Dr. Ricky Rood's Climate Change Blog

Federal Advisory Committee Draft Climate Assessment Report Released for Public Review


Sorry if this is old but i have like 40 seconds left before disconnect.

Quoting TWEMoran:
New to this forum & very impressed by Xulonn & a few others.

I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Rood's comments about organizing given a generation of time simply because I don't believe we have a generation left before things are so messed up that organization will become an improbably.

AGW isn't something for the next generation to deal with, we're dealing with it now. When Arctic ice is no longer capable of capturing energy the latent heat of fusion will be released into the Arctic ocean & this will change NH weather drastically.

With things at their present levels we'll be releasing enough energy each year to raise the entire top meter of the Arctic Ocean by ~.7C each year. The cumulative effects, added to the increases now being experienced as well as the additional energy that albedo changes and methane releases will bring add up to massive disruptions in far less than a generation.

Don't be overly concerned about your grandchildren - worry about how you and your children will survive.

Terry

Hey, Terry. Good to see you here; I've enjoyed your comments over at Neven's blog.

FWIW, I agree with much of what you've written here, and I've said as much myself. Some have gotten angry with me for doing so, calling me defeatist, but I prefer to think of myself as more a realistic activist. That is, you'll never catch me throwing up my hands and saying, "Well, that's that; let's just quit." So long as there's a fight to be fought and even a slender chance of civilization surviving this self-induced mess, I'll be out there promoting energy alternatives, conservation, and common sense. But neither will you catch me engaging in pollyanaish whitewashing of the truth, I am absolutely not convinced that increased extraction and usage of natural gas is the cure to our ills; that politicians really do sense the urgency and are doing everything within their power (behind the scenes, natch) to help us avoid catastrophe; that some technological miracle is waiting in the wings to save us from ourselves by slashing through the climatic Gordian knot in one awesome THWACK!

No.

The sad bottom line is that more than 3.4 million tonnes of CO2 are being belched into the environment each and every hour of each and every day. 3.4 million tonnes. And that amount is increasing. Big though our atmosphere may be, it's difficult at this remove to imagine solar and wind and tidal and hydro and the rest ramping up quickly enough to offset the nearly 1,000 tonnes a second of atmospheric carbon we're producing.

But the fight continues. And, as you've said, not just for my children and possible future grandchildren, but for myself...

Quoting TWEMoran:
New to this forum & very impressed by Xulonn & a few others.

I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Rood's comments about organizing given a generation of time simply because I don't believe we have a generation left before things are so messed up that organization will become an improbably.

AGW isn't something for the next generation to deal with, we're dealing with it now. When Arctic ice is no longer capable of capturing energy the latent heat of fusion will be released into the Arctic ocean & this will change NH weather drastically.

With things at their present levels we'll be releasing enough energy each year to raise the entire top meter of the Arctic Ocean by ~.7C each year. The cumulative effects, added to the increases now being experienced as well as the additional energy that albedo changes and methane releases will bring add up to massive disruptions in far less than a generation.

Don't be overly concerned about your grandchildren - worry about how you and your children will survive.

Terry

My beliefs also.... Bravo....How do you think we can reverse the trend?

How much time do we have?

Quoting TWEMoran:

I'm not sure I agree with Dr. Rood's comments about organizing given a generation of time simply because I don't believe we have a generation left before things are so messed up that organization will become an improbably.

[...]

Don't be overly concerned about your grandchildren - worry about how you and your children will survive.

Terry

I agree completely. Whatever time we may have had for action, has long passed. 
Even getting our CO2 emissions to a plateau, never mind a reduction, requires a complete realignment of our baseline energy production away from the burning of fossil carbon. Even with all available commitment and resources this is a process that will require decades that we don't have. Locked-in forcings will bring us to civilization-level threats (4-6C warming) before we can make meaningful progress toward reducing CO2 emissions.
Geo-engineering seems hopeless - any effort there is confounded by a similarity between the energy required to capture CO2 from the atmosphere, and the energy that was derived while putting the CO2 there in the first place.
Too much of the public presentation has been about atmospheric temperatures and the as-yet-minor sea level rise. This has allowed endless quibbling and digression and delay. Watching with horror the free-fall of the Arctic system and the changes in the oceanic ecosystems, perhaps it's now clear that much more emphasis should have been placed on the oceans, i.e. what happens to the other 80% of the GHG-retained energy.
It's been said that you are sure of having passed a tipping point only when you hear the giant crashing sound. The Arctic system has definitely tipped over, and as the ice retreats for good,  we now watch anxiously as methane bubbles rise from the shelves. Our survival as a species may be mapped on the pressure-temperature stability diagram of the CH4-H2O system.
In the US, we make a big deal of the 2012 drought and high temperatures in the midwest while ignoring their most significant and ominous effect - loss of about half the corn and wheat crops due to weather phenomena that will only grow more frequent going forward. Elsewhere in the world in recent years, for example Russia has had major wheat crop losses to drought, and Pakistan and SE Asia have lost a lot of their rice crops to flooding. 
How long until a year in which there are major and simultaneous climate-driven crop losses in the majority of the worlds cereal-growing regions? That's the tipping point for our civilization, and it's hard to imagine how that will not come in our own lifetimes.

Quoting no1der:
How much time do we have?



I agree completely. Whatever time we may have had for action, has long passed.%uFFFD
Even getting our CO2 emissions to a plateau, never mind a reduction, requires a complete realignment of our baseline energy production away from the burning of fossil carbon. Even with all available commitment and resources this is a process that will require decades that we don't have. Locked-in forcings will bring us to civilization-level threats (4-6C warming) before we can make meaningful progress toward reducing CO2 emissions.
Geo-engineering seems hopeless - any effort there is confounded by a similarity between the energy required to capture CO2 from the atmosphere, and the energy that was derived while putting the CO2 there in the first place.
Too much of the public presentation has been about atmospheric temperatures and the as-yet-minor sea level rise. This has allowed endless quibbling and digression and delay. Watching with horror the free-fall of the Arctic system and the changes in the oceanic ecosystems, perhaps it's now clear that much more emphasis should have been placed on the oceans, i.e. what happens to the other 80% of the GHG-retained energy.
It's been said that you are sure of having passed a tipping point only when you hear the giant crashing sound. The Arctic system has definitely tipped over, and as the ice retreats for good, %uFFFDwe now watch anxiously as methane bubbles rise from the shelves. Our survival as a species may be mapped on the pressure-temperature stability diagram of the CH4-H2O system.
In the US, we make a big deal of the 2012 drought and high temperatures in the midwest while ignoring their most significant and ominous effect - loss of about half the corn and wheat crops due to weather phenomena that will only grow more frequent%uFFFDgoing forward. Elsewhere in the world in recent years, for example Russia has had major wheat crop losses to drought, and Pakistan and SE Asia have lost a lot of their rice crops to flooding.%uFFFD
How long until a year in which there are major and simultaneous climate-driven crop losses in the majority of the worlds cereal-growing regions? That's the tipping point for our civilization, and it's hard to imagine how that will not come in our own lifetimes.

Geo-engineering seems hopeless - As I see it there is only one way to prevent it.....

Link














....

Interactive map that will draw a temp graph for "your" location on the planet.

Link

YOUR WARMING WORLD

The heat is on for the planet as a whole, but what has been happening where you live? Click a place on the map to find out, or enter a location in the search box in the top right-hand corner.

The initial map shows average temperatures over the past 20 years; use the drop-down menu to see maps for earlier periods

Black Carbon #2 contributor to man made global warming??? What about methane?


Link


BTW my tunnels prevent this also.....




..

Coming as absolutely no surprise to the intellectually honest:

Koch-Funded Study Finds 2.5F Warming Of Land Since 1750 Is Manmade, 'Solar Forcing Does Not Appear To Contribute'

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study (BEST) has finally published its findings next week on the cause of recent global warming. This Koch-funded reanalysis of millions of mean monthly temperature observations from around the world, 'New Estimate of the Average Earth Surface Land Temperature Spanning 1753 to 2011,' concludes:

"solar forcing does not appear to contribute to the observed global warming of the past 250 years; the entire change can be modeled by a sum of volcanism and a single anthropogenic [human-made] proxy.

(Source)

This is also from the paper's conclusion:

"Our analysis does not rule out long-term trends due to natural causes; however, since all of the long-term (century scale) trend in temperature can be explained by a simple response to greenhouse gas changes, there is no need to assume other sources of long-term variation are present." (See: Occam's Razor)

So, there you have it. Again. It's not the sun, and it's not poorly-sited stations. But if you think those facts will silence the illogical and repeatedly-debunked blather coming from Willie Soon and Anthony Watts, think again...

Quoting Neapolitan:
Coming as absolutely no surprise to the intellectually honest:(Source)

This is also from the paper's conclusion:

"Our analysis does not rule out long-term trends due to natural causes; however, since all of the long-term (century scale) trend in temperature can be explained by a simple response to greenhouse gas changes, there is no need to assume other sources of long-term variation are present." (See: Occam's Razor)

So, there you have it. Again. It's not the sun, and it's not poorly-sited stations. But if you think those facts will silence the illogical and repeatedly-debunked blather coming from Willie Soon and Anthony Watts, think again...

It appears your article was already REJECTED by The Journal of Geophysical Research last year, it was submitted to them but never published. It is now published in a journal that is brand new with only this article in it. The organization that owns this new journal has previously published an article linking Stonehenge to Global Warming. It seems to have a good peer review process. LOL

I think we can add Joe Romm to those sources who can not be trusted.

Quoting nymore:


It appears your article was already REJECTED by The Journal of Geophysical Research last year, it was submitted to them but never published. It is now published in a journal that is brand new with only this article in it. The organization that owns this new journal has previously published an article linking Stonehenge to Global Warming. It seems to have a good peer review process. LOL

Attempts to besmirch a respected journal are, as usual, just another silly attempt to avoid speaking on and addressing the actual subject of the article. That's a typical denialist tactic, of course, so it's to be expected. But, still, it would be so refreshing to see a discussion of the science rather than the tired and typical, "Look, a squirrel!" nonsense to which we've all become accustomed.

Yes, JGR rejected the paper on its first go around last year. Anyone familiar with the peer-review process-that is, who knows more about it than they can pick up from a WUWT smear job--knows that initial rejections and requests for resubmission are a necessary and vital part of the peer-review process. That is, after all, why papers are peer-reviewed in the first place; it's not about rubber-stamping whatever comes over the transom.

A greater question: will denialist do-boy Anthony Watts now make good on this March 2011 promise: "...I’m prepared to accept whatever result [the BEST team produces], even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step because the method has promise. So let’s not pay attention to the little yippers who want to tear it down before they even see the results"? Or will he keep catering to his dwindling following of sycophants by continuing to dismiss the growing mountain of scientifically-valid studies that run counter to his ideology?

FWIW, my money is on the latter...

Quoting Neapolitan:
Attempts to besmirch a respected journal are, as usual, just another silly attempt to avoid speaking on and addressing the actual subject of the article. That's a typical denialist tactic, of course, so it's to be expected. But, still, it would be so refreshing to see a discussion of the science rather than the tired and typical, "Look, a squirrel!" nonsense to which we've all become accustomed.

Yes, JGR rejected the paper on its first go around last year. Anyone familiar with the peer-review process-that is, who knows more about it than they can pick up from a WUWT smear job--knows that initial rejections and requests for resubmission are a necessary and vital part of the peer-review process. That is, after all, why papers are peer-reviewed in the first place; it's not about rubber-stamping whatever comes over the transom.

A greater question: will denialist do-boy Anthony Watts now make good on this March 2011 promise: "...I’m prepared to accept whatever result [the BEST team produces], even if it proves my premise wrong. I’m taking this bold step because the method has promise. So let’s not pay attention to the little yippers who want to tear it down before they even see the results"? Or will he keep catering to his dwindling following of sycophants by continuing to dismiss the growing mountain of scientifically-valid studies that run counter to his ideology?

FWIW, my money is on the latter...

Your respected journal as you say in line number one is what a week old with one article published. How much respect could they have garnered in this time period. It was rejected by a journal with a history over 115 years long. I have another question why not fix it and send it back to JGR after all they are the ones who rejected it. Then you try to bring in a strawman argument about Watts who has nothing to do with JGR or this new journal. It is fun to watch you squirm though.

Quoting nymore:
Your respected journal as you say in line number one is what a week old with one article published. How much respect could they have garnered in this time period. It was rejected by a journal with a history over 115 years long.

Scitechnol--the publisher of GIGS--has been around for many years, and has published tens of thousands of articles over hundreds of issues of its hundreds of publications. That's respect.

Quoting nymore:
I have another question why not fix it and send it back to JGR after all they are the ones who rejected it.

I was involved last year with a paper submitted to and rejected by Nature. Not because of any technical flaws, but simply because Nature is--as JGR is--a very popular journal, and thus receives far more articles than it can possibly publish in a given time. And since the article with which I was involved was time-sensitive--as are the BEST results--the decision was made to publish elsewhere.

Quoting nymore:
Then you try to bring in a strawman argument about Watts who has nothing to do with JGR or this new journal.

It's not, of course, a strawman argument when, during a discussion of a climate science study, to wonder whether a very vocal contrarian will finally abide by a public promise made regarding that very study. (A far better example of a strawman argument would be, say, diverting focus from an article in a journal to talk only about that journal's age. Now that's a diversion.)

Now: do you have anything to say about the actual study? If so, I'd be happy to read it. But if you're only interested in trying (and failing) to score points? Well, I've got better things to do.

Neapolitan,
The Stoat pointed out that The Watties are criticising the paper for being published in the first issue of a new journal of no known provenance, %u201CGeoinformatics & Geostatistics: An Overview%u201D. I wonder where nymore got his information. Not that anything he posts is woth anything.

Stoat is very unimpressed with the paper, in his opinion, it is not new science, it only reinforces what we already knew.

Quoting Neapolitan:
Scitechnol--the publisher of GIGS--has been around for many years, and has published tens of thousands of articles over hundreds of issues of its hundreds of publications. That's respect.I was involved last year with a paper submitted to and rejected by Nature. Not because of any technical flaws, but simply because Nature is--as JGR is--a very popular journal, and thus receives far more articles than it can possibly publish in a given time. And since the article with which I was involved was time-sensitive--as are the BEST results--the decision was made to publish elsewhere.It's not, of course, a strawman argument when, during a discussion of a climate science study, to wonder whether a very vocal contrarian will finally abide by a public promise made regarding that very study. (A far better example of a strawman argument would be, say, diverting focus from an article in a journal to talk only about that journal's age. Now that's a diversion.)

Now: do you have anything to say about the actual study? If so, I'd be happy to read it. But if you're only interested in trying (and failing) to score points? Well, I've got better things to do.

Well respected huh. Scitechnol was started in 2008 and is published by OMNICS. Which is a org that gets paid by the authors after it is accepted for publication. Which has led many to call it a commercial rather than an academic publisher. Lets see what else they publish under the Scitechnol org. Journals such as Tourism Research and Hospitality, Fashion Tech. and Textile Engineering, Business and Hotel Management among others. These are some hard hitting cutting edge scientific journals.

What would be so time sensitive about Best? I am sure they could have gotten a review in another trusted journal if it was that important. I don't think JGR would turn them down for lack of space, after all it is not like Joe bag of donuts sent in a manuscript.

All in all this org has gone from one journal in 2008 to hundreds now. I wonder why? Oh that is right it is how they get paid.

If a article published by them was something you did not agree with you would be shouting at the top of your lungs about this org.

Fwiw the article may be true or not. But having been rejected by a well respected org and being published in a second or third rate journal does not give me great confidence it could stand on it own two feet.

Quoting nymore:


Well respected huh. Scitechnol was started in 2008 and is published by OMNICS. Which is a org that gets paid by the authors after it is accepted for publication. Which has led many to call it a commercial rather than an academic publisher. Lets see what else they publish under the Scitechnol org. Journals such as Tourism Research and Hospitality, Fashion Tech. and Textile Engineering, Business and Hotel Management among others. These are some hard hitting cutting edge scientific journals.

What would be so time sensitive about Best? I am sure they could have gotten a review in another trusted journal if it was that important. I don't think JGR would turn them down for lack of space, after all it is not like Joe bag of donuts sent in a manuscript.

All in all this org has gone from one journal in 2008 to hundreds now. I wonder why? Oh that is right it is how they get paid.

If a article published by them was something you did not agree with you would be shouting at the top of your lungs about this org.

Fwiw the article may be true or not. But having been rejected by a well respected org and being published in a second or third rate journal does not give me great confidence it could stand on it own two feet.

By your absolute refusal to say one thing--anything--direct and substantive about the science in the article in lieu of instead fixating on the journal/publisher, we're left to assume that's all you've got.

No surprise, that.

Anyway, if you truly don't have "...great confidence it could stand on it own two feet", why not draw up a paper of your own refuting the BEST results? But some advice if you do: your article's conclusion will need to say more than "BEST is wrong because Anthony Watts says so".

For me, this paper raises more questions than it answers about solar contributions to the global warming equation.

I read this article/study BTG, before the game. (Go Niners!) Anyone who takes time to read it or even reads the quotes (comment 58) Neo pulled from the abstract and conclusion, would notice the "if, could, might and however" in that paper.

Here's some discussion pulled from the paper related to solar forcing:

"When we included solar forcing we found that the solar variability record assumed by the IPCC did not contribute significantly to the fit of historic temperature. This could imply that any effect associated with solar variability is too small to be detected by our simple approach. It might also imply that the shape of solar forcing assumed by the IPCC during the last 250 years is too inaccurate for an effective comparison. However, if the shape of the solar forcing history is accurate, then the impact of solar variability on climate would have to be on the low side of present estimates."

Wonder what Dr. Rood might have to say about the relevance of what is presented.

Quoting Neapolitan:
By your absolute refusal to say one thing--anything--about the science in the article so you can instead fixate on the journal/publisher, we're left to assume that's all you've got.

No surprise, that.

Anyway, if you truly don't have "...great confidence it could stand on it own two feet", why not draw up a paper of your own refuting the BEST results? But some advice if you do: your article's conclusion will need to say more than "BEST is wrong because Anthony Watts says so".

No A first rate Journal with expert reviewers says it is. You can accept that or not. You will not accept it because you want to believe it whether it is true or not because you like what it says. How scientific is that?

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
For me, this paper raises more questions than it answers about solar contributions to the global warming equation.

I read this article/study BTG, before the game. (Go Niners!) Anyone who takes time to read it or even reads the quotes (comment 58) Neo pulled from the abstract and conclusion, would notice the "if, could, might and however" in that paper.

Here's some discussion pulled from the paper related to solar forcing:

"When we included solar forcing we found that the solar variability record assumed by the IPCC did not contribute significantly to the fit of historic temperature. This could imply that any effect associated with solar variability is too small to be detected by our simple approach. It might also imply that the shape of solar forcing assumed by the IPCC during the last 250 years is too inaccurate for an effective comparison. However, if the shape of the solar forcing history is accurate, then the impact of solar variability on climate would have to be on the low side of present estimates."

Wonder what Dr. Rood might have to say about the relevance of what is presented.

First, thank you for commenting on the content of the article itself, something someone else has failed to do at least half a dozen times today.

Second, it may pay to remember that the BEST project was funded in very large part by one of the nation's largest polluters and lovers of fossil fuel, Koch Industries, a corporation deeply involved over the years with all manner of denialist initiatives. And Dr. Mueller--head of the project--was himself a denialist until this project showed him just how wrong he'd been. So it's no surprise that any statement or article emanating from the group will be couched in lots of quantifying and qualifying terms. (FWIW, political input is also the major reason the IPCC reports are so watered down.) Dr. Rood is aware of that, so he might very well comment on that fact.

I interpret the passages you cited, as well as the ones I did, to say, "If the many hundreds of climate scientists who produced the IPCC reports are correct--and we've no reason whatsoever to believe they are otherwise--our results corroborate almost every other major study in concluding that solar forcing indeed plays a very small role in the observed warming. We must admit that it's possible that both we and they may all be wrong, but nothing says they are."

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
For me, this paper raises more questions than it answers about solar contributions to the global warming equation.

I read this article/study BTG, before the game. (Go Niners!) Anyone who takes time to read it or even reads the quotes (comment 58) Neo pulled from the abstract and conclusion, would notice the "if, could, might and however" in that paper.

Here's some discussion pulled from the paper related to solar forcing:

"When we included solar forcing we found that the solar variability record assumed by the IPCC did not contribute significantly to the fit of historic temperature. This could imply that any effect associated with solar variability is too small to be detected by our simple approach. It might also imply that the shape of solar forcing assumed by the IPCC during the last 250 years is too inaccurate for an effective comparison. However, if the shape of the solar forcing history is accurate, then the impact of solar variability on climate would have to be on the low side of present estimates."

Wonder what Dr. Rood might have to say about the relevance of what is presented.

Here is what I see on this, Barefoot. Should the solar contributions be significantly higher than the IPCC assumed it to be then what impact would this have on the poles during the winter seasons and with night time temperatures? Unless there is something in the atmosphere to capture some of the solar energy before it is returned to space then the winter time polar cooling and night time cooling should be on par with historical temperature data. Neapolitan keeps up with these records far better than I do. Perhaps he has the data to show us temperature trends on these two aspects?

Our moon lacks any atmosphere to trap the daytime heating of the sun. As a result of this our moon almost instantly begins to lose the daytime heating back into space. Our moon can range from 170C during the day to -153C during the night. As the sun drops below the moon's horizon the temperature will drop by 250C in a matter of a few moments. Source

Another aspect that I keep in mind is that if solar forcing has increased then the CO2 would only serve to trap more of this heat. The net effect is that we would see even more warming than we would have observed had we not contributed to the increased levels of CO2. There is no way to slice the pie that would remove CO2 as greenhouse gas. There is no way to slice the pie that omits our contributions towards increasing the CO2 levels. There is no way that you could slice the pie that omits our destruction of the natural carbon sinks. No matter how you slice the pie, the Laws of Physics can not be removed that shows we are the significant contributor to our warming climate without rewriting the Laws Of Physics.

Nymore, you are quite welcome to take this opportunity to show the science that would bring into question any of this.

Neo and Rookie,
My apologies for addressing you both at once.

I first stepped foot into Dr. Rood's blog a year ago and asked the question, "When are you gonna start talking about solutions?"

The globe is warming. Human activities contribute to that. And the pieces needed to put the solution to this puzzle together go far beyond that. Fossil fuels will not disappear from use any time soon because human survival now depends on them. We use rare earth metals and uranium. Humans need jobs and food and the earth needs to be protected. The big picture, the Earth and Sky, the economics, the global energy demand and use by a burgeoning population, that's what gets left out when AGWists point their fingers at this one or that one - "denialists," "big energy," whatever. Waste of energy. Have you ever listened to anyone who had their finger pointed in your face? I doubt it. The gesture makes most people mad. I know it makes me mad. Angry people don't hear a thing. They usually walk out the door or away from the table. Unless they lose control and punch your lights out.

I suppose you both think you are doing what is needed by pushing the climate science and AGW. That is not what this Earth and its peoples need. They need a new and non-polluting energy source. We have a couple and the technology's been there for decades. But couldn't there be something more? Of course there could.

Beyond monitoring data, soon global warming science will be history. We don't need any more studies to prove how much warming is human-caused vs. solar caused vs. natural. All that is needed now is data gathering. Monitoring. Improve these. Put research dollars to work backing geoscientists, physicists, biochemists, engineers, inventors - those who have the brains to come up with answers this world needs. Improve solar and wind technology for starters. Put money into new energy research not more and more and more studies to prove a point that's already known. Heck, Dr. Rood can always have a job teaching the history of global warming science. I know "climate change" is PC now, but I'm not real good with rules.

Of course I know what Koch Industries does but I would not describe it with hatred or vilify it in any way. And that's the problem I see. Hatred. Hatred of those who control the gathering and distribution of the world's energy. Why hate? Because you are dependent? I'm guessing it will be private industry, and yes, energy concerns, who come up with the answer that will help mankind because... there is an answer.

I'm going to change my question of a year ago and ask "When will the bickering stop and mankind allow itself to come together and create what is needed?"

Ps. I have no more to say about the paper except it's a good example of wasted human energy.

Quoting greentortuloni:
Federal Advisory Committee Draft Climate Assessment Report Released for Public Review


Sorry if this is old but i have like 40 seconds left before disconnect.

Thanks. Looks interesting as does a lot of the info at the parent site including links to the two previous National Climate Assessment Reports - 2000 and 2009.

Says public comment on this draft report will be open till April 12. Okey dokey.

"Following extensive review by the National Academies of Sciences and by the public, this report will be revised by the NCADAC and, after additional review, will then be submitted to the Federal Government for consideration in the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) Report. For more information on the NCA process and background, previous assessments and other NCA information, please explore the NCA web-pages. The NCA is being conducted under the auspices of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 and is being organized and administered by the Global Change Research Program."

Could there be hope at the end of the funnel?

Thanks Bare, you put words on the screen where I could not find any to say. I applaud what you say.

Thanks for the kind words.

The demise of Arctic sea ice has held my attention for the past few years. I have no suggestions as to what could be done to alleviate the situation within a time frame that would be meaningful.

What I fear is that in less than a lustrum we will lose the perennial ice cap that has been in place through mankind's civilized history & that the results will shortly thereafter will make any organized response futile.

If the energy now being used annually to melt Arctic ice, were instead used to heating an ice free Arctic Ocean it would be enough to raise the uppermost meter of the ocean by .7C. This pulse of heat will be added to every year & additional heat from albedo changes and increases in GHGs will build on this.

I have no idea how NH weather patterns will react to this new source of sensible heat. I assume that additional moisture in the atmosphere will multiply CO2's effects & that the GIS will retreat far more rapidly than has been forecast.

Simple math taking annual ice loss and latent heat of fusion into account seems to preclude other outcomes. I'd really like to be shown another possible scenario - this one is far too bleak.

Terry

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
Neo and Rookie,
My apologies for addressing you both at once.

I first stepped foot into Dr. Rood's blog a year ago and asked the question, "When are you gonna start talking about solutions?"

The globe is warming. Human activities contribute to that. And the pieces needed to put the solution to this puzzle together go far beyond that. Fossil fuels will not disappear from use any time soon because human survival now depends on them. We use rare earth metals and uranium. Humans need jobs and food and the earth needs to be protected. The big picture, the Earth and Sky, the economics, the global energy demand and use by a burgeoning population, that's what gets left out when AGWists point their fingers at this one or that one - "denialists," "big energy," whatever. Waste of energy. Have you ever listened to anyone who had their finger pointed in your face? I doubt it. The gesture makes most people mad. I know it makes me mad. Angry people don't hear a thing. They usually walk out the door or away from the table. Unless they lose control and punch your lights out.

I suppose you both think you are doing what is needed by pushing the climate science and AGW. That is not what this Earth and its peoples need. They need a new and non-polluting energy source. We have a couple and the technology's been there for decades. But couldn't there be something more? Of course there could.

Beyond monitoring data, soon global warming science will be history. We don't need any more studies to prove how much warming is human-caused vs. solar caused vs. natural. All that is needed now is data gathering. Monitoring. Improve these. Put research dollars to work backing geoscientists, physicists, biochemists, engineers, inventors - those who have the brains to come up with answers this world needs. Improve solar and wind technology for starters. Put money into new energy research not more and more and more studies to prove a point that's already known. Heck, Dr. Rood can always have a job teaching the history of global warming science. I know "climate change" is PC now, but I'm not real good with rules.

Of course I know what Koch Industries does but I would not describe it with hatred or vilify it in any way. And that's the problem I see. Hatred. Hatred of those who control the gathering and distribution of the world's energy. Why hate? Because you are dependent? I'm guessing it will be private industry, and yes, energy concerns, who come up with the answer that will help mankind because... there is an answer.

I'm going to change my question of a year ago and ask "When will the bickering stop and mankind allow itself to come together and create what is needed?"

Ps. I have no more to say about the paper except it's a good example of wasted human energy.

The issues you bring up have been addressed countless times, both here in this forum and elsewhere. I'll summarize my thoughts thusly: discussing the depth and the breadth of, and the reasons behind, and the consequences of, a problem is every bit as necessary as finding solutions to that problem. I've never been sure why some insist that there must be a strict dichotomy: either we talk about it, or we solve it, but we can't do both at once, as though the two halves must exist in isolation from one another. That's always seemed like saying, "I know you're a kleptomaniac, dear, but we're not going to talk about your stealing habits; I just want to discuss which style of padlocks to use."

The past several decades of experience have proven that the moment people such as Rookie and myself stop "pushing" climate science and discussing AGW, the Other Side uses that as an opportunity to move things even further their way. "Hey, they're not talking about the planet warming, so it must not be doing so. More oil and coal, PDQ!" Knowing that, I don't plan to stop until they do.

It may make some "mad" enough to "walk out the door or away from the table" when confronted by those who see things differently than they do, but, well, that's just too bad. Being responsible has always been one of the consequences of living in a connected society. No one is allowed to waltz in and say, "Well, now, see here! We provide something people want! And we provide jobs! How dare you anger us and sully our reputations by questioning the manner in which we do so!" It simply doesn't work that way. People are free to swing their arms all they want, but when their fist connects with my nose--that is, when their destructive and profiteering ways directly threaten me and my children and my grandchildren--it's on, and I care not one whit whether it causes anyone discomfort or makes them want to stomp away from the table like a child denied a candy bar at bedtime.

Climate science and the study of warming will never cease to exist. Either we'll succeed in destroying our civilization--in which case it's the only history that will really matter in the end--or we'll somehow avert a catastrophe, in which case it's the only history that will be studied for centuries to come as subsequent generations look back on how we almost did ourselves in.

Quoting TWEMoran:
Simple math taking annual ice loss and latent heat of fusion into account seems to preclude other outcomes. I'd really like to be shown another possible scenario - this one is far too bleak.

Terry

Indeed.

Pessimist ('pess-uh-mist) - noun 1. A person simultaneously and equally knowledgeable about climate science, simple physics, basic mathematics, and human nature.

Not to be a shill for Coursera, but since UMichigan is a participant I guess this post is OK.

Anywany, there is a free online course, Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Conversations, being offered this May.

Here is the abstract:

"Climate Literacy tackles the scientific and socio-political dimensions of climate change. This course introduces the basics of the climate system, models and predictions, human and natural impacts, mitigative and adaptive responses, and the evolution of climate policy."

Sounds like it might be interesting (I am too busy unfortunately to cram anything else in.) I have found that Coursera classes are pretty good and range from very hard to very accessible.

More denialist lies

Link

Quoting JupiterKen:
More denialist lies

Link

Well, either lies, or utter ignorance. I won't delve into details--it's been covered thoroughly here, among many other places--but the bottom line is, even according to that whack graphic, temperatures continue to rise in line with FAR, SAR, TAR, and AF4 projections. At the low end of projections, true, but that's because of the historic La Nina going on. Bottom line: denialists can't claim "warming has stopped" when it's rising in line with projected increases. (Well, they can, I suppose, but they only serve to drive themselves deeper into oblivion. Which, on the whole, is probably a good thing for the planet.)

Silly denialists. Tsk, tsk...

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
Neo and Rookie,
My apologies for addressing you both at once.

I first stepped foot into Dr. Rood's blog a year ago and asked the question, "When are you gonna start talking about solutions?"

The globe is warming. Human activities contribute to that. And the pieces needed to put the solution to this puzzle together go far beyond that. Fossil fuels will not disappear from use any time soon because human survival now depends on them. We use rare earth metals and uranium. Humans need jobs and food and the earth needs to be protected. The big picture, the Earth and Sky, the economics, the global energy demand and use by a burgeoning population, that's what gets left out when AGWists point their fingers at this one or that one - "denialists," "big energy," whatever. Waste of energy. Have you ever listened to anyone who had their finger pointed in your face? I doubt it. The gesture makes most people mad. I know it makes me mad. Angry people don't hear a thing. They usually walk out the door or away from the table. Unless they lose control and punch your lights out.

I suppose you both think you are doing what is needed by pushing the climate science and AGW. That is not what this Earth and its peoples need. They need a new and non-polluting energy source. We have a couple and the technology's been there for decades. But couldn't there be something more? Of course there could.

Beyond monitoring data, soon global warming science will be history. We don't need any more studies to prove how much warming is human-caused vs. solar caused vs. natural. All that is needed now is data gathering. Monitoring. Improve these. Put research dollars to work backing geoscientists, physicists, biochemists, engineers, inventors - those who have the brains to come up with answers this world needs. Improve solar and wind technology for starters. Put money into new energy research not more and more and more studies to prove a point that's already known. Heck, Dr. Rood can always have a job teaching the history of global warming science. I know "climate change" is PC now, but I'm not real good with rules.

Of course I know what Koch Industries does but I would not describe it with hatred or vilify it in any way. And that's the problem I see. Hatred. Hatred of those who control the gathering and distribution of the world's energy. Why hate? Because you are dependent? I'm guessing it will be private industry, and yes, energy concerns, who come up with the answer that will help mankind because... there is an answer.

I'm going to change my question of a year ago and ask "When will the bickering stop and mankind allow itself to come together and create what is needed?"

Ps. I have no more to say about the paper except it's a good example of wasted human energy.

Correct Barefootontherocks time is up.......I have what we need and have been telling them that for years....Problem is nothing will be done until it effects them we are like the frog in the pot of hot water.....


Link


...

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
Thanks. Looks interesting as does a lot of the info at the parent site including links to the two previous National Climate Assessment Reports - 2000 and 2009.

Says public comment on this draft report will be open till April 12. Okey dokey.

"Following extensive review by the National Academies of Sciences and by the public, this report will be revised by the NCADAC and, after additional review, will then be submitted to the Federal Government for consideration in the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) Report. For more information on the NCA process and background, previous assessments and other NCA information, please explore the NCA web-pages. The NCA is being conducted under the auspices of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 and is being organized and administered by the Global Change Research Program."

Could there be hope at the end of the funnel?

Funnel with a T...... That is the only hope....

Quoting TWEMoran:
Thanks for the kind words.

The demise of Arctic sea ice has held my attention for the past few years. I have no suggestions as to what could be done to alleviate the situation within a time frame that would be meaningful.

What I fear is that in less than a lustrum we will lose the perennial ice cap that has been in place through mankind's civilized history & that the results will shortly thereafter will make any organized response futile.

If the energy now being used annually to melt Arctic ice, were instead used to heating an ice free Arctic Ocean it would be enough to raise the uppermost meter of the ocean by .7C. This pulse of heat will be added to every year & additional heat from albedo changes and increases in GHGs will build on this.

I have no idea how NH weather patterns will react to this new source of sensible heat. I assume that additional moisture in the atmosphere will multiply CO2's effects & that the GIS will retreat far more rapidly than has been forecast.

Simple math taking annual ice loss and latent heat of fusion into account seems to preclude other outcomes. I'd really like to be shown another possible scenario - this one is far too bleak.

Terry

Remove the heat and restore the ice... Ya'll with me yet?

Quoting JupiterKen:
More denialist lies

Link

So tell us JupiterKen how does stagnate warming cause this?








Fact is it doesn't and it can't....










...

Quoting TomballTXPride:





Tunnels for you, tunnels for me, tunnels will set the world free!

:)

You are so CORRECT my friend......

Quoting greentortuloni:
Not to be a shill for Coursera, but since UMichigan is a participant I guess this post is OK.

Anywany, there is a free online course, Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Conversations, being offered this May.

Here is the abstract:

"Climate Literacy tackles the scientific and socio-political dimensions of climate change. This course introduces the basics of the climate system, models and predictions, human and natural impacts, mitigative and adaptive responses, and the evolution of climate policy."

Sounds like it might be interesting (I am too busy unfortunately to cram anything else in.) I have found that Coursera classes are pretty good and range from very hard to very accessible.

Thanks a lot, GT. I signed up. It will be a good complement to my ancient Berkeley BS degree in Conservation of Natural Resources. We can learn a lot on our own, but formal structure in learning really helps one focus and will hopefully help me become more knowledgeable and credible in climate science.

I wonder how many of our resident denialists and cornucopians (technology will fix the problem - it always has in the past!) are interested in learning about climate issues from a respected university's on-line education program?

Quoting JupiterKen:
More denialist lies

The sad thing about the article is that the author adamantly refers to trends such as the loss of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels as "singular events" and implies that they are not trends. That alone destroys his credibility.

Quoting cyclonebuster:



Remove the heat and restore the ice... Ya'll with me yet?

Unfortunately, your tunnels do not remove the heat - they simply move it. It's still in the biosphere as a component of an overall increased heat load and a higher energy level. Very minor shifts in oceanic currents and the global thermohaline circulation would absolutely dwarf anything the tunnels could do.

I'd be interested in your heat transfer equations and their scale with respect to the above mentioned currents and circulations. Do you have them posted anywhere on the internet?

Quoting nymore:



Your respected journal as you say in line number one is what a week old with one article published. How much respect could they have garnered in this time period. It was rejected by a journal with a history over 115 years long. I have another question why not fix it and send it back to JGR after all they are the ones who rejected it. Then you try to bring in a strawman argument about Watts who has nothing to do with JGR or this new journal. It is fun to watch you squirm though.

Did you consider that the article may have been rejected because it was a re-hash of already known science? One of the criteria for a successful submission is that it be original, or at least a different take on the original study. The purpose of these journals is to present the results of an original study for peer review. IOW, I couldn't rush out write a paper that "gravity makes us stick to the Earth!" and expect it to be published tomorrow- someone already did that.

No trend in global temperature in the last decade:

Quoting goosegirl1:


Did you consider that the article may have been rejected because it was a re-hash of already known science? One of the criteria for a successful submission is that it be original, or at least a different take on the original study. The purpose of these journals is to present the results of an original study for peer review. IOW, I couldn't rush out write a paper that "gravity makes us stick to the Earth!" and expect it to be published tomorrow- someone already did that.

You bring up a good point William Connolley writes his blog that:

The Watties are criticising the paper for being published in the first issue of a new journal of no known provenance, “Geoinformatics & Geostatistics: An Overview”. And I agree to this extent: BEST would not have published there, had they been able to publish in, say, JGR. Just like no-one publishes in E&E until everyone else has rejected them. But I disagree with the reasoning: the work, I think, is perfectly valid. As I said before. But just as I said before, it isn’t really all that exciting: its really just a new method for constructing a global time series, which agrees with the previous ones

Quoting NeapolitanFan:

No trend in global temperature in the last decade:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/0 1/gore_bet.png

Scott Armstrong; liar, fraud, "scientific forecaster"

by TheTracker, Wednesday, July 13, 2011

We haven't checked in in some time on Scott Armstrong's "scientific forecast" that global temperatures will remain unchanged for ten years, or his fake "bet" with Al Gore that no warming will occur. After losing eleven of the twelve months of 2010, something Armstrong avoided talking about by simply declining to update his own site, Armstrong, a professor of marketing who styles himself a "scientific forecaster," started to seem just too pathetic to pick on.

The recent La Nina, however, seems to have roused Armstrong from his self-imposed blog stupor long enough to fake the background of his "challenge":


Armstrong has been counting monthly anomalies as "wins" if they are no warmer than 2008, and "losses" (he rarely talks about these) if they are closer to an inflated trend of 0.3C/decade, which he falsely attributes to Gore.

The "bet" has not gone well for Armstrong. But Armstrong has been busy re-writing history. You will notice to the right on the chart above that Armstrong has deleted the first five months of 2008, presumably to disappear the La Nina-influenced depression in temperatures and hide the fact that counting from January 2008 (when the anomaly was -0.3C in UAH 5.3, compared to +0.32C last month -- hey +0.6C warming in just three and a half years!*), Armstrong has lost every single month of his bogus "bet."

La Nina is over, so it's no surprise that the June UAH anomaly of +0.32C is absent from Armstrong's site. I suppose when you've "disappeared" half a year of temperatures from a three-and-a-half year record, ignoring the present is no big deal.

* This is why serious people use moving averages, or at worst, yearly anomalies, not month-to-month fluctuations, to track global warming. To quote myself: "You could set up this bet in a more honest, evenhanded way which might be semi-valid in terms of shedding light on what is happening with our climate. Needless to say, that's not the process Armstrong came up with, which makes it all the more amusing that he has managed to deal himself a losing hand from a stacked deck."

75. Neapolitan 10:51 AM GMT on January 21, 2013
Thank you for taking time to write that reply. I wish you an epiphany.

cyclonebuster,
Thanks for the reply. I've known about your funnel with a "t" ideas since you first posted them at wu. Then and now, I think they would cause more harm than good.

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
75. Neapolitan 10:51 AM GMT on January 21, 2013
Thank you for taking time to write that reply. I wish you an epiphany.

Oh, I had one of those many years ago. That's why I stopped denying reality and began studying climate science.

But I do wish you an epiphany, much like the one that BEST's Mueller was subjected to after he started studying the results of his denialist-funded survey--which, by the way, is an excellent reason to keep studying the issue instead of, as you suggested, ceasing such studies.

Quoting Neapolitan:
Oh, I had one of those many years ago. That's why I stopped denying reality and began studying climate science.

But I do wish you an epiphany, much like the one that BEST's Mueller was subjected to after he started studying the results of his denialist-funded survey--which, by the way, is an excellent reason to keep studying the issue instead of, as you suggested, ceasing such studies.

You still trying to convince me the globe is warming? LOL I repeat, from my comment at 71: "The globe is warming. Human activities contribute."

I did not "suggest" ceasing studies on global warming. I hope anyone who reads the paragraph I wrote that begins "Beyond monitoring data, soon global warming science will be history" will see it in the context of my whole comment and will get the drift of my meaning, which I will restate in hope of clarifying my meaning in your mind:
"Global warming" studies, i.e. those aimed at proving to the world the cause and occurrence of same GW, will end. I think the scientific community and world governments will soon focus climate change science on the next croquet wicket along the path to integrating and solving the global warming puzzle. Data monitoring is key to this phase and will be - for eons maybe. It is no longer necessary to prove or global warming is occurring and that CO2 is key.

(Ps. You stole my epiphany line. lol That's not nice.)

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
You still trying to convince me the globe is warming? LOL I repeat, from my comment at 71: "The globe is warming. Human activities contribute."

No, I'm not trying to convince you warming is continuing; I was simply responding to both your statements that the BEST article asked more questions than it answered, and that the BEST study was a "waste of energy".

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
I did not "suggest" ceasing studies on global warming. I hope anyone who reads the paragraph I wrote that begins "Beyond monitoring data, soon global warming science will be history" will see it in the context of my whole comment and will get the drift of my meaning, which I will restate in hope of clarifying my meaning in your mind:
"Global warming" studies, i.e. those aimed at proving to the world the cause and occurrence of same GW, will end.

Your direct quote in #71 was, "We don't need any more studies to prove how much warming is human-caused vs. solar caused vs. natural." If I somehow misinterpreted that, mea culpa. But I still disagree with it. Scientists may not need any further convincing, but policymakers certainly do--as evidenced by their continued myopic obeisance to the fossil fuel industry and complete deaf ear/blind eye to the masses who will shoulder the bulk of the costs of that obeisance.

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
It is no longer necessary to prove or global warming is occurring and that CO2 is key.

Again, I disagree. So long as the world continues its headlong parade toward an almost certain catastrophe, led by a high-stepping, baton-pumping Grand Marshall funded by ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers, it is absolutely and vitally necessary to continue those studies.

Quoting Barefootontherocks:
(Ps. You stole my epiphany line. lol That's not nice.)

I didn't steal it; I borrowed it... ;-)

Quoting Xulonn:
Unfortunately, your tunnels do not remove the heat - they simply move it. It's still in the biosphere as a component of an overall increased heat load and a higher energy level. Very minor shifts in oceanic currents and the global thermohaline circulation would absolutely dwarf anything the tunnels could do.

I'd be interested in your heat transfer equations and their scale with respect to the above mentioned currents and circulations. Do you have them posted anywhere on the internet?

Fortunately I am right because they allow the heat to escape to space more efficiently as it did prior to the industrial revolution...

Quoting NeapolitanFan:
No trend in global temperature in the last decade:

LOL WUWT and more Dr.SUESS farmers market false information....Have you ever heard of NOAA?