Climate Change(d)?

[steve_bank]

Trolling?

Accusing someone of trolling is against the rules. But no, not trolling, the BBC is probably worse than Teh Gruaniad.

You still have not provided anything more than the usual anti climate science propaganda.

Post a link to a study or claim you feel is illegitimate and we will all discuss it rationally without personal attack item by item.

This is the science forum, not politcs.

 

[steve_bank]

The issue is how fast climate is charging, not that it is changing.

We know warming and cooling is cyclic. There have been green periods where the Sahara is.

 

[skepticalbip]

Trolling?

Accusing someone of trolling is against the rules. But no, not trolling, the BBC is probably worse than Teh Gruaniad.

You still have not provided anything more than the usual anti climate science propaganda.

Post a link to a study or claim you feel is illegitimate and we will all discuss it rationally without personal attack item by item.

This is the science forum, not politcs.

I think that the problem here is that the climate apocalypse advocates that T.S. is referring to are not quoting scientific studies. Many are still citing some of the claims made in Al Gore's movie that have been debunked, if not just making up catastrophes on the fly. For example, Manhattan is still not underwater even though it is well past the time that Gore claimed that science predicted it would be flooded (science didn't predict such a thing but Gore claimed they did anyway). Then again anytime some rare local weather event happens, it is blamed on anthropogenic climate change even though it may have also happened a hundred years ago.

Yes, climate change is real. It is happening. But the knee jerk assertions and constant misappropriations of weather as climate change has become a religion for many.

Rather than challenging T.S. to produce and argue against some scientific climate study, perhaps you could produce an actual scientific climate study rather than citing local news broadcasts, politicians, or the BBC.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

To be fair, he equates any talk on climate change with whacked out crazy talk.

Avg temp of Earth could increase 5 degrees in 50 yrs and he’d just say ‘we can’t know for certain it didn’t happen naturally’.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

To be fair, he equates any talk on climate change with whacked out crazy talk.

Avg temp of Earth could increase 5 degrees in 50 yrs and he’d just say ‘we can’t know for certain it didn’t happen naturally’.

It is happening naturally. There isn't anything unnatural or supernatural that I can see in the process. That doesn't mean it's good or desirable but it sure as fuck is pretty damn natural.

What's unnatural about extracting coal or gas or oil and then burning it? It's perfectly natural. Bacteria changed the atmosphere eons ago and caused the free iron to rust. Now we mine the iron. Anything unnatural about any of that?

The right wing is nuts about their belief that people are not part of nature, that we're special, that we get to rule and can disconnect from things "natural," that we came from magic. You're actually agreeing with them. Bubonic plague and polio are as natural as tsunamis and cesspools. But I don't think right wing idiots want to cozy up to any of those things either. Don't give them ammunition by saying the temperature rise isn't "natural." It sure as fuck is.

 

[steve_bank]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-w...flooding-earth-sea-level-rise-climate-change/

A new study from NASA and the University of Hawaii, published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change, warns that upcoming changes in the moon's orbit could lead to record flooding on Earth in the next decade.

Through mapping the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) sea-level rise scenarios, flooding thresholds and astronomical cycles, researchers found flooding in American coastal cities could be several multiples worse in the 2030s, when the next moon "wobble" is expected to begin. They expect the flooding to significantly damage infrastructure and displace communities.

 

[bilby]

Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading has published a neat tool that graphs temperature anomaly (using average temperature 1971-2000 as the baseline) for a huge number of regions and territories. These graphs are allowed for any use under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as the author and institution are credited, and a link to the source (https://showyourstripes.info) is included.



There are some very worrying regional variations. The Arctic is warming at a tremendous rate:



But perhaps more unfortunate, at least in political terms, is that the least affected region in the world seems to be the US Republican heartland states.



The warming trend is still there, but in that Southern region of the US, it's very weak, and probably not very noticeable. Texas (above), Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia... all show only slight warming trends, swamped by annual variation.

Pretty much everywhere else (and particularly in the higher latitudes), the trend is stark. Winter is not coming.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Like with the coronavirus at the start of the pandemic, the southern states could ignore the problem because it was happening somewhere else, to people they didn’t care about.

 

[steve_bank]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

 

[Shadowy Man]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

So badly you couldn’t even tell it was there!

 

[steve_bank]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

There are cyclic ice ages,the Sahra has had green cycles, so what?

When you put your head in the ground like an ostrich make sure you put sun screen on your ass.

It is about the rapidity of change.

The pandemic showed how fragile our infrastructure is.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

There are cyclic ice ages,the Sahra has had green cycles, so what?

When you put your head in the ground like an ostrich make sure you put sun screen on your ass.

It is about the rapidity of change.

The pandemic showed how fragile our infrastructure is.

I know people who don't use the ground when inserting. Saves on the sunscreen.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

Earth to Shadowy Man: Lake Mead didn't exist before the industrial revolution. It was created by Hoover Dam!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

There are cyclic ice ages,the Sahra has had green cycles, so what?

When you put your head in the ground like an ostrich make sure you put sun screen on your ass.

It is about the rapidity of change.

The pandemic showed how fragile our infrastructure is.

It's not just about the speed of change. Natural variation has gone from snowball (life basically limited to the hydrothermal vents) to hot enough most of the world had nothing that left fossils.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In the news Lake Powell is drying up. It supplies hydro power to about 5 million people.

Smaller things adding up.

So what? I’m sure Lake Mead has dried up many times before the industrial revolution.

Earth to Shadowy Man: Lake Mead didn't exist before the industrial revolution. It was created by Hoover Dam!

*sigh* Subtly is lost on some people.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Earth to Shadowy Man: Lake Mead didn't exist before the industrial revolution. It was created by Hoover Dam!

*sigh* Subtly is lost on some people.

It’s ok. As long as I’ve been on this forum, I’m still relatively unknown.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Meanwhile, Germany apparently lost at least 100 people, and maybe several hundreds in catastrophic flooding in record rains.

Meanwhile in NE Ohio, a lesser impressive change is the monsoon July we are having. Probably not breaking the absurd record we had in 2011 (I think, of over 11 inches of rain for the month), but we keep getting these high humidity, 1" rain events. So it isn't all in one shot, unlike in Germany, but this July is wetter than normal, reaching the average rainfall before the mid-point of the month, and consistent more SE US like downpours.

The temperature has been decent though. Some 90+ days, but nothing like it was last summer.

 

[thebeave]

It used to be not that many years ago that scientists warned us that we can't claim that a particular catastrophic weather event was in any way related to climate change. And rightfully so. Have these scientists now concluded otherwise? Because it seems more and more that people are willing to jump to that conclusion, and I have not yet seen that memo.

 

[Tharmas]

It used to be not that many years ago that scientists warned us that we can't claim that a particular catastrophic weather event was in any way related to climate change. And rightfully so. Have these scientists now concluded otherwise? Because it seems more and more that people are willing to jump to that conclusion, and I have not yet seen that memo.

I was wondering the same thing. So I checked around. I found thiis:

Global warming is making some extreme weather events worse.

Extreme weather events are influenced by many factors in addition to global warming. Daily and seasonal weather patterns and natural climate patterns such as El Niño or La Niña affect when and where extreme weather events take place.

For example, many studies have linked an increase in wildfire activity to global warming. In addition, the risk of a fire could depend on past forest management, natural climate variability, human activities, and other factors, in addition to human-caused climate change. Determining how much climate change contributes to extreme weather events such as wildfires continues to be studied.

So it's not an open and shut case. More extremes are predicted, and more extremes are what we're getting. That's my 2 cents.

 

[scombrid]

We have had a pretty big shift in the last 15 years in east central Florida. Climate "norms" posted by the weather service are based on 30-year averages. The average low temperature here went up 4 degrees F here when they calculated the 1990 to 2020 data. That doesn't tell the whole story though. 2010 to 2020 was very different from 1990 to 2000. Our weather in Cocoa area has for 1998 to the present been comparable to West Palm Beach/Ft. Lauderdale in the 20th century. The last time the overnight low here went below 27F was 1996. I used to grow southern strain peaches and plumbs. They haven't set fruit in years because we don't get enough chill hours. Meanwhile I am growing mangoes, pineapples, bananas, and papayas west of the northern IRL which is something you didn't do back in the 70s, 80s, 90s...

Our average low in summer has gone up 4 degrees as has the dewpoint. 72F with a dewpoint of 70F at daybreak is sticky but tolerable. A morning low of 81F with a dewpoint of 77F which is what we had today is just miserable. Try running a 10k when the wetbulb temp is that high. Our new average low of 76 is pretty GD miserable. Once the dewpoint exceeds 72 then the human body starts to struggle because evaporative cooling stops working.

 

[skepticalbip]

It used to be not that many years ago that scientists warned us that we can't claim that a particular catastrophic weather event was in any way related to climate change. And rightfully so. Have these scientists now concluded otherwise? Because it seems more and more that people are willing to jump to that conclusion, and I have not yet seen that memo.

I was wondering the same thing. So I checked around. I found thiis:

Global warming is making some extreme weather events worse.

Extreme weather events are influenced by many factors in addition to global warming. Daily and seasonal weather patterns and natural climate patterns such as El Niño or La Niña affect when and where extreme weather events take place.

For example, many studies have linked an increase in wildfire activity to global warming. In addition, the risk of a fire could depend on past forest management, natural climate variability, human activities, and other factors, in addition to human-caused climate change. Determining how much climate change contributes to extreme weather events such as wildfires continues to be studied.

So it's not an open and shut case. More extremes are predicted, and more extremes are what we're getting. That's my 2 cents.

This is an example? You linked an advocacy group's opinion, not a climate science paper.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was wondering the same thing. So I checked around. I found thiis:

Global warming is making some extreme weather events worse.



So it's not an open and shut case. More extremes are predicted, and more extremes are what we're getting. That's my 2 cents.

This is an example? You linked an advocacy group's opinion, not a climate science paper.

The point was one hurricane, one rain storm can't be hung on climate change. Breaking an all-time temp record by 9 degrees, record climate averages or totals over the period of a month, unprecedented flooding all happening at the same time... can. The heat dome in the Pacific NW wasn't supposed to be possible. That happens the same year Texas has an insane freezing. These are the data points that are fitting into the climate change puzzle / pattern.

Yes, a roulette wheel can land on the same number 2 or 3 times in a row. When it does it for the eighth time, there are issues!

 

[Tharmas]

I was wondering the same thing. So I checked around. I found thiis:

Global warming is making some extreme weather events worse.



So it's not an open and shut case. More extremes are predicted, and more extremes are what we're getting. That's my 2 cents.

This is an example? You linked an advocacy group's opinion, not a climate science paper.

I'm curious. Why do you say they're an advocacy group. What are they advocating?

 

[skepticalbip]

I was wondering the same thing. So I checked around. I found thiis:

Global warming is making some extreme weather events worse.



So it's not an open and shut case. More extremes are predicted, and more extremes are what we're getting. That's my 2 cents.

This is an example? You linked an advocacy group's opinion, not a climate science paper.

I'm curious. Why do you say they're an advocacy group. What are they advocating?

I say they are an advocacy group because that is what they are. They are not themselves doing any scientific research or study that I have been able to see but they do advocate for funding of the sciences and science education which I certainly agree with.

However any group of people will have opinions on various issues whether or not they have any special qualifications to support those opinions. A group advocating for funding science does not automatically transfer knowledge and understanding of a specific field of science to them. What you cited was an opinion, not a science paper by climatologists.

 

[southernhybrid]

If anyone is interested, I'm going to post a link about the European floods from the NYTimes that you all should be able to read because I haven't used up my 10 articles to share this month.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/16/world/europe-flooding-germany?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#floods-germany-belgium-europe

“It is the intensity and the length of the events that science tells us this is a clear indication of climate change,” Ms. von der Leyen said. “It shows the urgency to act.”

Flooding is a complex phenomenon with many causes, including land development and ground conditions. While linking climate change to a single flood event requires extensive scientific analysis, climate change, which is already causing heavier rainfall in many storms, is an increasingly important part of the mix. Warmer atmosphere holds, and releases, more water, whether in the form of rain or heavy winter snowpack.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s president, also blamed climate change for the floods: “Only when we take action against climate change can we keep the events that we are now experiencing within limits,” he said in a televised statement from Berlin.

The impact of climate change is one of the issues that has been fiercely debated in Germany before the September elections in which the Greens party is in the running for second place, behind the conservative Christian Democrats.

“The catastrophic results of the heavy rain in the past few days are largely homemade,” said Holger Sticht, who heads the regional chapter of Friends of the Earth Germany in North Rhine-Westphalia. He blamed lawmakers and industry for building in floodplains and woodlands. “We urgently need to change course.”

It's a fairly long piece with lots of photos and detailed information as to the amount of destruction this and recent flooding have caused.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

All-time records being set. Not daily, but since we've had a thermometer measuring the temperature.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/NWSWPC/status/1414635183068749825[/TWEET]

As a reminder, Canada set their national all-time high in the NW heat dome. And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

 

[skepticalbip]

.... And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

You are still talking weather, not climate. Climate is about LONG TERM changes. Extreme weather isn't climate. Yes, Death Valley measured a temperature of 130F recently and the news media made a big deal about it. However a Death Valley temperature of 134F was recorded in 1913, over a hundred years ago. I can only imagine how a repeat of the 1930s dust bowl (of 80 to 90 years ago) would be covered.

Yes however, long term global temperature averages have risen... that is climate. Long term global temperatures have been rising since the depths of the Little Ice Age (the coldest period of the Holocene) in the 1800s. The question for climatologists is how much of that global temperature rise is attributable to anthropogenic causes and how much is attributable to otherwise natural climate change.

 

[bilby]

.... And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

You are still talking weather, not climate. Climate is about LONG TERM changes. Extreme weather isn't climate. Yes, Death Valley measured a temperature of 130F recently and the news media made a big deal about it. However a Death Valley temperature of 134F was recorded in 1913, over a hundred years ago. I can only imagine how a repeat of the 1930s dust bowl (of 80 to 90 years ago) would be covered.

Yes however, long term global temperature averages have risen... that is climate. Long term global temperatures have been rising since the depths of the Little Ice Age (the coldest period of the Holocene) in the 1800s. The question for climatologists is how much of that global temperature rise is attributable to anthropogenic causes and how much is attributable to otherwise natural climate change.

And some very simple atmospheric physics, combined with the observations that humans burning fossil fuels have massively increased atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels; And that increases in global temperature are more rapid than those caused by similar natural variations in the past, makes the conclusion that most (if not all) is due to humans, undeniable.

Models of global climate trends due to influences other than the greenhouse effect suggest that we should be seeing dramatically lower temperatures than we actually see, and some models suggest that we should be seeing further cooling relative to historical temperatures, rather than the sharp warming we actually see.

By the way, the Little Ice Age was more little than it was an ice age, and was a regional, rather than a global, phenomenon. It represented a series of brief down-ticks in European temperatures between about 1300 and 1900, and was over by the end of the C19th. It may well have been caused by, or contributed to by, the significant changes in land use due to the pandemic of the mid-1300s, as cleared arable land reverted to woodland.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

.... And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

You are still talking weather, not climate. Climate is about LONG TERM changes. Extreme weather isn't climate. Yes, Death Valley measured a temperature of 130F recently and the news media made a big deal about it. However a Death Valley temperature of 134F was recorded in 1913, over a hundred years ago. I can only imagine how a repeat of the 1930s dust bowl (of 80 to 90 years ago) would be covered.

Yes however, long term global temperature averages have risen... that is climate. Long term global temperatures have been rising since the depths of the Little Ice Age (the coldest period of the Holocene) in the 1800s. The question for climatologists is how much of that global temperature rise is attributable to anthropogenic causes and how much is attributable to otherwise natural climate change.

And if my post was simply about Death Valley and not about concentrated extreme events over a short duration, you’d right about me talking about weather.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

.... And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

You are still talking weather, not climate. Climate is about LONG TERM changes. Extreme weather isn't climate. Yes, Death Valley measured a temperature of 130F recently and the news media made a big deal about it. However a Death Valley temperature of 134F was recorded in 1913, over a hundred years ago. I can only imagine how a repeat of the 1930s dust bowl (of 80 to 90 years ago) would be covered.

Yes however, long term global temperature averages have risen... that is climate. Long term global temperatures have been rising since the depths of the Little Ice Age (the coldest period of the Holocene) in the 1800s. The question for climatologists is how much of that global temperature rise is attributable to anthropogenic causes and how much is attributable to otherwise natural climate change.

Academic. Regardless the source shouldn't we be reacting? "Hey Floridians, Relax! We just determined that the rising sea levels are 51% non anthropogenic! Whew! Close call!

So carry on with business as usual. Houston does not have a problem."

 

[bilby]

.... And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

You are still talking weather, not climate. Climate is about LONG TERM changes. Extreme weather isn't climate. Yes, Death Valley measured a temperature of 130F recently and the news media made a big deal about it. However a Death Valley temperature of 134F was recorded in 1913, over a hundred years ago. I can only imagine how a repeat of the 1930s dust bowl (of 80 to 90 years ago) would be covered.

Yes however, long term global temperature averages have risen... that is climate. Long term global temperatures have been rising since the depths of the Little Ice Age (the coldest period of the Holocene) in the 1800s. The question for climatologists is how much of that global temperature rise is attributable to anthropogenic causes and how much is attributable to otherwise natural climate change.

Academic. Regardless the source shouldn't we be reacting? "Hey Floridians, Relax! We just determined that the rising sea levels are 51% non anthropogenic! Whew! Close call!

So carry on with business as usual. Houston does not have a problem."

Well Houston is about 37m above sea level, so it probably doesn't have much of a problem in the medium term. Galveston, on the other hand...

 

[Swammerdami]

If you roll a pair of dice ten times, and double-sixes appear eight times, you can say "Odds are good these dice are loaded." With care, you may be able to come up with a probability estimate. A "thousand-year flood" or "thousand-year heat wave" figures to happen once a year if you have a thousand venues. A burst of several independent thousand-year events is less likely to occur by chance.

Some scientists have tried to estimate such probabilities. Developing a sound probability model for such things is very difficult, but their efforts are not necessarily wrong.

... Houston does not have a problem."

Yeah, we know. Tom Hanks said "Houston, WE have a problem."

 

[steve_bank]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/17/us/great-salt-lake-drought-dying/index.html

The Great Salt Lake is shrinking, It coud afct millions of birds and create toxic dust.

The fiddling while Rome burns metaphor seems to apply.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGanLUnjoPI[/YOUTUBE]

Carl Sagan's reflections and predictions about a coming "celebration of ignorance." Definitely worth the four minutes to watch.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

.... And Death Valley tied it's all-time record from last year, for possibly the hottest temp recorded on Earth.

You are still talking weather, not climate. Climate is about LONG TERM changes. Extreme weather isn't climate. Yes, Death Valley measured a temperature of 130F recently and the news media made a big deal about it. However a Death Valley temperature of 134F was recorded in 1913, over a hundred years ago. I can only imagine how a repeat of the 1930s dust bowl (of 80 to 90 years ago) would be covered.

Note that all of the records above 130F are considered highly suspect. 130F is probably a tie for the all time world high.

 

[SLD]

Climate change science is one thing I don’t understand. It seems harder to comprehend than things like evolution or astronomy. I don’t really understand what exactly leads to the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real versus ordinary long term deviations. I strongly suspect that it’s real because I do trust scientists generally and understand that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it’s real.

I understand evolution is real because I’ve read books on it and it’s fairly easy to understand the evidence. We have physical fossils that I have personally observed as well. Climate change isn’t like that. It seems to me a very technical subject. Maybe that’s why it’s treated with such skepticism amongst the general public. You just can’t say, hey the overwhelming scientific community agrees, so you should too. You’ve got to be able to explain it in rather simple terms for marginally intelligent laymen to understand. That really hasn’t been done. But maybe I’ve missed it.

 

[Shadowy Man]

So is the issue that you believe the science says that unprecedented climate change is happening but you don’t quite understand how climate scientists believe it is anthropogenic?

 

[skepticalbip]

Climate change science is one thing I don’t understand. It seems harder to comprehend than things like evolution or astronomy. I don’t really understand what exactly leads to the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real versus ordinary long term deviations. I strongly suspect that it’s real because I do trust scientists generally and understand that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it’s real.

I understand evolution is real because I’ve read books on it and it’s fairly easy to understand the evidence. We have physical fossils that I have personally observed as well. Climate change isn’t like that. It seems to me a very technical subject. Maybe that’s why it’s treated with such skepticism amongst the general public. You just can’t say, hey the overwhelming scientific community agrees, so you should too. You’ve got to be able to explain it in rather simple terms for marginally intelligent laymen to understand. That really hasn’t been done. But maybe I’ve missed it.

Climatology is hard to understand because there is a lot that climatologists themselves don't understand. Much of what drives climate seems to be chaotic. But there is much that climatologists do understand... The greenhouse effect is one of the drivers that climatologists do understand and apparently the news media and politicians assume is the only climate driver.

We do, however, know that average global temperatures are, and have been, rising since the Little Ice age because of measurements from many stations around the world. Because of our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the measurements of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we can fairly confidently conclude that at least some of the global temperature rise is due to anthropogenic CO2 releases.

 

[bilby]

Climate change science is one thing I don’t understand. It seems harder to comprehend than things like evolution or astronomy. I don’t really understand what exactly leads to the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real versus ordinary long term deviations. I strongly suspect that it’s real because I do trust scientists generally and understand that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it’s real.

I understand evolution is real because I’ve read books on it and it’s fairly easy to understand the evidence. We have physical fossils that I have personally observed as well. Climate change isn’t like that. It seems to me a very technical subject. Maybe that’s why it’s treated with such skepticism amongst the general public. You just can’t say, hey the overwhelming scientific community agrees, so you should too. You’ve got to be able to explain it in rather simple terms for marginally intelligent laymen to understand. That really hasn’t been done. But maybe I’ve missed it.

Climatology is hard to understand because there is a lot that climatologists themselves don't understand. Much of what drives climate seems to be chaotic. But there is much that climatologists do understand... The greenhouse effect is one of the drivers that climatologists do understand and apparently the news media and politicians assume is the only climate driver.

We do, however, know that average global temperatures are, and have been, rising since the Little Ice age because of measurements from many stations around the world. Because of our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the measurements of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we can fairly very confidently conclude that at least some the vast majority of the global temperature rise is due to anthropogenic CO2 releases.

FTFY.

Your doubtful tone is harshly contradicted by the mathematics.

We know that CO₂ concentrations have gone from ~280 to ~410ppm, and that the vast majority of this increase is due to the use of fossil fuels. There's some room for doubt regarding the effects that the resulting warming will have on weather patterns and even on rates of both warming and sea level increase, but that the world is warming is not in doubt; that at least 99% of the CO₂ increases are due to human activity is not in doubt; and the new equilibrium temperature at any given CO₂ concentration is not in doubt.

Current greenhouse gas concentrations add about 3W.m^-2 of heating imbalance to the Earth, compared to pre-industrial concentrations of these gases.

It's a certainty that CO₂ isn't the only greenhouse gas; And that greenhouse gases are not the only drivers of changes in climate.

It's also a certainty that CO₂ emitted by human activity is by far the largest current driver of climate change, and that this driver completely dominates the current overall warming trend. All the other drivers combined are minuscule by comparison.

 

[skepticalbip]

Climate change science is one thing I don’t understand. It seems harder to comprehend than things like evolution or astronomy. I don’t really understand what exactly leads to the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real versus ordinary long term deviations. I strongly suspect that it’s real because I do trust scientists generally and understand that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it’s real.

I understand evolution is real because I’ve read books on it and it’s fairly easy to understand the evidence. We have physical fossils that I have personally observed as well. Climate change isn’t like that. It seems to me a very technical subject. Maybe that’s why it’s treated with such skepticism amongst the general public. You just can’t say, hey the overwhelming scientific community agrees, so you should too. You’ve got to be able to explain it in rather simple terms for marginally intelligent laymen to understand. That really hasn’t been done. But maybe I’ve missed it.

Climatology is hard to understand because there is a lot that climatologists themselves don't understand. Much of what drives climate seems to be chaotic. But there is much that climatologists do understand... The greenhouse effect is one of the drivers that climatologists do understand and apparently the news media and politicians assume is the only climate driver.

We do, however, know that average global temperatures are, and have been, rising since the Little Ice age because of measurements from many stations around the world. Because of our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the measurements of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we can fairly very confidently conclude that at least some the vast majority of the global temperature rise is due to anthropogenic CO2 releases.

FTFY.

Your doubtful tone is harshly contradicted by the mathematics.

We know that CO₂ concentrations have gone from ~280 to ~410ppm, and that the vast majority of this increase is due to the use of fossil fuels. There's some room for doubt regarding the effects that the resulting warming will have on weather patterns and even on rates of both warming and sea level increase, but that the world is warming is not in doubt; that at least 99% of the CO₂ increases are due to human activity is not in doubt; and the new equilibrium temperature at any given CO₂ concentration is not in doubt.

Current greenhouse gas concentrations add about 3W.m^-2 of heating imbalance to the Earth.

If that were the ONLY climate driver then your position would be valid. It wouldn't, however, account the few decades of global cooling up until the late 1970s that had climate alarmists and media screaming about the "coming ice age". CO2 levels were rising before and during this period and yet global temperatures were falling.

It was all the articles and books about "the coming ice age" that spurred my reading actual climatology research papers to see if there was anything to the hype and to seriously question the media hype.

 

[bilby]

FTFY.

Your doubtful tone is harshly contradicted by the mathematics.

We know that CO₂ concentrations have gone from ~280 to ~410ppm, and that the vast majority of this increase is due to the use of fossil fuels. There's some room for doubt regarding the effects that the resulting warming will have on weather patterns and even on rates of both warming and sea level increase, but that the world is warming is not in doubt; that at least 99% of the CO₂ increases are due to human activity is not in doubt; and the new equilibrium temperature at any given CO₂ concentration is not in doubt.

Current greenhouse gas concentrations add about 3W.m^-2 of heating imbalance to the Earth.

If that were the ONLY climate driver then your position would be valid. It wouldn't, however account the few decades of global cooling up until the late 1970s that had climate alarmists and media screaming about the "coming ice age". CO2 levels were rising before and during this period and yet global temperatures were falling.

The rate of CO₂ emissions by humans has increased massively since the mid-20th Century. About a third of the increase vs pre-industrial levels has happened since 1980.

Such a period of cooling wouldn't happen today, without some event that significantly depressed CO₂ emissions.

It wouldn't happen then without such an event either, but the scale wouldn't need to have been so massive back then. If the twentieth century had included a global economic recession (a "great depression" if you like), or a period or two of truly global military conflict (some kind of "World War"), then those events might have adequately explained a small drop in global temperatures a few decades later.

But perhaps such candidates for this explanation don't exist? If so, it would seriously weaken my arguments.

 

[skepticalbip]

But perhaps such candidates for this explanation don't exist? If so, it would seriously weaken my arguments.

Well there are climatologists who suggest that solar activity could be a major climate driver. As support for their suggestion they show that solar activity does correlate well with what climate science indicates are historic global temperatures. For example, the 'Holocene optimum' happened during a period of high solar activity and the 'Little Ice Age' happened during a period when there was a period of minimal sun spot activity. We are now in a period when the solar activity is the highest in the last 8000 years.

A solar study by Max Planck Institute makes their suggestion worthy of consideration:

https://www.mpg.de/research/sun-activity-high

The Sun is more active now than over the last 8000 years

A chart from the article of solar activity, not a chart of global temperature.

 

[bilby]

If the twentieth century had included a global economic recession (a "great depression" if you like), or a period or two of truly global military conflict (some kind of "World War"), then those events might have adequately explained a small drop in global temperatures a few decades later.

But perhaps such candidates for this explanation don't exist? If so, it would seriously weaken my arguments.

Well there are climatologists who suggest that solar activity could be a major climate driver.

Of course there are. Because it is.

It's just been completely swamped by the massive injection of CO₂ into the atmosphere by humans.

There's plenty of FUD to be found, but bugger all actual climatologists who think that anthropogenic CO₂ isn't currently the biggest driver of global temperature increase.

How this relates in any way to the non-existence of two world wars and a global depression in the first half ot the twentieth century, I am not so sure.

 

[skepticalbip]

If the twentieth century had included a global economic recession (a "great depression" if you like), or a period or two of truly global military conflict (some kind of "World War"), then those events might have adequately explained a small drop in global temperatures a few decades later.

But perhaps such candidates for this explanation don't exist? If so, it would seriously weaken my arguments.

Well there are climatologists who suggest that solar activity could be a major climate driver.

Of course there are. Because it is.

It's just been completely swamped by the massive injection of CO₂ into the atmosphere by humans.

There's plenty of FUD to be found, but bugger all actual climatologists who think that anthropogenic CO₂ isn't currently the biggest driver of global temperature increase.

I find the amazing correlation between the chart from Max Planck Institute's solar study and the IPCC chart of global temperatures (including the sharp up-spike at the end) to be quite suggestive that solar activity is a major driver of climate. This isn't to say that CO2 doesn't play its part.

But then I am not a climatologist (even though I have been reading scientific climate studies since the "coming ice age" hysteria) and neither are you.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If that were the ONLY climate driver then your position would be valid. It wouldn't, however, account the few decades of global cooling up until the late 1970s that had climate alarmists and media screaming about the "coming ice age". CO2 levels were rising before and during this period and yet global temperatures were falling.

It was all the articles and books about "the coming ice age" that spurred my reading actual climatology research papers to see if there was anything to the hype and to seriously question the media hype.

That was due to all the crap coming out of smokestacks. We cleaned up our act.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Of course there are. Because it is.

It's just been completely swamped by the massive injection of CO₂ into the atmosphere by humans.

There's plenty of FUD to be found, but bugger all actual climatologists who think that anthropogenic CO₂ isn't currently the biggest driver of global temperature increase.

I find the amazing correlation between the chart from Max Planck Institute's solar study and the IPCC chart of global temperatures (including the sharp up-spike at the end) to be quite suggestive that solar activity is a major driver of climate. This isn't to say that CO2 doesn't play its part.

But then I am not a climatologist (even though I have been reading scientific climate studies since the "coming ice age" hysteria) and neither are you.

What exactly is the correlation? As I understand it, the total solar irradiance has not gone up in any significant way recently. By what mechanism other than irradiance can solar activity drive global temperatures up?

 

[skepticalbip]

Of course there are. Because it is.

It's just been completely swamped by the massive injection of CO₂ into the atmosphere by humans.

There's plenty of FUD to be found, but bugger all actual climatologists who think that anthropogenic CO₂ isn't currently the biggest driver of global temperature increase.

I find the amazing correlation between the chart from Max Planck Institute's solar study and the IPCC chart of global temperatures (including the sharp up-spike at the end) to be quite suggestive that solar activity is a major driver of climate. This isn't to say that CO2 doesn't play its part.

But then I am not a climatologist (even though I have been reading scientific climate studies since the "coming ice age" hysteria) and neither are you.

What exactly is the correlation? As I understand it, the total solar irradiance has not gone up in any significant way recently. By what mechanism other than irradiance can solar activity drive global temperatures up?

I am neither a solar scientist nor a climatologist. My major was physics. But my experience is that there is likely a link when there is a close correlation between two events, especially when that correlation persists over extended periods... in this case over thousands of years. I have no idea how solar activity could drive climate but there does appear to be a link. Perhaps it has something to do with the way that the solar wind, which is more intense during active solar phases, interacts with the upper atmosphere... perhaps it is something else. Not knowing the the details of how something happens but attempting to is why climatology is a scientific study rather than an engineering discipline where the nitty gritty of how something works is known.

I summarily discount the likelihood that Earth's climate drives solar activity.

 

[Shadowy Man]

What exactly is the correlation? As I understand it, the total solar irradiance has not gone up in any significant way recently. By what mechanism other than irradiance can solar activity drive global temperatures up?

I am neither a solar scientist nor a climatologist. My major was physics. But my experience is that there is likely a link when there is a close correlation between two events, especially when that correlation persists over extended periods... in this case over thousands of years. I have no idea how solar activity could drive climate but there does appear to be a link. Perhaps it has something to do with the way that the solar wind, which is more intense during active solar phases, interacts with the upper atmosphere... perhaps it is something else. Not knowing the the details of how something happens but attempting to is why climatology is a scientific study rather than an engineering discipline where the nitty gritty of how something works is known.

I summarily discount the likelihood that Earth's climate drives solar activity.

Point me to the correlation. I have not seen nor do I understand there to be a strong connection between solar activity and global temperature rise. Upper atmosphere temperatures, which do often correlate with solar activity, are not the same nor do they have the same inputs as tropospheric temperatures.

 

[skepticalbip]

What exactly is the correlation? As I understand it, the total solar irradiance has not gone up in any significant way recently. By what mechanism other than irradiance can solar activity drive global temperatures up?

I am neither a solar scientist nor a climatologist. My major was physics. But my experience is that there is likely a link when there is a close correlation between two events, especially when that correlation persists over extended periods... in this case over thousands of years. I have no idea how solar activity could drive climate but there does appear to be a link. Perhaps it has something to do with the way that the solar wind, which is more intense during active solar phases, interacts with the upper atmosphere... perhaps it is something else. Not knowing the the details of how something happens but attempting to is why climatology is a scientific study rather than an engineering discipline where the nitty gritty of how something works is known.

I summarily discount the likelihood that Earth's climate drives solar activity.

Point me to the correlation. I have not seen nor do I understand there to be a strong connection between solar activity and global temperature rise. Upper atmosphere temperatures, which do often correlate with solar activity, are not the same nor do they have the same inputs as tropospheric temperatures.

I linked a solar study from Max Planck Institute above (post 93). I also included a chart of solar activity from that study that could easily be confused for the IPCC global temperature chart if someone doesn't look at the labels for the axis. If two graphs covering thousands of years can easily be confused then the correlation is obvious. Note: correlation does not mean causation but such close correlation over thousands of years does certainly suggest a strong indication of causation.

Correlations:
Where the IPCC chart shows global temperatures higher, the Max Planck study shows solar activity higher. Where the IPCC chart shows global temperatures lower, the Max Planck study shows solar activity lower. And this trend was over thousands of years, including the current up-spike in both.