New Report: A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling
New Report: A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling
In late 2010 and 2011, I was writing about organizing U.S. climate modeling. I combined and posted some of the WU blogs over on ClimatePolicy.org as Something New in the Past Decade? Organizing U.S. Climate Modeling. I want to revisit those issues in light of the release of a National Academy of Sciences Report, A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling (2012).
I am a co-author of this Academy report. In this blog, I am writing not in my role as a co-author, but from my personal perspective. This blog fits in with many of the themes I have written about in the last few years.
First, I want to explain the role of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy is a private, not-for-profit organization created by President Abraham Lincoln at the height of the Civil War. Lincoln and others at the time realized the importance of science and technology to the United States and wanted a way to get independent advice on issues important to policy. Almost 150 years later, this importance is greater, but the role of science is an increasingly controversial political issue – especially when scientific investigation comes into conflict with how we might want to believe and to act. (see, here or edited here ) So one role of the National Academy is independent review – a role that is at the heart of the scientific method and the culture of scientific practice.
Second, how does the Academy decide what to write about? The Academy serves as adviser to the government, and so organizations within the government ask the Academy to evaluate a specific set of questions or issues surrounding a body of science-based knowledge about a particular subject. Often, as in this report, there is a forward-looking aspect of the problem, such as an outline for a strategy. One example of a past report is an analysis President George W. Bush requested soon after his inauguration, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. This report is famous, partly, because it took one-month from start to finish. It found that the science of climate change was robust. In June 2001, President Bush gave a speech noting, “Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world.” (see speech)
The current report on modeling strategy had many sponsors, notably among them the U.S. Intelligence community, a user not a builder of climate models. An early talk to the writing panel was given by Rear Admiral David Titley (Titley talks about climate and national security). In his presentation, he highlighted numerous concerns of the U.S. military, ranging from patrolling an open and disputed Arctic Ocean to threats of rising sea level to billions of dollars in assets. Other issues of national security are related to the stability of nations, the access to resources, and the volatility of commodity markets. A basic question to the panel is on the improvement of predictive skill, to address questions such as, when will we have to rebuild the dry-dock in Newport News, Virginia, and how high will it have to be?
Next, how does a panel like this actually work? The National Research Council is the operational part of the Academy. If you look on the Policies and Procedures link, you will see its rules of operations on, say, conflict of interest. The Academy selects a chair and a panel to answer the sponsor’s questions from a broad range of experience and points of view. Practically, members of the panel are assigned as lead authors on some chapters, secondary authors on other chapters, and reviewers and deliberators on the entire document. In addition to the panel, the Academy assigns staff members to manage the integration of the document as well as to assure the document is written according to Academy protocols. The staff is attentive to moving the document away from personal points of view towards a document that represents the collective view of the panel. That’s the process.
In this report, it was recognized that I was old, and therefore I wrote history - the first draft of Chapter 2, Lessons from Previous Reports on Climate Modeling. Also, having been a co-author on some of those earlier reports, I provided continuity. For this blog, I am going to write from the perspective of someone who has advocated the need for our community to address a set of important organizational challenges. Or given a more than 20-year history of repeated recommendations and a series of Academy reports that re-identified the same problems, as stated in Chapter 2, “A challenge, therefore, to the current committee is how to disrupt the inertia of the U.S. climate science enterprise: going forward, what do we do differently?”
Because of the disruptive consequences of global warming, the scientific study of climate change has, long ago, moved out of the domain of curious scientists driven to explain the world around them. Climate change requires more than interpretation and guidance in order to be relevant to policy. Stated differently, to be directly usable by society, there is a requirement for scientific investigation focused on specific questions or classes of problems. Addressing these problems requires the use of complex software systems, multidisciplinary scientific information, rigorous and transparent evaluation, and interpretation of the knowledge produced and its uncertainty. Therefore, addressing these problems requires the combined efforts of many individuals from several professional backgrounds. There needs to be a process of planning, coordination, and execution.
We need, therefore, to coordinate activities that are, traditionally, scientific, computational, and organizational. My experience as a manager of scientific efforts is that organizational coordination is far more difficult than the challenges of computational and scientific coordination. Standing alone, coordination of computational and scientific efforts is stunningly difficult. Therefore, the new, perhaps overarching, recommendations of this report are focused on ideas that the committee viewed as helping to advance coordination, integration, or synthesis.
One of the report’s overall recommendations is “to evolve” towards a national software infrastructure for climate modeling. I think the word “evolve” is important because the reports from a decade ago also recommended software and information system infrastructure. In fact, following those reports, there has been investment and progress, both substantial, in the development of infrastructure. This is documented in the report, with the recognition that the organizational achievements are as notable as the technical achievements. Throughout the report, there are calls to build upon these successes, to utilize the communities that have made the progress of the past decade. To quote, “The Committee recommends a community-based design and implementation process for achieving a national common software infrastructure. While this goal has risks, costs, and institutional hurdles, the Committee believes they are far outweighed by its benefits.”
Another major recommendation is the formation of a modeling summit to promote “tighter coordination and more consistent evaluation” of climate models. This, to me, is perhaps the most novel and most important recommendation. Why? Previous reports have struggled with organizational issues and have made recommendations about re-organizing government agencies or re-focusing governmental organizations. At the same time earlier reports, as well as this report, express reservations about centralization and bureaucratic structures. What this recommendation recognizes is the need for a community-based organization that needs to find its niche within the federal agency structure, the interagency organizations, and the growing community of users. It recognizes the value of increased community-based planning and, hopefully, execution. And it, once again, recognizes the progress of the past decade of community building.
The next key recommendation is to “nurture a unified weather-climate modeling effort that better exploits the synergies between weather forecasting, data assimilation, and climate modeling.” This subject, too, has been flirted with in previous reports, and it is a recommendation that is more controversial than one might imagine. These two communities, weather and climate, have come to the modeling problem from different perspectives. Their practices of science have some distinct differences. There is also in the United States an idea held by many that weather forecasting is “operational,” and that “operational” comes at the expense of “science.” This recommendation from the Academy panel is based on the facts that 1) “operational” does not have to come at the expense of “science,” and 2) rationalization or unification of the different practices of science come with the benefit of more robust science-based products.
The final overarching recommendation is about the development of a new type of professional, the climate interpreter. This recommendation follows from other Academy reports and a growing body of research into the barriers of the use of climate information by scientists and practitioners who need climate information in their research, applications, and decision making. This recommendation explicitly recognizes the importance of formalizing the interfaces between climate modeling, more broadly climate science, and the usability of climate information by society as a whole.
These new recommendations are supported by a series of recommendations, which are, again, focused on pulling together the community: the scientific efforts, the computational efforts, and the interfaces to society as a whole. These supporting recommendations focus on continuation and strengthening of important activities that are of especial importance.
I want to also point out a few things that the report is not. It is not a list of important scientific questions. Many such lists have been made, and they are often the natural product of a group of scientists thinking about strategy. It is not a recommendation that if the government reorganizes in some way or simply provides more money, then we will address all needed climate services. We have no way to reorganize the government, and we are smart enough to know the challenges of money. And, finally, this report is not a call to centralize through reorganization. As a government manager, for years I studied centralized organizations, federations, and anarchist groups. I feel that centralization in a field and environment like ours is, primarily, a process that leads to increased risk. I feel that federated, community-based responsibility is the best path to assure success. It is also the most difficult.
As a final comment: I am a co-author of the report writing a blog that is my point of view. If I were asked to interpret the report in a strategic sense for a program manager, this is where I would start. One of the lessons I have learned, it having been recognized that I am old, is that this report is now in the hands of the public. Some people will interpret the report to support their agendas, sometimes their prejudices. I looked at past reports that I have been involved with, and I have seen recommendations cherry-picked for both good and bad reasons. The message of this report is synthesis, integration, and coordination. For the report’s message to become reality, those with the power to act and to implement need to focus on synthesis. We need to go forward more as a whole than as a thousand points of expertise brought together in grand exercises of climate-science assessment.
r
Reader Comments
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Sure sounds like someone is lying to me. What say you???
"The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep."
Link
But having said that, you are correct that there's a lot of denialist hand-waving about this. "What about Antarctica!!!" the scream and shout. Well, if they insist on a direct comparison, I'd suggest they consider this: the Antarctic anomaly this SH winter is about 4% over climatology. On the other hand, the Arctic anomaly is -49%, or more than 12 times larger...
That is exactly what I was wondering about, the ratio, or percentage of change between the two.
Thanks
Here ya go!
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic- storm.html
Clarification: Moon Landrieu was Mayor of New Orleans years ago, and did nothing in his tenure to secure the levees. Father of Mitch (Lieutenant Governor) and Mary.
Bush derangement syndrome is riding high, ask your buddy
Half moon.
Link
1:12
I've seen WattsBots blaming the majority of this year's incredibly low northern polar ice on the August storm, but no one with even an ounce of intellectual honesty is actually doing that.
So. it is your perception that "moved" means total acceptance and support? That's not fair when you spin my words to beat me up.
Secondly, I don't recall asking you anything at all, let alone to "take time out of your schedule" to butt in to a conversation with other bloggers.
And yes, that "is" what happens here.
As an aside, I suppose you have more credentials than those mentioned in the article????
I'm not beating this dead horse anymore.
My Definition:
Moved = "Oh snap". What's this about?
Your Definition:
Moved = Supporting ideological blather.
Why don't you back off a bit.
I'm not the enemy.
Certainly not.
But, it can be a reason as to why the Guardian,as reported in post 22, was able to make it's way that far north in September.
Such storms break up sea ice.
NOTE:
Shep is not denying AGW with that comment.
I've never claimed to have "more credentials" than anyone on that list of 49 retired non-climate scientists. But then again, I'm not writing letters to conservative business dailys claiming to be an expert on subjects about which I know next to absolutely nothing. Big difference there, no?
I'm not writing letters to conservative business dailys claiming to be an expert on subjects about which I know next to absolutely nothing. Big difference there, no?
You have no clue as to their expertise anymore than I have a clue as to your expertise on the same.
Let's let this one die.
You may have the last word.
111. Neapolitan
Why was the ice so thin and brittle to begin with?
Because it's warmer up there.
And why was such a massive out-of-seasons storm possible in the first place?
Warmer temps and moisture in the air?
But, we have to keep in mind that the satellites will see this broken sea ice as solid cover and remember that anomaly when we see such pics.
Someone might be "moved" by such.
:))
In this case you're absolutely right.
My bad.
I'm used to meetings in a crowded room where when I ask a Sub's project manager a question, I expect him and him alone to respond. I'm really not looking for anyone else's opinion to my address to him or her.
Old salts such as myself seem to forget that when on a blog and expect the same.
But no, I don't allow anyone in "my" crowded room in the real world to chime in. That is "not" the way it works. You would be asked to sit down and worry about your own issues...just saying.
Again...my bad.
At 70 y/o, like you, I am certainly an "old salt."
However, having participated on internet forums and, and moderated some in the late 1990's, I have long been aware that such forums can be a minefield. Lively, productive and focused discussions can quickly degrade into flame wars, both from purposeful attacks and perceived, but unintended slights. It is difficult for some of us to refrain from reacting negatively when a sharp retort tweaks our sensibilities.
I shall continue to read your posts, shepherd, because I sense enough honesty and rationality to see you as worthy member of this online community.
As to the subject that prompted the recent arguments between you and some of the regulars here, I personally would be very skeptical. As a former high-tech industrial lab tech, I put give far more credence to serious, active CC researchers than a bunch of old techies, engineers and astronauts. That group has no more qualifications than me to evaluate the science of AGW/CC - especially when their position is, I believe, not based on science, but is rather a simple subjective poll. The fact that they had worked for NASA is, on it's face, not a qualification to make one an expert on climate science.
...works for me.
I'm all done with it.
:)
We are two peas from the same pod............ Bravo Bravo........Sounds as if that storm had a brain and knew what to do...LOL..
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer 16 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) %u2014 In a critical climate indicator showing an ever warming world, the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean shrank to an all-time low this year, obliterating old records.
The ice cap at the North Pole measured 1.32 million square miles on Sunday. That's 18 percent smaller than the previous record of 1.61 million square miles set in 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Records go back to 1979 based on satellite tracking.
"On top of that, we're smashing a record that smashed a record," said data center scientist Walt Meier. Sea ice shrank in 2007 to levels 22 percent below the previous record of 2005.
Ice in the Arctic melts in summer and grows in winter, and it started growing again on Monday. In the 1980s, Meier said, summer sea ice would cover an area slightly smaller than the Lower 48 states. Now it is about half that.
Man-made global warming has melted more sea ice and made it thinner over the last couple decades with it getting much more extreme this year, surprisingly so, said snow and ice data center director Mark Serreze.
"Recently the loss of summer ice has accelerated and the six lowest September ice extents have all been in the past six years," Serreze said. "I think that's quite remarkable."
Link
...
That's the estimated minimum extent for the Arctic sea ice this summer, reached on Sept. 16, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). It breaks the record for the lowest ever summer extent in the satellite record, beating 2007 by an area equal to the size of Texas. Though the Arctic sea ice which melts and reforms each summer and winter usually reaches its lowest extent in mid-September, this year actually broke the record even before the end of the melting season. The fact that the ice kept melting at high rates late into the summer is even more surprising. The strong late season decline is indicative of how thin the ice cover is, NSIDC scientist Walt Meier said in a statement. Ice has to be quite thin to continue melting away as the sun goes down and fall approaches.
Link
..
RollingStone.com
Some context: So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given those impacts, in fact, many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target. "Any number much above one degree involves a gamble," writes Kerry Emanuel of MIT, a leading authority on hurricanes, "and the odds become less and less favorable as the temperature goes up." Thomas Lovejoy, once the World Bank's chief biodiversity adviser, puts it like this: "If we're seeing what we're seeing today at 0.8 degrees Celsius, two degrees is simply too much." NASA scientist James Hansen, the planet's most prominent climatologist, is even blunter: "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." At the Copenhagen summit, a spokesman for small island nations warned that many would not survive a two-degree rise: "Some countries will flat-out disappear."
Yep, I've been trying to point that out. Because of the fragility of our grossly overshot population, economy and ecosystems it won't take a lot to make things bad.
But Wait there's more!
These guys have hit upon a huge bubble lurking in the world stock markets. If any substantive action is taken to keep the planet below 2 degrees - (never mind one!!), then that bubble will burst.
And, that brings me to the new deniers in our midst. You know the type. They say things like; "Great, we've reached a peak in our CO2 discharges and so everything is fine. There is no urgency." or "All that is needed is for people to take a little responsibility in their own lives, change a few light bulbs, get an all electric home ... "
That nefarious new strategy is much more dangerous than the old guard deniers. People see the Arctic melting! So when IceageComing or someone if his ilk points out that it is cold in Antarctica no one pays any attention anymore.
That's why Exon/Mobile and Rupert Murdock have changed their stories.
I've quoted them earlier but it is worth re-posting:
"[W]e believe those consequences are manageable... It's an engineering problem and it has engineering solutions." Tillerson Exxon/Mobile
"Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease." - Rupert Murdock
Don't be fooled! If this civilization is to survive, MASSIVE, SUSTAINED and URGENT action must be taken NOW.
When some SOB says something like: "Well, we've peaked already, so all we have to do is cut emissions by 9% per year ...". You should know that they are either lying outright, or massively deluded.
As I reported some days ago US CO2 emissions rose over the years, reached their highest level in 2005, and have fallen since.
People have assumed that the drop is due to the very significant economic recession we have experienced. First, let’s remember that the peak was in 2005 and the economic crash occurred in mid September 2008, with over two and one-half years of a booming economy in between. CO2 dropped slightly, certainly didn’t rise further, for two plus years during a booming economy.
Was, as some insist, the drop in CO2 due to a lower US GDP? Certainly not during 2006 and 2007. Let’s look at the data to see if GDP decline following 2008 supports that position. ( And I’ll throw in electricity generation and oil consumption at the same time to save space.)
Nope, GDP post 2005 is higher every single year post 2005.
Is it because we quit making as much electricity? Nope, we’re making a bit more.
The one thing that does track CO2 output is oil consumption. Oil consumption in 2010 was 10.1% less than what it was in 2005. So did the economic crash pull down CO2 emissions via less oil consumption?
Possibly, but oil US oil consumption stopped increasing after 2005 and it’s unlikely that the fall crash of 2008 was early enough in the year to have accounted for all the 2008 drop. It’s not like everyone crawled under their beds and didn’t get on the roads. As I recall major job losses did not start until late 2008 and extended into 2009.
In fact, US oil consumption hit a plateau in 2004 and did not increase in the ensuing 3.75 years in which the economy was in party mode.
What caused the oil consumption drop?
In 2010 miles driven was down 2% from 2005 and miles flown was down 1.6%. Together they do not account for a 10.1% drop in consumption but only some fraction of 2%.
The next reason suggested was that oil in other applications dropped due to the recession.
Here we find a mixed bag....
Residential, electric power, railroad, vessel bunkering, on-highway and off-highway are down. Industrial, oil company, and farm use are up.
On-highway, that 2% less driving mentioned earlier.
Electric power, a switch to renewables and natural gas. Remember, electricity generation is up.
Railroad and vessel bunkering possibly due to lower economic activity resulting into less freight. But freight is down only 2.7%, 2007 to 2011. (Not cherry-picking, just the data I found without putting lots of effort into that question.)
Residential - and here let’s remember the claim that “It’s due to warm winters in 2010 and 2011”.
Residential heating oil consumption peaked in 1996 and began falling. In 2006, the year after the CO2 peak, heating oil consumption took a major drop. This was two years before the recession and four years before the “warm winters” explanation.
Is this drop due to warmer winters or more efficiency and fuel substitution? I didn’t take the time to research that. If it interests anyone they can take on that project. The important thing is that CO2 levels are down and part of the reason seems to be less oil usage for heating and transportation.
(It might be worthwhile to point out that while our winters are warming, so are our summers, and we’ve had to work against rising air conditioner and refrigeration demand.)
While some of the post 2008 lower driving, flying and heating oil use might be due to economic crimping it is not safe to make that assumption without supporting data. It is also likely that some or all of the drop is due to higher efficiency and a decision on the part of the public to drive and fly less.
How do I summarize all this?
1) US CO2 emissions peaked in 2005 and have fallen since.
2) The amount of fall was likely aided by poor economic conditions which to some extent might have reduced driving, flying, shipping and home heating, but since the reductions started prior to the financial problems it is likely that efficiency has played a significant role.
We could probably replace the 2% drop in oil usage (on average driving, flying and shipping were each down about 2%) during a recovered economy without returning to previous CO2 emission levels since in the intervening years we have continued to implement efficiency measures. We’ve replaced older, less efficient vehicles with more efficient vehicles and we’ve weatherstriped and insulated homes.
We’ve increased non-hydro renewable grid share from 2.2% in 2005 to 4.1% in 2010 while cutting coal share from 49.6% in 2005 to 42.4% in 2011. (And apparently below 35% for the first half of 2012.) We’ve replaced some of the coal generation with natural gas, and while natural gas does bring its own set of problems to the table, it does lower CO2 emissions. (Natural gas generation, being dispatchable, will be easier to reduce than coal.)
In my view, we have passed a milestone. CO2 emissions in the US are dropping. We may have received a helping hand from an economic downturn and warmer winters, but we should accept that help and make more of the reduction due to our efforts. We should acknowledge our increased efficiency and renewable generation and use that to encourage us to increase our efforts. It seems that what we have done has made a difference.
An economic analysis suggests that the US government's estimate is way too low.
ARSTechnica.com
The initial process of setting a price on carbon isn't very different from that of projecting climate change itself. Emissions scenarios (continued emissions, stabilization by 2050, etc.) get plugged into a climate model, which can project what the world will look like at various dates. The economic costs to humans, in terms of things like impacts on health, loss of infrastructure, changing agricultural zones, etc. can then be calculated using an economic model. All of these processes involve uncertainties, so the models are run thousands of times with slightly different values to get a range of uncertainties.
These models have a number of weaknesses. For example, they can't consider unforeseen technological innovations, such as an efficient means of carbon capture and storage. At the same time, there are things are already causing problems—ocean acidification being one of them—that aren't factored in at all. On the whole, the authors say, the process is widely viewed as underestimating the costs of current emissions.
New climate model tracks effect of Arctic warming.
ARSTechnica.com
One of the most worrisome unknowns about climate change is the behavior of positive feedbacks that amplify warming. The ultimate fear is that we could cross tipping points, where the warming gains a momentum of its own that would continue for a time even if human emissions were drastically reduced.
The shrinking ice and snow cover in the Arctic is one example—white, reflective areas are being replaced by dark land or water that absorbs much more radiation from the Sun. That's a positive feedback on its own but it could also trigger a separate one: the massive store of carbon in Arctic permafrost could become vulnerable as the region thaws.
The thawing of permafrost soils (which cover nearly a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere) has both local and global effects. Locally, buildings and infrastructure can be damaged as the ground softens and shifts. Coastal erosion can accelerate rapidly once the soil is no longer frozen rock-hard, and lakes and wetlands can change dramatically.
Why is it you people cannot post images from the source?
You all post things captured and created from your site/file or photobucket. Do those graphics not exist elsewhere,,,, ?
I find it quite funny the attempts of embellishment here.
Right click and check the image properties posted here prior to accepting them as truth.
Look at how Jim played out the statistical (graphical) analysis above. Percentage of ice loss as compared to what?
What does that actually mean in real life?
Now if you want to do some due diligence, look up the weather pattern, as it is documented, over the last 10 years in the Arctic from legitimate weather sources.
Homework is a good thing folks.
Where did the ice actually melt in the arctic?
In place, or in the warmer waters that it was blown into ?
Out>
Edit, and now the video ;-)
"Commentary: Earth's attic is on fire
To me, seeing the record Arctic sea ice loss of 2012 is like discovering a growing fire burning in Earth's attic. It is an emergency that requires immediate urgent attention. If you remove an area of sea ice 43% the size of the Contiguous U.S. from the ocean, it is guaranteed to have a significant impact on weather and climate. The extra heat and moisture added to the atmosphere as a result of all that open water over the pole may already be altering jet stream patterns in fall and winter, bringing an increase in extreme weather events. This year's record sea ice loss also contributed to an unprecedented melting event in Greenland. Continued sea ice loss will further increase melting from Greenland, contributing to sea level rise and storm surge damages. Global warming doubters tell us to pay attention to Earth's basement--the Antarctic--pointing out (incorrectly) that there is no fire burning there. But shouldn't we be paying attention to the steadily growing fire in our attic? The house all of humanity lives on is on fire. The fire is certain to spread, since we've ignored it for too long. It is capable of becoming a raging fire that will burn down our house, crippling civilization, unless we take swift and urgent action to combat it."
Tunnels combat it Jeff. Surely,you can't be against all such attempts to reverse this.........
If the U.S. Senate changes hands - Sen. James Inhofe becomes chairman of the Environmental Committee. (he is presently minority ranking chairman).
ThinkProgress.com
ClimateCentral.org
Climate research has shown that manmade global warming boosts the likelihood of extreme weather events such as heat waves and heavy rainfalls. By making extreme events more common and severe, global warming is rendering obsolete the risk models that insurance companies use.
The companies have not yet taken this into account, the report states, and haven’t done the research needed to shift toward more accurate risk models. Many small insurers may not even have the capacity to conduct such research.
Both federal flood insurance and private plans have long been based on so-called “100-year storms,” or storms so severe they’re likely to happen only once a century. But climate change is making such events more frequent, so that a storm that used to occur about once every 100 years, on average, now occurs far more frequently. This changes the baseline of what companies should be insuring against.
Dirty Energy Money
Very interesting, pintada.
I have never said ""Great, we've reached a peak in our CO2 discharges and so everything is fine. There is no urgency.""
That's a lie that you tell and that members of this community applaud you for telling.
I have never said ""Great, we've reached a peak in our CO2 discharges and so everything is fine. There is no urgency.""
That is another lie that you tell and that members of this community applaud you for telling.
And then you state "When some SOB says something like: "Well, we've peaked already, so all we have to do is cut emissions by 9% per year ...". You should know that they are either lying outright, or massively deluded.""
Again you engage in telling a lie and member of this community applaud you for another lie.
I'll repeat my position. The planet is in deep danger. We need to cut GHG emission rapidly and drastically. We will do this, not with some large swipe of a broadsword, but with a thousand cuts. Switching to renewable energy and efficiency are the most effective of those cuts. Natural gas is a mixed bag, it gains us time, but it brings its own set of problems to the mix and will have to be phased out as we can develop more renewable generation and storage.
The US and EU27 have reached peak CO2 emissions. Russia, India and China have not.
Is that clear enough for you?
Now, you and Jim have called me a liar and cherry-picker because I have posted data and pointed out that it appears that we have started to deal with the problem of CO2. You've added in SOB.
That you feel it necessary to attack me for factual reporting is fairly strange to me, especially coming from a couple of people who constantly attack climate change deniers for ignoring/suppressing facts and data.
Someone who dismisses data in one situation is a denier but someone who presents data in another situation is also a denier? Perhaps a lot of people in this community need to engage in some self-reflection.
Pat, David, Some, Steve, Rev,and all the others who have checked "I like this comment". All of you think that someone who brings data is a liar, denier, and SOB?
What tool would you suggest? Pessimism? Defeatism?
Doomer-ism?
A box full of hopelessness?
A big bucket of "we ain't going to make it"?
Should we rally round "Loose one for the Gipper"?
How about "Full astern! Here come the damn torpedoes!"
When did an attempt to see what needs to be done, how to do it, and recognition of what is working become some evil thing called "optimism" which should be smothered in its cradle?
When did the most effective way to achieve a goal become to sit around and bitch about how nothing is getting done and about how bad things are getting?
Ain't America great?
Now, that graph is clearly labeled, so even the most simple-minded can see precisely what it illustrates. But I'll break it down for the somewhat slow: it shows, on an annual basis, what percentage of the ice area that existed at any particular year's maximum disappeared through that year's maximum.
The rest of your "logic" is just typical flawed denialist stuff. The Arctic ice has gone away, and it will continue to do so as the planet warms. Even if none of it melted in place and it was instead all pushed southward into the tropics by some magical fantasy denialist wind, wouldn't one be intellectually curious enough to ask just what could possible make that happen? Where would the energy to create such as sustained wind event have come from? And why has such a wind not happened before? And why is it now happening every year with greater and greater frequency?
Silly denialists...
Seriously, dude?
It's a public forum. It's nice to have support, but does the fact that few are voting up your comments at the moment change the way you feel? If not, why the complaints? And if so, why would it change your mind?
(FWIW, I specifically did not give comment #120 a plus because pintada chose to throw the baseless ad hominems your way. But please try not to later use that information against me, if you would.)
Protecting the environment requires a sweeping reform of political funding, only then corporations will stop throwing big money at senators
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." These words, from WB Yeats's poem The Second Coming, came to mind as I read the testimony from Wednesday's Senate hearings on climate change.
They're not a precise description of what took place, as the two most eminent climate scientists who testified before the environment and public works committee, Christopher Field and James McCarthy, were not lacking in conviction. But they were, as scientists should be, careful and meticulous, laying out their evidence calmly and sequentially, saying nothing that was not supported by the data.
By contrast, the Senate committee's ranking member (its most senior Republican), James Inhofe, spoke with the demagogic passion of a revivalist preacher. "The global warming movement has completely collapsed … the science of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was finally exposed … The time has come to put these tired, failed policies to rest and embrace the US energy boom so that we can put Americans back to work, turn this economy around, become totally energy independent from the Middle East, and ensure energy security for years to come."
In other words, Inhofe argued, we should take no action on climate change, which he has described as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people".
Never mind the overwhelming evidence that has accumulated since the last Senate hearings in 2009; never mind the crazy temperatures the US has been experiencing recently, which have alerted many Americans to what climate change is likely to deliver in the decades to come; never mind the prominent sceptic Richard Muller's assessment of the evidence, which led to his change of heart. (It told us nothing we didn't know already, but it should at least have caused the deniers to stop and think).
None of this makes the slightest difference to Inhofe. But how could it? Even if he were persuaded by the great weight of evidence for man-made climate change, changing his mind would be a very expensive decision. It could cost him his seat: not because it would necessarily be an unpopular shift – even in Oklahoma – but because it would jeopardise the massive flow of funds required to remain in high office in the US.
Continue reading 'Stop this culture of paying politicians for denying climate change'
The clock is ticking.
"With 40 years between cause and effect, it means that average temperatures of the last decade are a result of what we were thoughtlessly putting into the air in the 1960’s. It also means that the true impact of our emissions over the last decade will not be felt until the 2040’s. This thought should send a chill down your spine!"
Seriously, dude.
No, you did not join in calling me a SOB.
What you did, Jim, is to go doomer on some positive information that I brought to the conversation.
I reported that the US had peaked in 2005 and presented a graph illustrating the peak and subsequent drop.
You then posted a graph with the vertical axis so compressed that the data was buried. Bad science, Jim.
Then you engaged in the behavior we often see from deniers and right-wing folks who want to distract -"Hey! Look! A squirrel!!!"
You threw up a big graph of what is happening in China as if the fact that the largest CO2 emitting country peaking was not important.
Now, I'm sure you can rationalize your behavior in some way. But I think it scientifically dishonest.
And I think the community, in general, has a problem of negativity. I think most here have allowed themselves to become doomers or were attracted to this community because they found fellow doomers.
Going 100% negative is extremely incompatible with achieving. If you can't recognize progress then you are going to get yourself stuck in failure.
eta:
Furthermore, Jim, this is not about me earning points. If you will recall I brought up the issue of the type of comment that received "likes" and the type that didn't. I used four examples, two of positive news and two of negative news. The two positive news comments received no "likes". The two negative news comments received "likes".
I wrote all four comments. It is not about me.
Now, I suspect that you've spent so much time doing battles with climate change deniers that you are primed to go off on things that don't fall into the "It's terrible and getting worse" category.
But if you allow yourself to get so poisoned from fighting the bad guys that you can't see how we might fix the problem and can't see that we might be starting to fix the problem you're going to be nothing but a lost, burned out warrior.
At least so far.
I can give you no absolute proof that we can avoid extreme climate change. No one can. But no one can give you absolute proof that we can't.
I can't tell you that humans will get adequately concerned quickly enough and work hard enough to keep us from tipping over.
What I can tell you is that we have the technology right now to give us a fighting chance to avoid extreme climate change, assuming that we have not already passed the tipping point.
And I can tell you that we have started cutting CO2 emissions in two major regions of the world, the US and the EU27. I can tell you that the other major emitting region, China, is taking climate change seriously.
Will China peak soon enough? Will the US, EU27 and China cut emissions quickly enough post-peak? I can't answer those questions, no one can.
But here's what I can tell you. If we do not recognize that there is a door out of the burning building and are not capable of telling when we are making progress toward that door then we are likely to perish.
" The Arctic sea ice has already collapsed to the point that it will not be returning to its former glory until there is a complete reversal to the present climate trends. What we are now seeing is a celebration, by the fossil fuel industry and by all of those that make direct profits from the fossil fuel industry, that they are now able to exploit the Arctic Ocean for its fossil fuels there! We are NOT slowing down the efforts to emit more fossil fuel carbons into the atmosphere, we are EXPANDING the efforts to put even more fossil fuel carbons into the atmosphere!"
Yes, the Arctic sea ice is lost.
Yes, it is highly likely that we will drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean.
Let's have a reality check, shall we? Humans, in general, behave under the control of immediate consequences and not long-delayed consequences. It's simply the way we, and all the other animals, evolved.
Evolution is built on surviving long enough to reproduce, nothing more. There is no survival value to lengthening the life span of your great-grand children or even you own survival past the point where you do reproduce.
People will continue to demand gasoline for their cars even with 100% knowledge that it would mean the end of the planet as we know it for their grandchildren. That's just the way we're built. We overeat, we smoke, we do all sorts of risky and damaging things to ourselves because we want the immediate.
We won't quit burning fossil fuels by simply convincing people not to. That will not work.
We have to give people acceptable alternatives.
We can manufacture 30% to 40% of our electricity right now from wind and solar. We are very close to affordable grid storage batteries which will allow us to generate 100% of our electricity from renewable sources and cease using fossil fuel. We will do that because doing so will not change our lifestyles and it will be cheaper.
We are close to EVs that will satisfy us for 100% of our driving. When they are on the road and in the showroom at ICEV prices people will give up burning gasoline because driving an EV will cost about 1/4th as much per mile (along with other reasons).
Now, you claim that we are expanding our use of fossil fuels. That's partly true and partly false. China is expanding their use of coal but has put an annual cap on coal use, so they are about done expanding. The US has cut coal use from over 50% of our grid supply to (apparently) under 35%. The same is happening in Europe and Australia.
More cars are going on the road but at the same time we are making major improvements in efficiency which mitigates the rise in number. We're also rolling out replacement technology.
I spend a bit of time watching what is happening. It appears to me that we are in the last days of fossil fuels. We're plateauing. Look at the graphs in comment #121 - US oil consumption and US heating oil consumption. Does that look to you like expanding oil use?
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