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Notable quotable
“In nearly all areas, the developments are occurring more quickly than it has been assumed up until now. We are on our way to a destabilization of the world climate that has advanced much further than most people or their governments realize.”
—Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, climate scientist and head of the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects
David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:11 am
30 Dec 2008
Is this the new world of Greenspeak, where sentences eat themselves like the Auraboris?
"In nearly all areas"
Ok.
", the developments"
What developments"
"are occurring more quickly than it has been assumed up until now."
We make an assumption. The assumption is violated. Then we worry. No wonder good digestion is impossible in your household!
"We are on our way "
Very precise...spatially? Temporally?
"to a destabilization of the world climate"
Tautology. Climate is an average. You can't destabilize and average, it merely reflects the sum of conditions divided over time. So, choose your time and your place and call it what you will.
"that has advanced much further than most people or their governments realize."
Based on your assumption...right? The ones most people have never heard of...which were proven wrong time and time again...
An honest man is always in trouble. --Henry Fool
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Sam Wells Posted 1:27 pm
30 Dec 2008
If that sounds vague, the referring article mentions nothing but the Arctic, and some kind of plea to reduce global CO2 emissions by 80 percent within 40 years. Now THAT would be a development!
But maybe this is a really smart dude and a famous one, so I am not casting any aspersions except when I contemplate ... how on Earth do we reduce fossil fuel emissions by 80 percent in about a generation?
Gosh, what's the world population growth rate, maybe 2-3 percent per year? Most fossil fuels available today will still be there in 40 years even if it takes a few wars to figure it out. I like it when people submit proactive measures to help to get to those kinds of numbers, but I don't have a feel for it yet. Seems almost unattainable. -sammie
Onward through the fog
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JMG Posted 6:13 pm
30 Dec 2008
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:37 am
31 Dec 2008
For the Arctic, the global warming which has already occurred of 0.8 degrees Celsius has already stepped over the line, Schellnhuber said. If Greenland's ice cap ice melts completely, water levels will rise by seven meters (23 feet).
It has become necessary for all scientists commenting on the exponentially increasing GHG climate disaster to explain the nature of this phenomenon. They need to climb down from their lofty theoretical world and go back to basics. To science and math that they learned in grade school.
Here's a news flash: Politicians and the general public and even some of your colleagues do not understand the basic concept of positive feedback and exponential change. Do not take this understanding for granted. People like Obama and his top advisors who are well educated enough to have heard of this concept still don't apply it to climate change.
Scientists need to explain how positive feedback works. How when ice melts it decreases the solar energy reflected and causes further warming, that in turn causes more melting. That's positive feedback.
When the arctic ocean warms that melts sea floor methane hydrate ice and permafrost on the tundra, the release of that methane (23 times the GHG effect of CO2) causes more solar energy to be trapped by the atmosphere, which cause more ice melt and more methane release.
Another more violent feedback mechanism is about to occur, firestorms. Maybe that will be the wakeup call? The western US fires are increasing in severity without much notice from the scientific community.
A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires, forest fires, and wildfires. The Great Peshtigo Fire and the Ash Wednesday fires are two examples of a firestorm. Firestorms can also be deliberate effects of targeted explosives such as occurred as a result of the aerial bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.
This is another positive feedback mechanism ignored by the scientific community and the media. Notice how the Wiki entry has a challenge at the top of the page? A sign that climate disaster deniers have used preemption around this issue? Are they getting ready to deny the first big western firestorm is a sign of exponential climate change?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:56 am
31 Dec 2008
He is the poster child for the 80% that still don't take GHG climate change seriously.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Sam Wells Posted 5:59 am
31 Dec 2008
What is important are the concepts that (1) as warming occurs, it tends to be self-fulfilling, and (2) once you pass a certain threshold point, it is difficult is not impossible to reverse the trends. Don't talk scientific mumbo-jumbo but the how warming could release methane from frozen sources such as permafrost and deep-sea sources of frozen methane, or how once droughts get established they can last a long-long time.
And you all know I dislike the term "feedback" because latent heat really doesn't feed anything back, it is just a law of physics regarding thermodynamics and there is no official term of that name if you check the science.
As to our humble friend Jabailo, I rather think he is a cute reminder that we need to be more resolved as to our efforts and be more clear as to how we describe the rather nasty impacts of global warming, which from what I've seen, are quite evident today and could increase fairly quickly. I see it mostly in the plants, the birds, and the fish, although I'm sure the Arctic is much more obvious and appalling. Hey mon, Jabailo serves a useful purpose, right?
Happy New Year, 2008 going down and 2009 coming on
-sammie
Onward through the fog
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:14 am
31 Dec 2008
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:37 am
31 Dec 2008
He also coined an interesting phrase.
Hayek was highly critical of what he termed scientism: a false understanding of the methods of science that has been mistakenly forced upon the social sciences, but that is contrary to the practices of genuine science.
Usually scientism involves combining the philosophers' ancient demand for demonstrative justification with the associationists' false view that all scientific explanations are simple two-variable linear relationships. Hayek points out that much of science involves the explanation of complex multi-variable and non-linear phenomena, and that the social science of economics and undesigned order compares favorably with such complex sciences as Darwinian biology.
-David Ahlport
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:54 pm
31 Dec 2008
What's a generation - 20 years?
Let me just talk US for a moment. We now are capable of installing 0.5 - 1.0% electricity production in new wind farms per year. We're on the verge of doing the same with thin film solar. We can cut usage 1% per year for a few years via conservation.
With some not immense effort we should be able to bring more than 2% of renewables on line every year. Let's say 4% and add in 1% conservation gain.
20 year, 5% says "replaced" to me. And remember that only 50% our electricity comes from coal. That's what we really need to get out of our system.
Same with autos. Move to PHEVs and our petroleum use drops 80%. Charge at night with low cost wind power.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:51 am
01 Jan 2009
Positive feedback and exponential change cascades from consumer to consumers, one person tells a few others about their solar panels, those few each tell a few more.
How do seemingly unthinkable things happen very quickly? Like the arctic ice cap melting? With exponential change.
How does a culture go from buggies to horseless carriages and airplanes in a decade or two? Same phenomenon.
How can we go from a fossil fueled energy economy to a renewable one in a couple of decades?
Here's the problem. Climate change is well into the exponential part of the curve, renewable energy re-evolution is just starting out. Lots of mistaken paths like ethanol, clean coal, and nuclear power are draining the positive feedback.
The race is on. And we really have no idea how far ahead GHG effects like methane release have put climate disaster. All we know is that we are behind and over 50% of the planet doesn't even know we are in a race for survival.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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georgia Posted 3:38 am
01 Jan 2009
Here's an analysis that actually uses mathematics and absorption studies to come to a conclusion that doubling or trippling atmospheric CO2 would have an insignificant impact on the amount of surface radiation that would be absorbed.
http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/ClimateChange.docs
See if you can keep up with the logic:)
Lastly, the positive feedback of melting has been debunked by history. About 1,000 years ago, the Vikings started colonizing Greenland. It was warmer then than now without any burning of coal or oil. It was warm enough and contained much less ice than at the present, yet runaway warming did not occur. Actually, the little ice age followed a few centuries later.
When the ice returned, the Viking were driven off Greenland or died.
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Bob Wallace Posted 6:08 am
01 Jan 2009
Seems like back when the Europeans came to the Americas they bought with them diseases for which the current residents had little to no resistance. This brought about a huge die-off. A very large percentage of those living in the Americas perished. We have know that for a long time.
What we are just realizing is that when all those people died off the land that they had been cultivating fell fallow and returned to forest.
The newly grown forests created a somewhat regional cooling period which we call The Little Ice Age.
Isn't it interesting how mankind has apparently been influencing the climate for a long time? Most likely starting with the adoption of extensive rice agriculture many hundreds of years ago.
--
Now that carbon/absorption bit....
Problem is not that CO2 increases the absorption of heat from the sun. (Removed forests, dark rooftops, pavement are the bad guys when it comes to absorption.)
The problem is that we have made our "blanket" of atmospheric gases too thick. We've pulled on a great, warm down comforter on top of the fluffy blanket that we need to keep us from losing the heat we need to survive.
We aren't allowing enough of that absorbed heat to escape. Next time you're nice and comfy in your bed add a few extra covers and I think you'll understand the problem before too long.
---
Now as to your "These guys never have to show any analysis or study of any kind. ", you aren't such a silly goose that you believe that we aren't aware of the vast amount of science that backs global climate change?
Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, shall we? Perhaps you just aren't aware of how much science underlies the issue. Try spending some time at the Real Climate site and I'll bet you'll be impressed at what climate scientists are doing.
Or go to the NASA (the rocket science guys site) or NOAA or the British Hadley Center site. From those places you can travel far and wide learning about climate science and start to understand why climate scientists are sounding the alarm bells.
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:31 am
01 Jan 2009
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Bob Wallace Posted 8:02 am
01 Jan 2009
Can you say "bigot"?
To pretend that there isn't good science practice in the social sciences simply displays ones ignorance, both of current practice and of history.
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hapa Posted 8:23 am
01 Jan 2009
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Bob Wallace Posted 8:39 am
01 Jan 2009
Economics questions are difficult to answer using tight methodological design. As is the case in sociology and astronomy.
But because it is difficult to randomly introduce a variable does not make rigorous research impossible. It just requires a different set of tools.
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Gar Lipow Posted 10:30 am
01 Jan 2009
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Bob Wallace Posted 10:56 am
01 Jan 2009
Let's not forget that garbage sometimes comes out of physics labs from time to time. Might I mention cold fusion? How about a certain Alabama climate study?
Remember that all the sciences sprang from philosophy and are categorized based on their individual level of reductionism.
All sciences are by definition empirical studies of the world. Just because someone misuses the term "science" does not invalidate the work of those who do rigorous investigation in their chosen area of interest.
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georgia Posted 1:26 pm
01 Jan 2009
So the little ice age was just regional cooling in... New England?
I suggest you seek to better understand how the earth actually sheds heat. You and others treat the atmosphere like a closed system where heat transfer through radiation is king. However, convection is the dominant mechanism that moves heat. That's why the greenhouse example is a very poor analogy and why I say to make it a relevant one, you'd have to cut great big holes in the roof, install large fans, and turn on a sprinkler periodically.
Also, if CO2 were such a strong GHG, we would have runaway heating in the deserts. However, as hot as it gets during the day, the CO2 can't trap enough heat to keep the temperature from dropping significantly at night. That's because there is little water vapor there and there has been no dispute that I'm aware of over the fact that WV is the dominant GHG.
BTW, I have spent quite a bit of time on Real Climate. While they are good advocates, they are not very objective. And they do not conduct any research that I'm aware of. They mostly give their opinion on varous assertions on the matter.
I have come to my opinions on the matter after examining a very wide range of data and sources including readng the IPCC report. What I don't like is that too many are not interested in the data or furthering our understanding of our climate system. Science is furthered by challenging every theory. So far the greenhouse effect and AGW don't hold up to scientific scrutiny. I just follow the facts as best I as can discern them through all the bickering, name calling, data manipulation, double talk, and hypocracy.
Bob, with 5% more CO2 in the air than in 1998, why is T falling along with sea level when both were predicted to rise by the IPCC and their finely tuned models.
You might be interested in the work of Dr Theodor Landscheidt. He accurately predicted numerous climate episodes such as regional droughts and El Ninos wherease GCMs have failed to get anything correct including the leveling off of methane, where in the troposphere warming would occur, and temperature of course.
Enjoy:)
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Bob Wallace Posted 1:52 pm
01 Jan 2009
BTW, we've observed more heating in the northern pole regions than in the southern regions during this heating period. Climate averages are averages.
If you've paid any attention to the cause for the 1998 extreme spike then you know that it was largely caused by an extreme El Nino event.
And, including 1998, the current decade is easily on its way to being the hottest decade recorded in history.
Take a look at the graph on this page and see how the 2000s are stacking up.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/16/sorry-deniers-hadle ...
Further, the "leveling off of methane"? Are up not aware that we are now starting to measure increased methane bubbling both from far northern lakes and the ocean? First data started appearing in 2006.
The people, the climate scientists who post at Real Climate are not objective?
Sorry, Charlie. You seem to have been supping from the cup of denial....
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:07 pm
01 Jan 2009
(Notice "astrologer", not astronomer or physicist or climate scientist.)
"In 1989, Landscheidt forecast a period of sunspot minima after 1990, accompanied by increased cold, with a stronger minima and more intense cold which should peak in 2030 [1], which he described as the "Landscheidt Minimum" [2] His work on solar cycles is cited by global warming skeptics [3] to argue that observed warming is not anthropogenic and will soon be reversed, based on an assumption that fluctuations in climate are controlled by solar activity.[4]"
OK, Teddy made a prediction. Cooler after 1990.
Oops. Very, very wrong.
And a follow up prediction. "More intense cold which should peak in 2030."
Problem is, as I pointed out above, the decade following the 1990s is hotter, not cooler, than the 1990s. And if intense cold is going to show up it better get a move on.
(Can you say "flat out failed predictor of the future"? Give it a try. I'll bet you can force it out. It will make you a better person, I'll bet....)
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amazingdrx Posted 1:45 am
02 Jan 2009
If you have heard the screech from a public address or band sound system, where a microphone is turned up too loud, you have heard positive feedback. Electronic amplifiers have negative feedback built in to "squelch" this effect.
For instance, without a squelch circuit your cell phone would let out one deafening screech after another. It would be unusable.
Postive feedback, in a stabilized state, provides the tuned circuit, electronic pendulumn effect that allows radio communication to work. It's the basic principle behind everything wireless. From a simple AM radio to a wireless broadband network.
Positive climate change feedback will send the climate screeching into disaster if we can't come up with GHG reduction quickly enough. Just like positive feedback recessionary economic factors will send us screeching into another depression.
People lose jobs, they spend less and even go bankrupt, that puts business under pressure, so more job losses add to the downward spiral. And so it goes.
These feedbacks economic and climate, have one solution in common, a big negative feedback mechanism to stop the screeching slide into climate disaster and depression, green jobs from green manufacturing.
Government needs to spend rescue money on that negative feedback mechanism in order to stabilize our dire situation ASAP!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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