New report on climate change released today

[angelo]

I'm the dumb bastard here am I? Then please explain to this dumb cluck the lack of linkage between CO2 levels and temperatures in the established geological record of the Earth! Per favor!

Your post was talking about salt in the Himalayas. I don't see how this is related to temperature at all other than there needs to have been liquid water at the time the salt deposits were laid down. At the time they were laid down the area was not mountainous. That came later when the Indian subcontinent rammed into the south of the Asian continent. Every mountain on Earth is quite young compared to the age of the Earth.

Doesn't that prove my claim that Earth is a dynamic planet, with an ever changing climate and an ever changing crust? There's nothing new under the sun. I repeat my question, which no one here can answer!

Namely................... Then please explain to this dumb cluck the lack of linkage between CO2 levels and temperatures in the established geological record of the Earth! Per favor!

 

[angelo]

Darn facts keep getting in the way of the alarmist though!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160707101029.htm


During the Ordovician period, the concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere was about eight times higher than today. It has been hard to explain why the climate cooled and why the Ordovician glaciations took place. A new study, published in Nature Communications, shows that the weathering of rock caused by early non-vascular plants had the potential to cause such a global cooling effect.

"When we can better understand the carbon cycle in the past, we can better predict what happens with the climate in the future," says Philipp Porada of Stockholm University, one of the authors of the study.

Non-vascular plants, such as mosses, hornworts and liverworts, probably evolved during the Ordovician period, around 450 million years ago. They are older than vascular plants, such as trees and grasses, and together with lichens, which are a symbiosis of fungi and algae, they formed the earliest terrestrial vegetation. Today's successors of these organisms are distributed worldwide and are characterised by their ability to survive in environments in which the supply of both water and nutrients is scarce. They are found in both cold and warm desert regions and are able to grow on rock surfaces and the bark of trees. Although they do not have real roots, they affect the surfaces on which they grow: the release of various organic acids dissolves underlying rock minerals.

The problem here is that you don't understand what you're posting. You see a fact that doesn't match up with your view of global warming and you declare it evidence it's false.

The only thing here I see that could be relevant is the higher CO2 levels.

<Thwacks angelo with a clue-by-6 as a clue-by-4 as proven inadequate>

This is about half a billion years ago. The sun didn't put out as much energy back then, higher CO2 levels were needed on Earth to maintain the same temperature.

Also, nobody at that time was particularly concerned about the effect of climate and/or sea level on agriculture, coastal cities, or the ability for human beings to survive at all.

The planet can look after itself. But as a human, I am quite concerned about the planet's ability to support modern human civilisation, and very concerned about its ability to continue supporting that civilisation for a long time to come.

Changes in global temperature that are MASSIVELY faster than any seen in previous human history are a significant concern - and while predicting the detailed consequences of our carbon dioxide emissions is hard, there's some very simple physics that tells us that they will be significant; and some very simple observations that show that those significant impacts are already occurring.

Whatever happened 450MYA is not going to have had any effect on the humans who were there at the time, for the simple reason that there were none. So conditions that were incompatible with human life weren't a big deal. Today, I would assess even conditions incompatible with a sizeable human population to be a big deal. Eight to ten billion people need intensive agriculture, and many of them live in coastal cities - and losing either (far less both) would not be any fun at all.

Life on Earth will persist, but that's really only a consolation if you are a bacterium. The bacteria will be fine - and will evolve replacements for us given a few billion years.

You of all people are aware that life on Earth adapts to ever changing conditions. If it fails to adapt, it becomes extinct, like over 90% of life that's ever lived on Earth over it's history has!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Also, nobody at that time was particularly concerned about the effect of climate and/or sea level on agriculture, coastal cities, or the ability for human beings to survive at all.

The planet can look after itself. But as a human, I am quite concerned about the planet's ability to support modern human civilisation, and very concerned about its ability to continue supporting that civilisation for a long time to come.

Changes in global temperature that are MASSIVELY faster than any seen in previous human history are a significant concern - and while predicting the detailed consequences of our carbon dioxide emissions is hard, there's some very simple physics that tells us that they will be significant; and some very simple observations that show that those significant impacts are already occurring.

Whatever happened 450MYA is not going to have had any effect on the humans who were there at the time, for the simple reason that there were none. So conditions that were incompatible with human life weren't a big deal. Today, I would assess even conditions incompatible with a sizeable human population to be a big deal. Eight to ten billion people need intensive agriculture, and many of them live in coastal cities - and losing either (far less both) would not be any fun at all.

Life on Earth will persist, but that's really only a consolation if you are a bacterium. The bacteria will be fine - and will evolve replacements for us given a few billion years.

You of all people are aware that life on Earth adapts to ever changing conditions.

Curious, why would bilby "of all people" be aware of this?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm the dumb bastard here am I? Then please explain to this dumb cluck the lack of linkage between CO2 levels and temperatures in the established geological record of the Earth! Per favor!

Your post was talking about salt in the Himalayas. I don't see how this is related to temperature at all other than there needs to have been liquid water at the time the salt deposits were laid down. At the time they were laid down the area was not mountainous. That came later when the Indian subcontinent rammed into the south of the Asian continent. Every mountain on Earth is quite young compared to the age of the Earth.

Doesn't that prove my claim that Earth is a dynamic planet, with an ever changing climate and an ever changing crust?

If your goal was to establish that the Earth isn't static, then I suppose you made a point, but your goal was to link to the fact that because the Earth isn't static, climate change is (depending on where you are on the AGW denial wheel at the moment) either:
1) false
2) happening but isn't our fault
3) happening, it is our fault, but there isn't anything we can do about it.

You didn't prove that by mentioning "salt".

 

[angelo]

I brought up the subject of sea salt to point out that the planet has changed enormously throughout it's history. Where once there were oceans there are now land masses. The climate has been changing right alongside these upheavals causing and changing the diversity of life itself on Earth. Forestry where today there is desert. Most of Antarctica was once ice free.
I'm not and never have denied climate changes, but it's a natural part of planet Earth which has swung from ice ages to tropical climate and back again.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I brought up the subject of sea salt to point out that the planet has changed enormously throughout it's history.

Yes... you have mentioned that before. And scientists are aware that the Earth today isn't what it was 30,000 or 3,000,000,000 years ago. Making this point doesn't provide an insight that hasn't been considered.

Where once there were oceans there are now land masses. The climate has been changing right alongside these upheavals causing and changing the diversity of life itself on Earth. Forestry where today there is desert. Most of Antarctica was once ice free.

You are saying the same thing over and over again. It didn't demonstrate your point the first time, doing it again and again doesn't change that.

I'm not and never have denied climate changes,

I feel a ...but coming.

...but it's a natural part of planet Earth which has swung from ice ages to tropical climate and back again.

What I find interesting is that climate scientists (with the help of historians and what not) have been able to map out previous abnormalities in our climate dating back a centuries to centuries, such as very specific moments that led to cool offs, like specific volcano eruptions. People like yourself will even bring it up as gospel.

Yet, when these same people then say that gas emissions have led to a glut of CO2 into the atmosphere and there has been warming and we expect the warming to increase... all of a sudden, climate science is a conspiracy of Al Gore.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I brought up the subject of sea salt to point out that the planet has changed enormously throughout it's history. Where once there were oceans there are now land masses. The climate has been changing right alongside these upheavals causing and changing the diversity of life itself on Earth. Forestry where today there is desert. Most of Antarctica was once ice free.
I'm not and never have denied climate changes, but it's a natural part of planet Earth which has swung from ice ages to tropical climate and back again.

Well at least you're not making that idiotic argument that the earth's climate is somehow "self-correcting" and therefore we shouldn't be concerned about anything.

To your point, however, my house needs regular maintenance or else it becomes unlivable. I'm absolutely certain that at some not so distant point in the future it will have crumbled and there will be no trace of it's ever having been here. Does that mean I should not maintain it in a livable condition? Should I just let it fall apart and find a new one when it's seen it's day?

How is maintaining our planet any different than maintaining anything else?

 

[bilby]

My car has decelerated from 100km/h to a complete stop thousands of times, and it has never hurt a bit.

You people must be crazy to imagine that driving into a solid object at 100km/h will be harmful to my health.

Cars slow down ALL THE TIME.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Antarctic sea ice is declining dramatically
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/05/antarctic-sea-ice-is-declining-dramatically/

Did you change teams all of a sudden or are you arguing evidence for global warming is actually evidence against global warming?

I didn't know there were teams. Teams implies a decision regardless of evidence.

I don't believe that the computer models used by "climate scientists" are correct. I do believe in following the evidence wherever it leads.

In other words, you choose to listen to the ones that say what you want to hear, not the ones who can support their position.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Have you contacted the teams of climate modellers involved, and explained why their models are not correct, and how they can improve them to take account of the issues you have found? That would be the appropriate thing to do, if you have discovered evidence of a common flaw in the modelling.

There are others who have better climate credentials than I (I only have degrees in math and computer science.) who have done just that. They have been ignored by "climate science." "Climate Science" is a team with an agenda.
To paraphrase someone famous: There are lies, damn lies, statistics, and computer models. Something is wrong about the predictions of the IPCC computer models.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming <-- this one says the predictions have been "good enough" if not spot on.

This one says otherwise:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/04/05/comparing-models-with-observations/

The one that says "otherwise" measures only one variable instead of the whole picture. That says cherry-picking.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm the dumb bastard here am I? Then please explain to this dumb cluck the lack of linkage between CO2 levels and temperatures in the established geological record of the Earth! Per favor!

Your post was talking about salt in the Himalayas. I don't see how this is related to temperature at all other than there needs to have been liquid water at the time the salt deposits were laid down. At the time they were laid down the area was not mountainous. That came later when the Indian subcontinent rammed into the south of the Asian continent. Every mountain on Earth is quite young compared to the age of the Earth.

Doesn't that prove my claim that Earth is a dynamic planet, with an ever changing climate and an ever changing crust? There's nothing new under the sun. I repeat my question, which no one here can answer!

Namely................... Then please explain to this dumb cluck the lack of linkage between CO2 levels and temperatures in the established geological record of the Earth! Per favor!

Nobody has denied that it's a dynamic planet, thus you're attacking a strawman.

As for the lack of linkage, that's only in your imagination.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You of all people are aware that life on Earth adapts to ever changing conditions. If it fails to adapt, it becomes extinct, like over 90% of life that's ever lived on Earth over it's history has!

And the Earth has snowballed in the past.

Would you think it acceptable for humanity if it did so again?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I brought up the subject of sea salt to point out that the planet has changed enormously throughout it's history. Where once there were oceans there are now land masses. The climate has been changing right alongside these upheavals causing and changing the diversity of life itself on Earth. Forestry where today there is desert. Most of Antarctica was once ice free.
I'm not and never have denied climate changes, but it's a natural part of planet Earth which has swung from ice ages to tropical climate and back again.

Death is a natural part of life. If I murder you is that ok because it was natural?

 

[Elixir]

You of all people are aware that life on Earth adapts to ever changing conditions. If it fails to adapt, it becomes extinct, like over 90% of life that's ever lived on Earth over it's history has!

And the Earth has snowballed in the past.

Would you think it acceptable for humanity if it did so again?

Just think of all the money we could make if we went back to an ammonia-methane atmosphere! And it'd be natcheril!

 

[George S]

I didn't know there were teams. Teams implies a decision regardless of evidence.

I don't believe that the computer models used by "climate scientists" are correct. I do believe in following the evidence wherever it leads.

In other words, you choose to listen to the ones that say what you want to hear, not the ones who can support their position.

More like a confirmation bias. I know my shit about computer models. M'speciality. Any report which bases its conclusions on a prediction by a computer, skeptical about it I am. A computer projection is an extraordinary claim. The model must, for example, when run on the data from ancient history through 1999, accurately predict the next decade through 2009 and do a creditable job through 2019. It must work when the data through 1934 or 1964 is input. This is the falsifiability criterion for computer models.

In the past climate shifts have occurred without the aid or hindrance of mankind. Now we are generating some man-made warming which is to be added to the ordinary variability. The question on the floor is not 'whether' but 'how big.' If the effect is small as a percentage of other variability perhaps there is no need to rush. As I recall the projection is +1 K in a century. Yes, this is actually fairly large. A drop of a similar amount led to the Mini Ice Age. But only half of that in 50 years.
One way to fix the problem is to reframe it. The problem is about generating power. If there were a solution that solves the clean power generation problem I would imagine virtually universal support. I believe that Thorium salt (Gen4) reactors may well be large part of a solution. They eat Gen3 waste for fuel and they do not pollute the air. Nor do they put CO2 into the air.
If we implement this and the weather warms anyway, we can at least make air-conditioned caves. And perhaps settle Antarctica. If the weather stays more or less the same the next century we still get the benefit of cheaper electric power. If the weather gets cooler -- a grand solar minimum, or a volcano due to our magnetic pole shift, or whatever -- Gen4 provides the power for cheap electric heat. Win-win-win.

Or a network of satellites which collect solar energy and beam it down as microwaves. The solar collectors would be huge, making shadows -- cooling shadows (only good if only warming can possibly be).

Another big red flag for me is "settled science." There is well-tested science and young science. Climate theories, being young and all, must wait for centuries to become mature well-tested science. Climate changes are slow. "Sudden" in paleontology is a few thousand years. "Sudden" in climatology must surely be similar. This adds to the wait.

 

[bilby]

I didn't know there were teams. Teams implies a decision regardless of evidence.

I don't believe that the computer models used by "climate scientists" are correct. I do believe in following the evidence wherever it leads.

In other words, you choose to listen to the ones that say what you want to hear, not the ones who can support their position.

More like a confirmation bias. I know my shit about computer models. M'speciality. Any report which bases its conclusions on a prediction by a computer, skeptical about it I am. A computer projection is an extraordinary claim. The model must, for example, when run on the data from ancient history through 1999, accurately predict the next decade through 2009 and do a creditable job through 2019. It must work when the data through 1934 or 1964 is input. This is the falsifiability criterion for computer models.

In the past climate shifts have occurred without the aid or hindrance of mankind. Now we are generating some man-made warming which is to be added to the ordinary variability. The question on the floor is not 'whether' but 'how big.' If the effect is small as a percentage of other variability perhaps there is no need to rush. As I recall the projection is +1 K in a century. Yes, this is actually fairly large. A drop of a similar amount led to the Mini Ice Age. But only half of that in 50 years.
One way to fix the problem is to reframe it. The problem is about generating power. If there were a solution that solves the clean power generation problem I would imagine virtually universal support. I believe that Thorium salt (Gen4) reactors may well be large part of a solution. They eat Gen3 waste for fuel and they do not pollute the air. Nor do they put CO2 into the air.
If we implement this and the weather warms anyway, we can at least make air-conditioned caves. And perhaps settle Antarctica. If the weather stays more or less the same the next century we still get the benefit of cheaper electric power. If the weather gets cooler -- a grand solar minimum, or a volcano due to our magnetic pole shift, or whatever -- Gen4 provides the power for cheap electric heat. Win-win-win.

Or a network of satellites which collect solar energy and beam it down as microwaves. The solar collectors would be huge, making shadows -- cooling shadows (only good if only warming can possibly be).

Another big red flag for me is "settled science." There is well-tested science and young science. Climate theories, being young and all, must wait for centuries to become mature well-tested science. Climate changes are slow. "Sudden" in paleontology is a few thousand years. "Sudden" in climatology must surely be similar. This adds to the wait.

Climate theories are extensions of some pretty well tested physics that's been around for a LONG time.

"Suddenly" in climatology is indeed changes of 1K in five thousand years or more. Which makes changes of 1K in 50 years pretty fucking alarming.

And as you correctly point out, the climate is a big bastard - it's very hard to make big, rapid changes. So if we see 1K in 50 years, we can be sure that there's a LOT more change already 'locked in' - that if we make a big change to try to reverse the trend, it will take a long time for that change to be effective.

It's not hard to calculate how much the 'some' warming our CO₂ emissions imply - but it IS hard to determine where the big impacts will fall, and it's that which the models attempt to predict.

One prediction was that the poles, and particular the north pole, would be the first and most significantly affected region. This is exactly what we actually observed.

But the global impact doesn't need fancy or complex models - it's really simple. We know what the CO₂ concentration is, and that it is rising fast. We know why - there is only one plausible source, and that's fossil fuel combustion. And we know how that affects the balance between heating and cooling on a global scale (although modelling is needed to see where, exactly, the excess heat goes).

And temperature is rising VERY fast.











Source and references: https://xkcd.com/1732/

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's pretty obvious that george and angelo's position is that it's just too damn inconvenient to fix things. There's isn't a rational position, it's an emotional position. No matter what happens it's all natural.

I would like to pump my sewage and empty my trash into their back yards because it will all naturally recycle. Would they have a problem with that?

If I'm addicted to tobacco, it's unlikely I'll find a reason to believe I should quit. I can find lots of statistics and computer models showing how it doesn't cause cancer.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I didn't know there were teams. Teams implies a decision regardless of evidence.

I don't believe that the computer models used by "climate scientists" are correct. I do believe in following the evidence wherever it leads.

In other words, you choose to listen to the ones that say what you want to hear, not the ones who can support their position.

More like a confirmation bias. I know my shit about computer models. M'speciality.

Exactly, and the models could be way off... things could be much worse. We could already be fucked. But oddly, you don't include that in your calculus... you just say *handwave* models. You also don't need to model the rise of the global temperature. That is rising.

Any report which bases its conclusions on a prediction by a computer, skeptical about it I am. A computer projection is an extraordinary claim. The model must, for example, when run on the data from ancient history through 1999, accurately predict the next decade through 2009 and do a creditable job through 2019. It must work when the data through 1934 or 1964 is input. This is the falsifiability criterion for computer models.

And the CO2 in the atmosphere? We've pumped in extra amounts of that stuff for over a century, much like you who has gained 5 pounds every year for the last 50 years and I remark how fat he has gotten and you reply, I only gained 5 pounds.

In the past climate shifts have occurred without the aid or hindrance of mankind. Now we are generating some man-made warming which is to be added to the ordinary variability. The question on the floor is not 'whether' but 'how big.' If the effect is small as a percentage of other variability perhaps there is no need to rush. As I recall the projection is +1 K in a century. Yes, this is actually fairly large. A drop of a similar amount led to the Mini Ice Age. But only half of that in 50 years.
One way to fix the problem is to reframe it.

This is unbelievably disingenuous!

You keep posting about how that the Earth's temperature only appears to be rising because of the location of weather stations located near cities or 'heat islands'. You flat out deny information, however, when cornered you'll twist and bend to make some sort of short-term concession, though in not too long, you'll be posting links to blogs, once again, denying the very basis of global warming.

The problem is about generating power. If there were a solution that solves the clean power generation problem I would imagine virtually universal support.

Really?

I drove through Huron and Erie counties in Ohio last week and saw a bunch of 'No wind mill' signs in front of people's yards... the same yards with the MAGA Trump signs in 2016.

 

[Elixir]

I drove through Huron and Erie counties in Ohio last week and saw a bunch of 'No wind mill' signs in front of people's yards... the same yards with the MAGA Trump signs in 2016.

Propaganda works. Wind power, nuclear power, solar power... they are all far too expensive, dirty and dangerous to even consider as substitutes for safe, clean sources like coal. 99.9% of all Trumpanzees will never get black lung disease, or learn to associate their emphysema or asthma symptoms with what keeps their lights one.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I'm just relieved to know that human activity can't affect global climate. It is interesting, however. I mean we can raise the average temperature of a city because our activity causes a "heat island" effect. We can totally screw up the ecology of a river or lake or bay so that it catches on fire or won't support life for ten months out of a year. We can ruin the local air so that people actually start to die from the pollution. We can only eat so many fish from a lake because they're laced with PCBs.

All that said I'm happy to know that there is some magic threshold where the environment simply stays good for humans. I don't know how that works, maybe it's magic, but it's reassuring to know we can't do all those local nasty things on a global scale. The earth has a magical built in ability to keep us all happy, fed, and alive, no matter what we all do.

Whew! Close call averted by the magic of our great big planet.