, another 2004-20013. The truth is that there is no "one best" model. So, we run them all and plot all of their results and crunch the numbers to try and get the best answer we can.

Point 3: Also from Scott Adams is the observation that NO other complex model has ever had predictive value, and why should we believe that this one does? Why are you disregarding all the other, non-complex models?

The key word you use here is "complex". You see, any time you start adding adjectives, you are starting to cheat/hide/skew the system. For example: Define complex. Define the accuracy for predictive value. Also, why are you automatically disregarding other, less complex models from your consideration?

Point4: From my view, climate change is closely tied with the actions that "we must do to save ourselves!", and those actions are always a) part of the liberal agenda, b) involve reducing our standard of living, and c) negatively impact most people while further lining the pockets of the rich and powerful.

You have a number of ideas here. So, just because a certain group - in this case liberals - advocate a certain action doesn't mean they are wrong. If a member of the KKK said you should evacuate a building that is on fire, just because you don't like the person doesn't mean you shouldn't evacuate. As for (b) - yes, we are consuming too much, and need to knock it off if we want everyone to have a life that doesn't completely suck! Are you willing to air condition a 400 sq ft. home, so the difference in energy compared to what you consume now can air condition a 100 sq ft. room in Africa? No? Well, I don't care - it is your decision. However, a lot of people will think you are a jerk for consuming tens, if not hundreds, of times the resources of someone barely scraping by in some areas of the planet. Plus, the world can't sustain a high standard of living for everyone - at least, not without a LOT more preparation and engineering. For (c), I call bullshit. If you want to claim that, give me some numbers and scenarios. I doubt the executive at Exxon-Mobile are going to make more money by protecting the environment instead of taking actions to maximize their profits. (Or, for that matter, the local Jiffy Lube. They would save a fortune by burning the used oil, or dumping it in a stream.)

Okay, I ran out of motivation to refute all of your arguments. However, even if we aren't 100% responsible for global warming; and the uneaten food from your plate doesn't teleport to the people starving in Africa; and the electricity you don't use doesn't magically turn lights on in some cr*ppy hut somewhere; it doesn't mean we can't do a little bit more to help out other people in the world and help protect the environment.

Re:Science versus politics

[pointybits]

Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer.

Getting your climate science from people yelling at each other on TV (or Scott Adams for that matter) is a bad idea.

From IPCC AR5, back in 2013: It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.

Re:Science versus politics

[pointybits]

Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer.

The answer is 50-70% according to this latest research.

Don't confuse the effects on Arctic ice with global warming. This research is saying that 50-70% of the ice melt is caused by the temperature increase from global warming. Our current best estimate is that 100% of global warming is caused by human activity.

Re:Science versus politics

[ishmaelflood]

" Our current best estimate is that 100% of global warming is caused by human activity. [realclimate.org]"

Gosh, that is quite hilarious. Presumably you have heard of Ice Ages large and small and the Holocene optimum. Why has natural variation in temperatures ceased just because we are on the scene?

I'll assume you are going to claim fossil fuel burning is a large part of changes since 1880 (I would), but if you look at HADCET you'll see that recent (since 1880) spikes in temperature change are not unusual in rapidity or amplitude over the few hundred years of that data. Now I realise I am using HADCET as a proxy for global temperatures, but its a damn sight better than a few trees.

100% wow. 100% he he hee. Thanks, you've cheered me up no end, the chicken littles really are just plain silly

Re:Science versus politics

[religionofpeas]

Why has natural variation in temperatures ceased just because we are on the scene?

You are quite correct, it hasn't. Natural variation accounts for -10%, and human contribution is actually 110%.

Re:Science versus politics

[tbannist]

Gosh, that is quite hilarious. Presumably you have heard of Ice Ages large and small and the Holocene optimum. Why has natural variation in temperatures ceased just because we are on the scene?

Because you apparently don't know this: the long term natural trend is towards lower temperatures. Looking at the historical record, we see a significant upwards spike at the end of each glacial period followed by a slow decline (10-20 thousands years) into the next glacial period. Our post-glacial spike period ended thousands of years ago and the earth has been in a slow slide into the next glacial period since then. While there is some natural variability, over relatively short time scales (20 years) that variability tends to negate itself, and the longer term variability is actually currently net negative, meaning it's cooling the earth and slowing down climate change.

So when the natural factors are a net negative trend then human activity, by elimination, is responsible for 100% of the net positive trend. That's not even science, it's just math.

Re:Science versus politics

[Dripdry]

You had me up until the Leo part. Seriously, you cap it off with that?

So what? The president probably has his hookers flown in from Russia. That's wasteful too.

An appeal to emotion like that just... come on, really?

Or.

[jxander]

"Arctic Ice Loss driven by mankind, not just natural swings, says study with a better headline" Of course natural has always played a part; the existence of an ice age should pretty much wrap up that argument. Leading the headline with "caused by natural swings" seems duplicitous.

This can't be true. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

because that would make Bill Nye wrong.

Re: Climate "science" has never been consistent.

[PoopJuggler]

Right, because engineers will know how to target the problem without any science to identify where the problem comes from. There should be both.

Now we know why models underestimated sea ice loss

[Layzej]

This study may partly explain why models drastically underestimated Arctic sea ice loss: http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6...

Possibly sea ice loss due to man made global warming is in line with projections, but natural variability causes the observed melting to oscillate outside of projections. If so we should see the melt rate slow over the next few decades.

Fluctuating temperatures

[phantomfive]

The graph of historical temperatures in the arctic is really helpful. Traditionally there are massive temperature swings in the arctic, during the arctic night (which of course lasts all winter). In the summer, it begins to stabilize. The temperature swings are caused by wind, as massive fronts move across the region (or out of the region, as with the polar vortex).

Incidentally, winter temperatures in the arctic are not directly from the greenhouse effect, because there is no sun and you need sun for the CO2 to make a difference. At best the warming from anthropogenic sources is a secondary effect (which can still be large).

Re:Fluctuating temperatures

[phantomfive]

Here is the actual study, in case anyone wants to read it. TFA is not so informative. I am interested in reading it and figuring out how exactly they came to the 50% measurement.

Re:Fluctuating temperatures

[tbannist]

Incidentally, winter temperatures in the arctic are not directly from the greenhouse effect, because there is no sun and you need sun for the CO2 to make a difference.

I'm not sure that statement is true. As I understand it, the greenhouse effect works primarily on heat radiated from the earth, and I've seen multiple articles that indicate that lower heat loss (and thus warmer temperatures) during the night is a key fingerprint of global warming. Thus winter temperatures in the Arctic should still be affected by the greenhouse effect through lowered heat loss during the long Arctic winter, thus keeping the surface temperature warmer for longer. It's certainly possible that it's not the primary driver but it should be a component of the temperature forcing.

Re:Fluctuating temperatures

[phantomfive]

That's a good point.

Re:Fake data = fake study

[Gadget_Guy]

You are going to need some actual proof if you want to claim that the data is fake. The fact that you don't like the word trick is simply not enough. For a conspiracy as massive as what you suggest, you should easily be able to find dozens, if not hundreds, of disillusioned scientists who came into the profession thinking that they were saving the world. These people would be able to furnish actual proof massive levels of fraud. So where are they?

Instead, we have the same level of paranoid ravings as that associated with the faked moon landing and Elvis still being alive. It would be less laughable if it wasn't for the fact that deniers scorn the early temperature records as being unreliable and that scientists don't take the urban heat island effect into account, while simultaneously claiming that any adjustments made to old data to correct for errors are actually attempts to fake the data. You can't have it both ways.

Re:OK. Nuclear Energy. Also PYMWYMI.

[Highdude702]

HAHAHAHAHA You think the liberals will do that? No no no. They want us POOR people to stop spending our money on nice things, you know the one thing that makes most peoples life not seem like shit(mine included). And they want us to pay for the efforts. But the fact that the 1%(dem/rep) will never ever give that up, they will continue to bitch and complain. While the whole time brainwashing children and what i assume to be people who dont really care(as nobody can be that stupid, can they?) into thinking that they dont use 100x as much of the resources that any normal human being does.

Re:Now we know why models underestimated sea ice l

[religionofpeas]

If so we should see the melt rate slow over the next few decades.

Not necessarily. The Arctic area is subject to numerous feedback mechanisms, including albedo changes (dark water absorb more energy than white ice), increasing currents (feeding in warm waters), change in moisture contents (moving energy due to phase changes), change in winds (exporting ice to warmer water), salinity changes (salt water freezes slower), weather pattern changes due to different temperature gradients, algae growth on ice (increasing albedo), and plenty more...

It's quite possible that we can reach a tipping point where the feedback overwhelms natural variation. It's also possible that these natural looking variations are actually influenced by the changes in the Arctic.

Re:From the "no shit" department

[Anonymous Coward]

Please cite your source for "96 or 97 percent of scientists say".

Anyway, science is not a voting booth. Nature doesn't care if 97% of scientists are wrong.

Btw, I know the source of the 97% number. It's bullshit. I just want -you- to look that up to find out for yourself it's bullshit since you are unlikely to simply believe me. And you shouldn't believe me ... or any other random jerk on the net who tells you the sky is falling. Go do your own research and read things that don't necessarily confirm your biases.

Re:Now we know why models underestimated sea ice l

[stoatwblr]

There's also a lot of methane being tossed into warmer arctic waters, which keeps them churned up and harder to freeze.

If there continue to be warm water incursions from the Atlantic there's a very real risk of a clathrate slump offshore from Siberia (the Laptev Sea methane venting is showing no sign of abating) and if that happens then apart from the tsunami damage the longer-term effects are likely to be nasty. Dissolved oceanic methane levels are already problematic and there's a strong possibility of an anoxic event already being underway.

Re:Effects are logarithmic

[Immerman]

Do you have a credible source for that claim, because the only sources I can find are from "skeptic" sites that show a rather appalling understanding of the science.

For example - the claim seems to commonly be linked to a graph showing temperatures versus CO2 levels over the last couple of centuries, and point out that temperatures are increasing linearly while CO2 is increasing exponentially. Voila! Logarithmic relationship, right?

Well, yeah, but, it's completely coincidental, because you're looking at two very fundamentally different things: CO2 levels, which influence instantaneous heating, and temperature, which reflects the long accumulation of that heat. It's energy versus power - no direct relationship exists.

Think of it like putting a huge pot of water on to boil and then fiddling with the flame while measuring the temperature to find the relationship between flame height and temperature. Go ahead, try it - start on full flame, and then gradually reduce to a meager glow. The temperature in the pan will meanwhile increase at a gradually slowing rate. Congratulations - you've just shown that flame height and temperature have an inverse relationship - clearly decreasing the flame height increases the temperature of the water, right?

The proper way to do the experiment would be to make a change in the flame height, and then wait until the temperature stopped changing before measuring it - that would show you the actual relationship. Higher flame = higher temperature, according to some complex function that includes all the different ways that heat is shed into the environment. We can't do that with the Earth though, because it's *huge*, and it would take centuries for the temperature to stop changing, and nobody is willing to hold CO2 levels constant for that long. As it is, much of the temperature change so far is due to carbon that was put into the atmosphere a century ago, and increases in the last couple decades have barely begun to show their effect.

Re:OK. Nuclear Energy. Also PYMWYMI.

[david_thornley]

If AGW is as bad as you say, worst crisis ever, an existential threat to the species - then you should all cut your energy use by 25%, if not more.

It isn't an existential threat to the species. Homo sapiens is extremely adaptable (frequently by technological means) and has proven to be tough to eradicate.

Also, if I were to reduce my energy usage, nothing noticeable would happen. This is a "tragedy of the commons" situation, and we need collective action.

Re:From the "no shit" department

[riverat1]

Anyway, science is not a voting booth. Nature doesn't care if 97% of scientists are wrong.

Nature doesn't care if 100% of climate science deniers are wrong either.