It's true that people on both sides of the issue make to much out of any single weather event. I try to resist but I've been guilty of that myself occasionally. The truth will ultimately be told in the long term statistics, IOW the climate.
One thing's for sure. If some of the worst case scenarios for global warming come to pass the population problem will take care of itself. It will happen through famine, war over resources and the pestilence that comes with a breakdown of our civilization so it won't be pretty, but it will happen.
Why do you think the IPCC no longer uses the Hockey-stick graph?
They don't use Mann's original hockey stick graph from 1998 any more because it's 15 years old and numerous other newer reconstructions have been done since then. But if you take a look at Chapter 5 - "Information from Paleoclimate Archives" of the IPCC AR5 - WG I report you'll find that figures 5.7 & 5.8 still look remarkably like the original hockey stick graph. So they've got newer versions of it.
What is interesting here is that they seem to have no problem in their big report reducing warming projections by half...
I take it that you're talking about the new IPCC AR5 WG1 report and I can't figure out how you read that into it. In general the projections from that report don't appear to be significantly different than they were in the AR4 to me.
If they "cyclic surges" you're talking about are the glacial/interglacial cycles that occur about every 100,000 years for the past more than a million years the changes in insolation due to Milankovitch Cycles appear to be a triggering mechanism and feedbacks help amplify the effects.
I have no problem with helping the process along. If the external costs of using fossil fuels were internalized and incorporated in the price they would already be too expensive to use.
The truth is that IF solar output is indeed declining, the earth's climate is going to dramatically cool...
You only think that if you think climate scientists are full of it. What climate scientists say is that a new Maunder minimum like period would only delay the warming by a decade or so.
What "the consensus" has said is that the observed variations of the Sun's activity are not enough to account fully for the climate changes observed and that at best it is only a second order effect. They do recognize that if the Sun were to have say a 10% change in activity that it would have a major effect.
I note that global climate seems to be going through a startlingly fast, almost uniquely fast change. (Well, ok, there are similar almost-vertical pulses of warming about every 120-140kY.)
Available evidence indicates that the current rate of change is at least an order of magnitude greater than what occurred during glacial/interglacial transitions. The resolution of the records of past changes is limited to at least a century scale but the last transition to the current interglacial took over 10,000 years to happen.
Well, given that our star is unlikely to be significantly different than the (at least) thousands of other stars in its class that we also have observed that are in different stages of their life cycles I think we have a reasonable idea of what to expect in general.
If your questions have no scientific basis then they're just junk. If you can pose questions in a scientifically valid way that takes known science into account then go for it.
IPCC-predicted temperature increases will cause less disruption than the kind of carbon emission reductions that would be necessary to "stabilize" the climate.
I think people who say that lack imagination for the possibilities of technological advances.
Lately research has pretty much shot down the idea of a really significant role for cosmic rays impacting climate. This Guardian article contains links to several recent papers on the subject.
This is why the climate models from the 80's and 90's that predicted Florida and London under water in 2010 were incorrect.
Oh please, if you could cite an actual reference for this I'd be flabbergasted. Instead the predictions of sea level rise have generally been very conservative and have been adjusted upward over the years. You really need to pay better attention to the time scales involved with these predictions.
What the effect of global warming will be at what we can do about it are the subjects of the IPCC Working Group II and Working Group III reports respectively. The reports for the AR5 are due out next year but to could go back and review the reports from the AR4 now. The science in those areas is less certain than the basis for the Working Group I report on the causes but they compile the best science we currently have.
It was actually a toss-up at the time (in science, not public opinion)...
Perhaps but the fact that from 1965 to 1979 the number of papers on warming outnumbered the number of papers on cooling by 6 to 1 shows they were already leaning toward warming. Link.
Consensus in science is not something that is imposed. I develops organically as practitioners in a field find there is nothing serious to argue about any more in a particular area of the field. For those outside of the field your best bet is generally to go with a consensus.
Even on useless boondoggles the money gets spent in the economy. It's not like they take the money, pile it up and burn it. You still pay for the material and labor to build them. Everyone involved gets payed and then has the opportunity to spend in the economy. Maybe the money could have been spent better but it was still spent.
Slashdot Mirror
You misuse the word theory. In scientific terms you have a hypothesis. You need to collect a lot of supporting data to turn it in to a theory.
It's true that people on both sides of the issue make to much out of any single weather event. I try to resist but I've been guilty of that myself occasionally. The truth will ultimately be told in the long term statistics, IOW the climate.
(as opposed to throwing spaghetti against the wall)
Since I'm not a follower of the FSM can someone tell me if that's blasphemous or a sacred rite?
One thing's for sure. If some of the worst case scenarios for global warming come to pass the population problem will take care of itself. It will happen through famine, war over resources and the pestilence that comes with a breakdown of our civilization so it won't be pretty, but it will happen.
Another idiot who doesn't understand the difference between weather and climate and the effects of natural variability.
Why do you think the IPCC no longer uses the Hockey-stick graph?
They don't use Mann's original hockey stick graph from 1998 any more because it's 15 years old and numerous other newer reconstructions have been done since then. But if you take a look at Chapter 5 - "Information from Paleoclimate Archives" of the IPCC AR5 - WG I report you'll find that figures 5.7 & 5.8 still look remarkably like the original hockey stick graph. So they've got newer versions of it.
What is interesting here is that they seem to have no problem in their big report reducing warming projections by half ...
I take it that you're talking about the new IPCC AR5 WG1 report and I can't figure out how you read that into it. In general the projections from that report don't appear to be significantly different than they were in the AR4 to me.
If they "cyclic surges" you're talking about are the glacial/interglacial cycles that occur about every 100,000 years for the past more than a million years the changes in insolation due to Milankovitch Cycles appear to be a triggering mechanism and feedbacks help amplify the effects.
You didn't fix anything. The Sun doesn't have nearly enough mass to go nova. It's built into the physics.
I have no problem with helping the process along. If the external costs of using fossil fuels were internalized and incorporated in the price they would already be too expensive to use.
The truth is that IF solar output is indeed declining, the earth's climate is going to dramatically cool...
You only think that if you think climate scientists are full of it. What climate scientists say is that a new Maunder minimum like period would only delay the warming by a decade or so.
What "the consensus" has said is that the observed variations of the Sun's activity are not enough to account fully for the climate changes observed and that at best it is only a second order effect. They do recognize that if the Sun were to have say a 10% change in activity that it would have a major effect.
I note that global climate seems to be going through a startlingly fast, almost uniquely fast change. (Well, ok, there are similar almost-vertical pulses of warming about every 120-140kY.)
Available evidence indicates that the current rate of change is at least an order of magnitude greater than what occurred during glacial/interglacial transitions. The resolution of the records of past changes is limited to at least a century scale but the last transition to the current interglacial took over 10,000 years to happen.
Well, given that our star is unlikely to be significantly different than the (at least) thousands of other stars in its class that we also have observed that are in different stages of their life cycles I think we have a reasonable idea of what to expect in general.
If your questions have no scientific basis then they're just junk. If you can pose questions in a scientifically valid way that takes known science into account then go for it.
IPCC-predicted temperature increases will cause less disruption than the kind of carbon emission reductions that would be necessary to "stabilize" the climate.
I think people who say that lack imagination for the possibilities of technological advances.
Risk management principles say that the less you know about a risk the more it is worth to try and avoid it.
Lately research has pretty much shot down the idea of a really significant role for cosmic rays impacting climate. This Guardian article contains links to several recent papers on the subject.
This is why the climate models from the 80's and 90's that predicted Florida and London under water in 2010 were incorrect.
Oh please, if you could cite an actual reference for this I'd be flabbergasted. Instead the predictions of sea level rise have generally been very conservative and have been adjusted upward over the years. You really need to pay better attention to the time scales involved with these predictions.
From what I've seen it buys about a decade at best. And it does nothing about the ocean acidification problem.
The meme I've seen is "if we do something like the tree-huggers demand of us, we'll all be shivering in the dark".
And they call us "alarmists".
What the effect of global warming will be at what we can do about it are the subjects of the IPCC Working Group II and Working Group III reports respectively. The reports for the AR5 are due out next year but to could go back and review the reports from the AR4 now. The science in those areas is less certain than the basis for the Working Group I report on the causes but they compile the best science we currently have.
It was actually a toss-up at the time (in science, not public opinion) ...
Perhaps but the fact that from 1965 to 1979 the number of papers on warming outnumbered the number of papers on cooling by 6 to 1 shows they were already leaning toward warming. Link.
Consensus in science is not something that is imposed. I develops organically as practitioners in a field find there is nothing serious to argue about any more in a particular area of the field. For those outside of the field your best bet is generally to go with a consensus.
Even on useless boondoggles the money gets spent in the economy. It's not like they take the money, pile it up and burn it. You still pay for the material and labor to build them. Everyone involved gets payed and then has the opportunity to spend in the economy. Maybe the money could have been spent better but it was still spent.