Of course not. We need to keep in mind that my views are consistent with actual evidence in climate research. For example, a very low temperature forcing of a doubling of CO2 remains consistent with the IPCC's reports.
From the latest IPCC report:
As estimated by the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) "there is high confidence that ECS is extremely unlikely less than 1C and medium confidence that the ECS is likely between 1.5C and 4.5C and very unlikely greater than 6C."
You appear to be assuming the low end of the range is most likely. That's probably a bad bet too. Even 1.5C of warming is significant.
"Eventually" is many decades.
Eventually was probably the wrong word to use. It could happen at any time if someone comes up with scientific evidence that overturns the current theory. Of course in a decade or two it will likely be obvious that they current science is mostly correct and we missed a chance to reduce the future disruption of climate by that much more.
And my belief is that many scientists are that cheap. Let us keep in mind the nearest analogy, that of economics, which is one of the few fields of science which actually has similar order of magnitude stakes. There you have quite a few economists prostituting themselves to the rich and powerful.
Your analogy is BS. Economics is dependent to a large degree on human actions which aren't always that predictable. Some economists may be prostituting themselves to the rich and powerful but I don't see that they have been successful at predicting the future. For example the austerity mavens were predicting runaway inflation due to the Fed shoveling money into the economy but it never happened. The hard sciences are dependent on the real world which has predictable reactions. The science has to conform to the real world or it is soon found to be wanting. The basic things that climate science has predicted are coming true. The world is getting warmer, ice is melting, sea level is rising and the oceans are acidifying. All this appears to be happening at a rate that is many times the rate of any period in the past (except maybe asteroid strikes). What will happen in the future is uncertain because we don't have any good examples from the past for this kind of change. You can assume it won't be that bad but what do you base that on, some personal feelings. I'd rather listen to the scientists.
You claim that scientists can be bought but show me some climate scientist who has got filthy rich. Many of them at the top of their field make low six figure incomes but that's kind of the standard for that level of scientist. They are merely well off. Yes they get grant funding but none of that money gets turned into personal gain. Instead it is spent on doing science.
Of course you're betting that thousands of scientists are wrong and things won't be that bad. In a world where science has brought us most of the progress we've made that's probably a bad bet. You think scientists are in it for money or some socialist agenda but they're smart enough to know if they are purposely distorting the science for aims like that someone will eventually show that and destroy their scientific reputations. I doubt many scientists are willing to do that when they know reality can't be changed to fit some agenda (even your agenda).
Phil Jones did not lose any original data, he merely deleted his copy of it since he didn't need it any more. The original data is still available from the original sources.
Well the inverse is true as well, there really is no evidence that that the past warming will continue to dangerous levels a century from now as there hasn't been any warming for a little over 18 years now. There are some computer simulations that didn't predict the current warming hiatus, and none of those simulations have demonstrated any predictive ability.
Except that with 2014, 2015 and 2016* we will have 3 years in a row of the hottest year on record. How does that fit in with your "18 years of no warming"?
That you think the global climate models should be able to predict a warming hiatus just shows you don't understand what climate models are capable of. The effects of natural variability are currently impossible to predict ahead of time. Things like the dominance of La Ninas, a slightly higher rate of volcanic aerosols being produced and a slight drop in solar insolation combined to slightly reduce the rate of warming during the so called hiatus. If you pick out individual model runs that by coincidence happened to better match the natural variability of those 18 years (mostly matching the pattern of La Ninas) they match the evolution of temperatures over that period pretty well.
But in the long run the effects of natural variability tend to average out to a net effect of zero and that's what climate models do, model the climate effects over the long run. That's what climate models should be judged on, their projections over the long run. Since the classical climate period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization is 30 years that would be an appropriate period for them to be judged on.
*Yes, I know that 2016 isn't over yet but January through May of 2016 have been so hot globally (around 1.15 C anomaly) that the rest of the year would have to average a temperature anomaly below 0.66 C for it not to set a new record. That's extremely unlikely.
The field of risk management is all about making decisions about what to do when the possible outcomes are not clear. One of the tenets is the more uncertainty about a potentially bad outcome the more value there is in trying to avoid it.
Regarding climate change we can wait a few decades to better understand how bad it's going to be but if we do that there's no possibility of reversing course on a short enough time scale to make much difference. We will be committed at that point.
The restructuring is happening as we speak. The cost of renewable energy is on a course to be cheaper than fossil fuel energy in a decade or so. But we could be doing it faster to hopefully avoid some very negative outcomes.
You're staking your future on the scientists being wrong (or at least overpredicting the possible negative consequences). I don't think that's a very wise bet to be making.
1000 ppm in less than 200 years assumes we continue BAU and don't do anything to curb our CO2 emissions. I actually expect we will come to our senses about it and will curb emissions. Maybe we can stop it around 600 ppm. But then you have to consider the emissions from melting permafrost and methane clathrates which we don't have a good handle on yet so it's hard to say what the maximum will be. The ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland didn't start forming until CO2 levels dropped below about 700 ppm.
No, it's just not verifiable on the short time scale you want to use. Tell me how nothing has changed in 30 years. (Actually you'll have to tell someone else, I'm old enough it's unlikely I'll be alive then.)
Do you have any idea how big and long lasting the conspiracy would have to be to sustain your assertion? If they're good enough to keep it going for over 30 years for all scientists around the world you might as well give up.
And regarding bureaucrats the WG1 which is about the scientific basis for AGW is done by scientists, not bureaucrats.
Don't get hyperbolic about it. Things will continue to change slowly and some years will be better than others but in 20 or 30 years you can look back and see that things have changed.
The only people who think the climategate emails were all that significant are the climate science deniers who have motivation to think so. They have nothing to combat science with actual science so the have to attack the practitioners of science instead.
Of course I was just being snarky. But if you're not an old fart like me the reality of global warming and the concomitant climate change it causes will have a significant effect on your life whether you like it or not.
That works well for CO2 concentrations from about 50 years ago back to around 800,000 years ago. Before that you have to use proxies that are less exact.
Right now you're costing ME a lot, in the form of your retarded carbon taxes and other assorted annoyances.So why don't you sod off and start financing your religion with your own money?
The phrase for your attitude is "Penny wise and pound foolish". What is as several economic analyses have indicated it costs you twice as much to wait as it does to do something about it now?
The IPCC reports are basically a compilation and review of the current literature in the field of climate science. When they come out they are already a year or two behind the most current science.
Everyone who doesn't believe in our global warming religion is going to get cooked by it just as bad as those who do believe. It's an equal opportunity phenomenon.
ROTHFLMAO! The "leaked" emails were an exercise in quote mining and taking things out of context. The more you try to make them into something significant the more you look like a fool yourself.
If you don't like what the data says do you automatically assume it's unreliable? For me the default is to consider it reliable in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary. A lot of people claim the data scientists are manipulating temperature data to support their science but they never look at the published papers that explain why and how the adjustments are being made and try to produce scientific evidence why those are invalid. Even when a group of (real) skeptics in the Berkeley Earth group took a look at the temperature record and came up with their own independent methods of making the needed adjustments and came up with essentially the same thing as all of the other groups the (fake) skeptics still reject it. The fact is that until relatively recently the temperature records were not collected with climate considerations in mind so they are far from perfect. They need to be cleaned up to be useful.
Science is not about being sure. It's about doing the best we can with the evidence that's available. If the theory holds together without any gaping holes then it's unlikely there are any significant unanticipated factors but of course science is always subject to revision pending new evidence. But assuming there is something missing without any evidence that there is something missing is just wishful thinking.
Nice to see that someone hates me:) I think value is in the eye of the beholder. I guess some folks with mod points liked what I said. If you don't like what I'm saying then come up with some credible evidence to counter it.
When it comes to CO2 and its role in global warming no one has come up with any credible evidence to counter it. Lots of people try to claim it's the Sun or it's just natural cycles but the never present any solid evidence for their claims. Science is all about being able to back up your hypotheses with real evidence.
The "scientists" are looking at ~120 years of data and make predictions reaching thousands of years into the future. Something tells me those "scientists" are really snake oil salesman looking for grants who have as much credibility as those "scientists" doumenting water canals on mars in the 19th century.
Scientists may be looking at ~150 years of detailed temperature measurements but they're also looking at 100s of thousands of years if detailed ice core records and proxy data going back billions of years. They are not making predictions reaching thousands of years into the future except in a speculative way. Detailed projections based on plausible scenarios go out perhaps 100 years at most.
Of course it has been under 1,000 ppm for the entire existence of humans.
But the real problem isn't the level of CO2 but how fast it is changing. If it slowly rose to 1,000 ppm over 10,000 years or more then life would have time to adapt. At the rate it's going it could hit 1,000 in less than 200 years and that's going to cause lots of disruption. It remains to be seen how well our civilization will cope with it.
Maybe if you paid attention to what the scientists have actually been saying instead of listening to hyperbolic ranters you would understand the actual time scale of the predictions.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course not. We need to keep in mind that my views are consistent with actual evidence in climate research. For example, a very low temperature forcing of a doubling of CO2 remains consistent with the IPCC's reports.
From the latest IPCC report:
As estimated by the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) "there is high confidence that ECS is extremely unlikely less than 1C and medium confidence that the ECS is likely between 1.5C and 4.5C and very unlikely greater than 6C."
You appear to be assuming the low end of the range is most likely. That's probably a bad bet too. Even 1.5C of warming is significant.
"Eventually" is many decades.
Eventually was probably the wrong word to use. It could happen at any time if someone comes up with scientific evidence that overturns the current theory. Of course in a decade or two it will likely be obvious that they current science is mostly correct and we missed a chance to reduce the future disruption of climate by that much more.
And my belief is that many scientists are that cheap. Let us keep in mind the nearest analogy, that of economics, which is one of the few fields of science which actually has similar order of magnitude stakes. There you have quite a few economists prostituting themselves to the rich and powerful.
Your analogy is BS. Economics is dependent to a large degree on human actions which aren't always that predictable. Some economists may be prostituting themselves to the rich and powerful but I don't see that they have been successful at predicting the future. For example the austerity mavens were predicting runaway inflation due to the Fed shoveling money into the economy but it never happened.
The hard sciences are dependent on the real world which has predictable reactions. The science has to conform to the real world or it is soon found to be wanting. The basic things that climate science has predicted are coming true. The world is getting warmer, ice is melting, sea level is rising and the oceans are acidifying. All this appears to be happening at a rate that is many times the rate of any period in the past (except maybe asteroid strikes). What will happen in the future is uncertain because we don't have any good examples from the past for this kind of change. You can assume it won't be that bad but what do you base that on, some personal feelings. I'd rather listen to the scientists.
You claim that scientists can be bought but show me some climate scientist who has got filthy rich. Many of them at the top of their field make low six figure incomes but that's kind of the standard for that level of scientist. They are merely well off. Yes they get grant funding but none of that money gets turned into personal gain. Instead it is spent on doing science.
Of course you're betting that thousands of scientists are wrong and things won't be that bad. In a world where science has brought us most of the progress we've made that's probably a bad bet. You think scientists are in it for money or some socialist agenda but they're smart enough to know if they are purposely distorting the science for aims like that someone will eventually show that and destroy their scientific reputations. I doubt many scientists are willing to do that when they know reality can't be changed to fit some agenda (even your agenda).
Phil Jones did not lose any original data, he merely deleted his copy of it since he didn't need it any more. The original data is still available from the original sources.
Well the inverse is true as well, there really is no evidence that that the past warming will continue to dangerous levels a century from now as there hasn't been any warming for a little over 18 years now. There are some computer simulations that didn't predict the current warming hiatus, and none of those simulations have demonstrated any predictive ability.
Except that with 2014, 2015 and 2016* we will have 3 years in a row of the hottest year on record. How does that fit in with your "18 years of no warming"?
That you think the global climate models should be able to predict a warming hiatus just shows you don't understand what climate models are capable of. The effects of natural variability are currently impossible to predict ahead of time. Things like the dominance of La Ninas, a slightly higher rate of volcanic aerosols being produced and a slight drop in solar insolation combined to slightly reduce the rate of warming during the so called hiatus. If you pick out individual model runs that by coincidence happened to better match the natural variability of those 18 years (mostly matching the pattern of La Ninas) they match the evolution of temperatures over that period pretty well.
But in the long run the effects of natural variability tend to average out to a net effect of zero and that's what climate models do, model the climate effects over the long run. That's what climate models should be judged on, their projections over the long run. Since the classical climate period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization is 30 years that would be an appropriate period for them to be judged on.
One other comment on the so called hiatus, there has not been a significant change in the temperature trend by standard statistical tests. Here is an analysis by a statistician who used several different statistical techniques to try an find a statistically significant change in temperature trends. None of them showed a significant change.
*Yes, I know that 2016 isn't over yet but January through May of 2016 have been so hot globally (around 1.15 C anomaly) that the rest of the year would have to average a temperature anomaly below 0.66 C for it not to set a new record. That's extremely unlikely.
The field of risk management is all about making decisions about what to do when the possible outcomes are not clear. One of the tenets is the more uncertainty about a potentially bad outcome the more value there is in trying to avoid it.
Regarding climate change we can wait a few decades to better understand how bad it's going to be but if we do that there's no possibility of reversing course on a short enough time scale to make much difference. We will be committed at that point.
The restructuring is happening as we speak. The cost of renewable energy is on a course to be cheaper than fossil fuel energy in a decade or so. But we could be doing it faster to hopefully avoid some very negative outcomes.
You're staking your future on the scientists being wrong (or at least overpredicting the possible negative consequences). I don't think that's a very wise bet to be making.
You have yet to bring any scientific evidence to the argument. I will say that my 50 years comment may have been optimistic.
But here are some links to ice core research with scientific data:
800,000-year Ice-Core Records of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Historical Carbon Dioxide Record from the Vostok Ice Core
Data for Historical CO2 Record from the Vostok Ice Core
1000 ppm in less than 200 years assumes we continue BAU and don't do anything to curb our CO2 emissions. I actually expect we will come to our senses about it and will curb emissions. Maybe we can stop it around 600 ppm. But then you have to consider the emissions from melting permafrost and methane clathrates which we don't have a good handle on yet so it's hard to say what the maximum will be. The ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland didn't start forming until CO2 levels dropped below about 700 ppm.
No, it's just not verifiable on the short time scale you want to use. Tell me how nothing has changed in 30 years. (Actually you'll have to tell someone else, I'm old enough it's unlikely I'll be alive then.)
You don't have to take my word for it. But you ignore the scientists word at your own peril.
Do you have any idea how big and long lasting the conspiracy would have to be to sustain your assertion? If they're good enough to keep it going for over 30 years for all scientists around the world you might as well give up.
And regarding bureaucrats the WG1 which is about the scientific basis for AGW is done by scientists, not bureaucrats.
Don't get hyperbolic about it. Things will continue to change slowly and some years will be better than others but in 20 or 30 years you can look back and see that things have changed.
The only people who think the climategate emails were all that significant are the climate science deniers who have motivation to think so. They have nothing to combat science with actual science so the have to attack the practitioners of science instead.
Of course I was just being snarky. But if you're not an old fart like me the reality of global warming and the concomitant climate change it causes will have a significant effect on your life whether you like it or not.
That works well for CO2 concentrations from about 50 years ago back to around 800,000 years ago. Before that you have to use proxies that are less exact.
Right now you're costing ME a lot, in the form of your retarded carbon taxes and other assorted annoyances.So why don't you sod off and start financing your religion with your own money?
The phrase for your attitude is "Penny wise and pound foolish". What is as several economic analyses have indicated it costs you twice as much to wait as it does to do something about it now?
The IPCC reports are basically a compilation and review of the current literature in the field of climate science. When they come out they are already a year or two behind the most current science.
Everyone who doesn't believe in our global warming religion is going to get cooked by it just as bad as those who do believe. It's an equal opportunity phenomenon.
ROTHFLMAO! The "leaked" emails were an exercise in quote mining and taking things out of context. The more you try to make them into something significant the more you look like a fool yourself.
If you don't like what the data says do you automatically assume it's unreliable? For me the default is to consider it reliable in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary. A lot of people claim the data scientists are manipulating temperature data to support their science but they never look at the published papers that explain why and how the adjustments are being made and try to produce scientific evidence why those are invalid. Even when a group of (real) skeptics in the Berkeley Earth group took a look at the temperature record and came up with their own independent methods of making the needed adjustments and came up with essentially the same thing as all of the other groups the (fake) skeptics still reject it. The fact is that until relatively recently the temperature records were not collected with climate considerations in mind so they are far from perfect. They need to be cleaned up to be useful.
Science is not about being sure. It's about doing the best we can with the evidence that's available. If the theory holds together without any gaping holes then it's unlikely there are any significant unanticipated factors but of course science is always subject to revision pending new evidence. But assuming there is something missing without any evidence that there is something missing is just wishful thinking.
Nice to see that someone hates me :) I think value is in the eye of the beholder. I guess some folks with mod points liked what I said. If you don't like what I'm saying then come up with some credible evidence to counter it.
When it comes to CO2 and its role in global warming no one has come up with any credible evidence to counter it. Lots of people try to claim it's the Sun or it's just natural cycles but the never present any solid evidence for their claims. Science is all about being able to back up your hypotheses with real evidence.
The "scientists" are looking at ~120 years of data and make predictions reaching thousands of years into the future. Something tells me those "scientists" are really snake oil salesman looking for grants who have as much credibility as those "scientists" doumenting water canals on mars in the 19th century.
Scientists may be looking at ~150 years of detailed temperature measurements but they're also looking at 100s of thousands of years if detailed ice core records and proxy data going back billions of years. They are not making predictions reaching thousands of years into the future except in a speculative way. Detailed projections based on plausible scenarios go out perhaps 100 years at most.
I think Mussolini is a more apt comparison.
Of course it has been under 1,000 ppm for the entire existence of humans.
But the real problem isn't the level of CO2 but how fast it is changing. If it slowly rose to 1,000 ppm over 10,000 years or more then life would have time to adapt. At the rate it's going it could hit 1,000 in less than 200 years and that's going to cause lots of disruption. It remains to be seen how well our civilization will cope with it.
Maybe if you paid attention to what the scientists have actually been saying instead of listening to hyperbolic ranters you would understand the actual time scale of the predictions.