Comments Steve Bloom has made

And in turn I refer you to the Manhattan phone book.  My rebuttal is located somewhere therein, I promise.

Ken, isn't the situation you describe just a function of SO2 reductions having turned out to be a lot cheaper than originally thought?  If so there appears to be little risk of a repetition with CO2.

The difference

A denialist may appear to be a skeptic in some regards, but they give away the game when they make ridiculous claims like:

'In 1988 it was pointless to argue with those who were "not deniers" when they claimed that the world's oceans would be devoid of life by 1998.' On Climate change and the null hypothesis posted 1 year, 4 months ago 3 Responses

Best of all

We can be happy that he especially gets the need to get rid of any stronger state-level cap-and-trade programs and most importantly to block any such in the future.  We wouldn't want to make the inevitable crappy federal compromise look bad by comparison, now would we?

   On Smart ideas for post Lieberman-Warner climate policy posted 1 year, 4 months ago 71 Responses

There's a history

TP, Ralph is responsible for the consumer/product safety movement as we know it and for a big chunk of the environmental movement.  The ideas for the listed legislation came from Nader and the organizations he founded, and he certainly did play a key role in getting most of those laws passed.  See here e.g.  Ralph has more of a claim to recognition for public service and promoting the public good than any other living American. On Groups make joint announcement in Cleveland posted 1 year, 5 months ago 30 Responses

Correction, Wolverine

A while back they decided it was a bad idea to keep reminding the rest of us about their funding, so the F was dropped.On On Charlie Rose, EDF leader Fred Krupp endorses domestic drilling for new oil posted 1 year, 5 months ago 17 Responses

The actual number of Sierra Club members

..is more like half of what you quoted, i.e. it's a little under 700,000.  Where did that larger figure come from?On Groups make joint announcement in Cleveland posted 1 year, 5 months ago 30 Responses

Public copy of 2005 paper and new one

The 2005 paper is here.

I also noticed this new one still in press.  I haven't had a chance to read it, but likely it would worsen the picture.

Accelerated Arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss

Abstract:  Coupled climate models and recent observational evidence suggest that Arctic sea ice may undergo abrupt periods of loss within fifty years.  Here, we evaluate the impact of rapid sea ice loss on terrestrial Arctic climate and ground thermal state in the Community Climate System Model.  We find that western Arctic land warming trends during rapid sea ice loss are 3.5 times greater than secular 21st century climate-change trends outside these periods.  The accelerated warming signal extends up to 1500km inland and is apparent throughout most of the year, peaking in autumn.  Idealized experiments using the Community Land Model, with improved permafrost dynamics, indicate that an accelerated warming period substantially increases ground heat accumulation - the earlier the event the greater the long-term impact.  For warm permafrost, enhanced heat accumulation can lead to rapid degradation.  For colder ground, heat accumulation preconditions permafrost for earlier and/or more rapid degradation under continued warming.On CO2 released from disappearing permafrost must be factored into climate projections posted 1 year, 6 months ago 4 Responses

Sam's supporters

Sam, in behalf of the King Of Saudi Arabia and the Chairman of ExxonMobil et al, may I say please keep up the good work.  With enough people like you, short-term profits will continue to be assured.  Sucker.On Fewer Republicans saying earth is warming posted 1 year, 6 months ago 19 Responses

A sleazy election day hit from Gristmill?

IIRC both Clinton and McCain have said they would make up the lost gas tax, McCain from elsewhere in the federal budget and Clinton with a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.  Of course there's still plenty to criticize (although more in regard to McCain's), but the willingness to gloss over this fact seems very strange.

Note e.g. this from Paul Krugman yesterday (emphasis added):

"Is Obama misrepresenting what I said?

"I don't have a link to the ad itself, but apparently there's an Obama ad citing something I said about McCain's gas tax holiday as a way to attack Hillary Clinton.

"I did not say that the Clinton proposal would increase oil industry profits. If the ad implies that I did, it should be retracted.

"The Clinton proposal is financed by an excess profits tax. At worst, it sends money in a circle. In practice, it would probably reduce oil industry profits at least slightly, since the rise in the pre-tax price of gasoline probably wouldn't wipe out all of the tax cut.

"I was very clear when I wrote about the Clinton proposal that while I didn't think it was good policy, it was not the same as McCain's, and relatively harmless. If the Obama people are suggesting otherwise, they're being deliberately dishonest."

But that's OK, Dave, you probably cost Clinton a few votes with this, and of course any correction will be too late to undo the damage.  
On McCain and Clinton: job killers posted 1 year, 6 months ago 6 Responses

Not how I read it

Being at the table and playing a central role does not necessarily mean having a permanent job in the administration.  I heard the audio of Obama's comment, and it looked to me as if the slight verbal stumble was an effort to find phrasing that didn't include a job offer as such.  Something like a Gore-chaired commission to come up with a plan in the first six months of the new administration would be consistent with what both Obama and Gore have said.  Likely something similar would happen with Clinton. On Obama just can't quit Gore posted 1 year, 8 months ago 4 Responses

Gap

Key phrase from Joe's original post:  "The paper does suffer from one inherent analytical weakness (...)"

This became "some significant gaps in the paper" in Andy's post.  I took Joe's phrasing, and in particular his use of "inherent," as pointing out that there's a gap in the science (not the paper as such).  Literally this can't be a gap in the paper since the paper discusses it.  As well, I'm not sure where the plural "gaps" came from.  Finally, "gap" (referring to an absence) is a much stronger term than "weakness" (referring to something that's present but isn't strong enough).
On NASA's Hansen responds to NYT's Revkin posted 1 year, 8 months ago 8 Responses

Max's favorite journal

Apparently JAPandS publishes all sorts of fascinating items, as befits a "well-known organ of quackery."On What happens when a group's position statement does not reflect its members accurately? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 89 Responses

Learn to read

Let's see, what point was I trying to make with those links?  Something about AGW?  Not exactly.  Something about the pace at which ice sheets can respond to warming influences of any sort?  Yes!  No brass ring for benp.

I didn't say those terms had magically appeared since the AR4.  Regarding their definition, I actually think I covered the concepts reasonably well.  If you want formal definitions based on those concepts, you should be able to manage on your own.  

Disparities between the AGU statement and the AR4?  Sure, since they were written at different times based on different science.  But I seem to recall saying that.  Are you murky on the point that the science might change over two years?

As for your last paragarph, did you notice that the first quote referred to the melting of the ice sheets and the second one to the sociopolitical consequences of Tibet losing its glaciers mid-century?  Other than both being consequences of global climate disruption, I didn't say they were related.

So, summing up, you managed to misunderstand or misconstrue everything I said.  Just out of curiosity, do you ever get the sense that people become frustrated interacting with you?

 On What happens when a group's position statement does not reflect its members accurately? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 89 Responses

Nice rant ...

but why intentionally confuse things?  Is there anyone here you think you're fooling?  Certainly not me or Andrew, and I doubt anyone else.

Just to rub your nose in it, though:

The science in the WG1 report is now nearly two years old, and there's been a lot of ice sheet science done since then.  The AGU statement benefited from that and other recent work.  

Did I say "imminent"?  No.  I said "relatively fast."  Note that the IPCC said "more rapid sea level rise on century time scales cannot be excluded."  More recent work seems to be headed in that direction.  It doesn't sound as if you pay attention to that literature, but see e.g. Rohling et al (2007).  See also this current news.

In any case, you missed the key point I made, which is that the commitment to the transition will be made long before it's actually seen.  That's true even if we're talking about a scale of one or two hundred years rather than a thousand years.

Now, you're confident that a worst-case scenario along the lines of a ten meter rise in two hundred years is something we could adapt to without too much strain (as compared to the strain of sharp emissions reduction in the near future), but I would disagree.  Consider, for example, the implications on ocean productivity of losing all of the current estuaries.  They do re-establish, but on a scale of more centuries.  As well, we have the small issue of ocean acidification.

The science aside, it seems obvious that you think in terms of these things only relative to your own lifetime, and within those terms your views are very possibly reasonable.

There's a lot more, of course, but you're not listening.  
On What happens when a group's position statement does not reflect its members accurately? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 89 Responses

Should be obvious

In this context, "balance" refers to the relatively narrow range of natural climate conditions that have prevailed during the present interglacial and can be expected to continue for another 30,000 years (until the next glaciation signal) or so absent human intervention.  (And as long as I mention that, I should emphasize that it's not the case that a new persistent climate state with a lot less ice would necessarily be worse than the present one, but rather that the bumpy transition to it would be unpleasant for all concerned.)  

Regarding the AGU, note that attendance at the fall meeting is now well in excess of 10,000.  Were there a groundswell of concern about the leadership, it would be pretty noticeable given that those halls are pretty well swarming with journalists.  I would point to the reception that Al Gore received when he spoke at the meeting in 2006 as evidence that the membership is in tune with what the leadership is doing.  If anything, the new statement is more conservative than what the membership might want (unsurprising given the nature of large organizations).  

BTW, there would be no impediment to a member or members circulating a protest petition at the annual meeting.  Let us know how that works out.
 On What happens when a group's position statement does not reflect its members accurately? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 89 Responses

Quibble

Joe, remember that there's a distinction between a prediction that more of X should be seen with more warming and a formal attribution of an observed increase in X to the warming.  To be fair, Edwards seemed to be referring to the latter.On Yes, global warming can boost the most severe tornadoes posted 1 year, 9 months ago 4 Responses

More

I now see the paper discussed in the link I provided above was the major reference in the concluding paragraph of the paper Joe discussed.

Following the links, I also see that both of these papers were done in the context of a much larger project called LBA-ECO (the ecological component of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA); see project description here).

As LBA-ECO has finished data-gathering and is in what they call the synthesis phase, it appears we'll be seeing a lot more results soon.On Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees, thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide posted 1 year, 10 months ago 3 Responses

Reading the entrails

FYI, Max, nobody "signed the US Senate list" or contributed to it (other than Morano himself).  He just picked the names up off the web.  A few other observations (perhaps a little duplicative since I haven't re-read the whole thread):

--  It's a strain to call this a "U.S. Senate report" when it's just something Inhofe posted on his blog.  No other Senator signed off on it.

--  Many of the "qualified" people on the list are in fact qualified, but their quotes either don't show them as being in disagreement with the consensus or are taken out of context.

--  As Andrew noted at the outset, the actual qualified people who are accurately quoted and consider themselves not part of the consensus boil down to pretty much the usual suspects.  Of those, hardly any are "prominent scientists."  In fact, I think Richard Lindzen may be the only one left standing.  He'd like that.      On Today: Thomas Ring posted 1 year, 10 months ago 66 Responses

450 ppm max., then back to 350 ppm ASAP

Joe, given the apparent lack of loud shrieking following Hansen's AGU presentation, I can only assume he was talking about the need to drop back to 350 ppm as soon as possible; i.e., that we can probably survive an excursion to 450 ppm without extreme damage, but will need to keep that as brief as possible.  Given that 450 PPM likely is incompatible with significant amounts of permanent ice, is there a reasonable alternative view?

There's another aspect to this:  We probably won't reach the 450 ppm limit for another 20 years or so, and arguably that results in the problem being viewed as far less urgent than it actually is.  The evidence seems to be that most people -- even very intelligent ones -- have a conceptual block when it comes to this sort of problem.  Please have a look at this key paper if you haven't already:

"Understanding Public Complacency About Climate Change:
Adults' mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter

"Public attitudes about climate change reveal a contradiction. Surveys show most Americans believe climate change poses serious risks but also that reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sufficient to stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations or net radiative forcing can be deferred until there is greater evidence that climate change is harmful. US policymakers likewise argue it is prudent to wait and see whether climate change will cause substantial economic harm before undertaking policies to reduce emissions. Such wait-and-see policies erroneously presume climate change can be reversed quickly should harm become evident, underestimating substantial delays in the climate's response to anthropogenic forcing. We report experiments with highly educated adults-graduate students at MIT-showing widespread misunderstanding of the fundamental stock and flow relationships, including mass balance principles, that lead to long response delays. GHG emissions are now about twice the rate of GHG removal from the atmosphere. GHG concentrations will therefore continue to rise even if emissions fall, stabilizing only when emissions equal removal. In contrast, results show most subjects believe atmospheric GHG concentrations can be stabilized while emissions into the atmosphere continuously exceed the removal of GHGs from it. These beliefs-analogous to arguing a bathtub filled faster than it drains will never overflow-support wait-and-see policies but violate conservation of matter. Low public support for mitigation policies may be based more on misconceptions of climate dynamics than high discount rates or uncertainty about the risks of harmful climate change."
   On What is the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2? posted 1 year, 11 months ago 24 Responses

Comparative coverage

Now Joe, don't start your hols all depressed over the disparity in coverage.  (I'm not saying don't be depressed -- just don't do it over this!)  I suspect most of the reaction to the synthesis report would have been to the major media stories rather than to the report itself, whereas the opposite would have been the case with the Inhofe piece.     On NYT's Revkin gives Inhofe a pass posted 1 year, 11 months ago 66 Responses

A major meltwater-induced cooling is unlikely

amazingdrx, the possibility of a major shutdown of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic has been pretty well excluded by recent work.  Bear in mind that the present ice (Greenland plus sea ice) doesn't contain anywhere near as much fresh water as the ones that melted 10,000 years ago, plus present geography doesn't appear to allow for a large meltwater lake that could drain suddenly.  There could still be an effect, but likely no more than just a temporary slowing of the warming trend in northern Europe.

The possibility of a significant hydrate release from around the Arctic Ocean margins has yet to be ruled out, but there's no reason to expect it to be huge.  Methane release from permafrost melt may be more important.  The big open question with both of these is how fast they could happen.
   On Scientist claims that climate models are too conservative in predicting ice loss posted 1 year, 11 months ago 12 Responses

Sufficient?

Dave, terms like sufficiency for climate chnage solutions are meaningless unless they're scaled against the scientific understanding of the problem.  I don't quite see that happening here.  On the plus side, I suspect we're looking at a veto and the chance for a much-improved bill next year.  OTOH I'm sure that whatever can be passed then will still fall short.  :(

I say that because, as you will have heard climate scientists mention from time to time, the "unknowns" in the science are distinctly tilted toward the bad news.  Today we have a prime example of that:

"Widening of the tropical belt in a changing climate"

Abstract: "Some of the earliest unequivocal signs of climate change have been the warming of the air and ocean, thawing of land and melting of ice in the Arctic. But recent studies are showing that the tropics are also changing. Several lines of evidence show that over the past few decades the tropical belt has expanded. This expansion has potentially important implications for subtropical societies and may lead to profound changes in the global climate system. Most importantly, poleward movement of large-scale atmospheric circulation systems, such as jet streams and storm tracks, could result in shifts in precipitation patterns affecting natural ecosystems, agriculture, and water resources. The implications of the expansion for stratospheric circulation and the distribution of ozone in the atmosphere are as yet poorly understood. The observed recent rate of expansion is greater than climate model projections of expansion over the twenty-first century, which suggests that there is still much to be learned about this aspect of global climate change."

Recall that it has taken very little in the way of accumulated anthropogenic forcing to have this result.  If we double pre-industrial CO2 levels by 2050, as seems likely, or even if we manage to stick to Jim Hansen's new limit of 450 ppm, that's a much larger extra push to the system.  Look for larger and nastier surprises.

The Australians at least seem to have figured out what this latest change means.  OTOH I don't see them proposing sharp cutbacks in coal production.

 On Greens need to learn how to celebrate their friends and their movement posted 1 year, 12 months ago 31 Responses

Forget not the loon of denial

Hey Joe:  You write "Now we are the last industrialized nation with a leader who refuses to take any serious action."  What about Canada and Czechia?  It's probably a technical distinction in the case of the latter since the large EU countries are driving the situation, but I think we have to say that Harper qualifies in every regard.  Just in the last couple of days, even while Howard was a no-show due to being otherwise occupied, Harper dug in his heels and got a lowest common denominator resolution at the Commonwealth meeting.    On Australian prime minister goes down to decisive defeat posted 2 years ago 14 Responses

Brevity is the essence

Dave, why say all of this --

"Said boo-er, in the middle of Clinton's remarks, stood up and started shouting about something or other. He was quickly dragged out by the police. Turns out he was a member of the activist group Code Pink, which is trying to end the Iraq war by showing up at events, yelling and screaming and annoying the bejesus out of everyone, discrediting the anti-war movement and progressive activism, and generally engaging in futile acts of moral onanism."

-- when you could just say "dirty hippie"?  Everyone knows the code, I think.On Reflections on Grist's presidential forum on climate change posted 2 years ago 62 Responses

The dozens

Whole dozens of scientific papers.  Wow.  I'm somewhere north of 1,000 and feel that I just barely have an amateur grasp of many of the basics.      
 On Climate change skeptics fall for hoax paper posted 2 years ago 10 Responses

Not nearly frightened enough

I had been aware of the pieces of this particular puzzle, but hadn't seen them put together quite like this.

FYI, Bailo, our understanding of the mechanisms for sea level rise is quite good.  It's indisputable that business as usual emissions over the course of this century will commit both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to collapse.  It's the details and timing that are still in question.  I had thought that the models for ice sheet disintegration needed a lot more work, but per a brief conversation I had the other day with a modeler at NSIDC, that's not the case.  What's mainly lacking at this point is a detailed deep radar mapping of the underlying topography of the ice sheets.  That's underway, however, and within a few years we should start seeing results.      On Stop dwelling on the climate change nightmare and dream about change posted 2 years, 1 month ago 12 Responses

Planet Nobel Peace Prize

By now the National Review folks must be regretting their choice of "Planet Gore."  On Paul Krugman ... posted 2 years, 1 month ago 6 Responses

The details

Here's the complete text.  It's still not clear what the space-based climate change initiative might be.  This is in addition to restoring the Earth Science program sats, so I assume it must refer to Triana and other sats not presently on NASA's official wish list.  But I'm sure her press office would respond with the info.

Bush is of course mentioned by name a number of times, Bush Sr. and Bill C. once each (in reference to the past role of the science advisor), and just one other person.  Guess who.   On Hillary lays out science proposals posted 2 years, 1 month ago 10 Responses

Please add an update

Andrew, if you could please add your last comment as an update since most readers will never get down this far.On Flawed new analysis purports to show that there's no scientific consensus on climate change posted 2 years, 2 months ago 34 Responses

Checking the Oz drought fact sources

Sam, the Australian newspaper story Joe quoted and this accompanying one seem to cover all the bases.  Are you aware of a problem with these?

Taking a few more minutes, I also checked to see if the Oz Bureau of Meteorology had something consistent with these stories, and they do.  In fact, from the dates it appears likely that this BOM statement led to the stories.     On Drought predicted to spread across Australia and the United States posted 2 years, 2 months ago 9 Responses

Wiscidea:

See the paper linked in my comment #4.On The Wall Street Journal contradicts itself on global warming posted 2 years, 3 months ago 24 Responses

Context-sensitive principles

Kit, note that Steve McIntyre Lex Luthor knows better than to pass up a good talking point when he sees it.  Apparently consistency is for us little people.On The Wall Street Journal contradicts itself on global warming posted 2 years, 3 months ago 24 Responses

Great article

Very nice!  Don't forget to discuss the absence of carbon feedbacks from sensitivity calculations.  

Nitpick:  You can't use the recent increase in emissions as an argument for higher sensitivity.
On Read on posted 2 years, 3 months ago 3 Responses

Semi-pointless snark re pointless snark

"The more the advocate relies on PowerPoint slides and 'graphics'"... the more likely she is to be giving a public lecture.  Apparently you hadn't noticed that she has a book on the subject as well.On A professor of History and Science Studies explains posted 2 years, 5 months ago 9 Responses

Beltway drivel

Her article smells to high heaven of AEI (or similar) talking points.  I assume people like her get a fairly steady barrage of such material.

Here's what she said about hurricanes:

"Recall that the experts told us last year would be a record-setting hurricane season, but the series of Katrinas never materialized."

Except that no expert made such a prediction.

"Now, Gore and others say that Katrina was a product of global warming and that we can expect more and bigger storms. But there is actually brisk scientific debate over the role global warming plays -- if any -- in the creation of hurricanes."

Not exactly.  The debate is over whether the global warming signal is large enough to be detectable now.  

A point that keeps getting made all the time is that even if the global warming signal is present we can't blame any particular hurricane or increase in hurricane strength on global warming, which implies that there will come a time when we can.  But that's not true.  Even with a large and incontrovertible signal, it would remain possible for any given storm to be largely the product of "natural" factors.  We can only describe the AGW-hurricane connection in statistical terms, which IIRC is what Gore did.  

"A study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution last month, looking at 5,000 years of Atlantic hurricanes, found 'large and dramatic fluctuations in hurricane activity, with long stretches of frequent strikes punctuated by lulls that lasted many centuries' -- with the stormier periods occurring during cooler ocean temperatures. But talking about Earth's constant, and still inexplicable, climate changes and cycles is not useful if you're trying to shock."

Contrast that with the Post's own coverage of the study:

"In their paper in the journal Nature, Jeffrey P. Donnelly and Jonathan D. Woodruff conclude that the issue remains unsettled -- that the occurrence of intense hurricane activity even when global and ocean temperatures are relatively low does not necessarily mean that global warming will not lead to greater hurricane dangers. Rather, they say it means that patterns of hurricane intensity can change significantly without a global ocean temperature rise, and that with the increase the effect could be greater."

Which is rather the opposite of what she implied.  What a lot of these denialists really don't seem to get is that AGW + natural cycles = worse juju than AGW without natural cycles.
On Climate change science questioned posted 2 years, 5 months ago 6 Responses

Hansen for Pope!

To paraphrase Stalin's response on being told that the Pope was concerned about Soviet treatment of Eastern Europeans ("How many divisions does the Pope have?"), how many lobbyists and campaign contributions does Hansen bring to this debate?

Seriously, everyone should read this paper.  On Is anyone listening? posted 2 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses

Not cynical enough by half

The Bush goal is to lock in his horrific policies for as long as possible after he and his minions are out of office.  Consistent with that, he really does want a treaty in place before he leaves -- the weakest possible one, set up so that a future administration will have a hard time improving the situation very quickly.

A related example of this is locking the moon/Mars stuff into the budget while gutting the Earth observation missions.  This is damage that will take years to reverse.  While we're on this subject, I think it's an excellent litmus test for the Dems.  Will they be able to produce a NASA budget that properly funds the satellites and reduces the interplanetary stuff to the small-scale research level where it belongs?  Unfortunately, as it stands now I'm going to have to predict that they they'll give Bush most of what he wants this year and next.

They're also trying to lock in a permanent war on terror, but that's another subject.
On Shockingly, it's the same as the old climate strategy posted 2 years, 6 months ago 10 Responses

Credit where credit is due

Dave, Eli Rabett dug that source document out of the tobacco files and blogged about it first.  But of course the big, big wayback credit for getting all of this material exposed goes to Stan Glantz (a larger, hairier and very much alive Rachel Carson for our times).  On Oy posted 2 years, 6 months ago 14 Responses

Related story

Yesterday's SF Chronicle had a story on the larger picture.  On the plus side, at least the issue is starting to get more attention.  One of several notes I could make on the minus side is that while a majority of California cities (the League of Cities membership) may be nominally in favor of sprawl restrictions, they are opposed to doing anything to restrict the minority that continue to want to sprawl like crazy.  This is based on fine-sounding arguments about "local control."  Of course there is no quote in the story noting that continuing sprawl is simply insane.On Schwarzenegger to California farmers: Considuh this a divorce posted 2 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses

Answers

At a remove, those ice shelves buttress the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is grounded below sea level.  With the shelves gone, it would be vulnerable to breaking up via undermining, cracking apart and floating off, which would probably be a much quicker process than if it was above sea level and had to slide off.  The bulk of the Antarctic ice is contained in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the base of which is above sea level.

Energy745, all of this subglacial water was discovered quite recently, so it's hard to know what the trend is.  The significance is that its presence means that there is a potential new mechanism for very rapid collapse of the WAIS.  The extent to which that mechanism will come into play is not yet known.  On Bad news from down south posted 2 years, 7 months ago 7 Responses

A possibility of disaster

Stefan's analysis is actully quite conservative (as I think he would agree).  This statement (from two days ago) from leading glaciologists regarding the vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is a watershed.  The key point:

"Our understanding of ice-sheet flow suggests the possibility that too much melting beneath ice shelves will lead to 'runaway' thinning of the grounded ice sheet. Current understanding is too limited to know whether, when, or how rapidly this might happen, but discussions at the meeting included the possibility of several feet of sea-level rise over a few centuries from changes in this region."

While stronger than any similar past "consensus" statement from glaciologists, that phrasing is still rather elliptical in that discussion at the meeting probably included much more extreme scenarios than several feet over a few centuries.  Note, BTW, that the first signer (Richard Alley) on that statement is the very same IPCC lead author who just a couple of months ago was reticent (see Hansen's quote of him) about saying any such thing (in an IPCC context, anyway).  

Reading Hansen's piece very slightly between the lines, I think he believes that the possibility of a WAIS collapse occurring in a matter of decades cannot be excluded, and if so even he's being "reticent."  I suspect many of the glaciologists believe that to be the case as well.  I think we can expect to see the NAS panel called for by Hansen created very soon, so hopefully at the conclusion of that process (by next year) the glaciologists will be willing to say what needs to be said.

(Just a quick note for those who don't follow this stuff closely:  The WAIS is the only one of the three major ice sheets that is both grounded below sea level and substantially open to the sea.  If all of the WAIS ice floats off the bottom, the result would be about 20 feet of sea level rise.  Note that the ice doesn't need to actually melt for this to happen.)
On How high and how fast? posted 2 years, 8 months ago 7 Responses

#11...

...on that list of legislative priorities needs to be an immediate shift in prioritization of our national reserach establishment (which dwarfs that of the rest of the world) to developing these new technologies.  I would actually slide this one into the #1 position.

Also, Jason, I have to say it drives me nuts when economists blithely say things like "we could not decrease the likelihood of climate change with existing technologies" when there is so much fruit hanging so low that it's already rotting on the ground.

BTW, we should distinguish between real "new technologies" and those that simply require research into the best/cheapest way to make them available on a mass basis.
     On Major technological advances are necessary posted 2 years, 8 months ago 7 Responses

Eriga's point...

...neatly proved in five minutes flat.On Debunking the 'water vapor' nonsense posted 2 years, 8 months ago 35 Responses

Placement...

...is critical in newspaper journalism, Eddie P.  Look at the hed and look at the relative placement of the critic/supporters.  The worst is that the critics are placed on the same scientific plane as the supporters, which was a screaming conscious distortion on the part of both writer and editor.  FYI Hansen, Kolleen and Oppenheimer are leading climate scientists; the other are not (although it's fair to distinguish Lindzen from the other critics in that he has a large corpus of respected work, albeit tempered by a quixotic 20-year pursuit of a wacky global warming hypotheses).   On The gray lady gets it woefully, laughably wrong posted 2 years, 8 months ago 53 Responses

Broadly false

The article says:  "Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots."

OK, so Easterbrook sounds like a reasonable, mainstream kind of guy, right?

But then three minutes on Google Scholar finds this abstract from last May in which Easterbrook says:  "Historic fluctuations of alpine glaciers, solar activity, and measured isotope changes suggest that the present global warming could well be solar in origin, rather than a result of increased atmospheric CO2.  (...)  Global temperature curves show a cool reversal from ~1955 to ~1980), inferring that global temperatures then were not driven by atmospheric CO2. Solar irradiance curves almost exactly match the global temperature curve and satellite data suggest that the earth has received increased solar radiation over the past 25 years, coinciding with the present 25-year warm cycle. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon, and global warming should abate, rather than increase, in the next 25-30 years. Using these data as a basis, the coming century should experience a cooler climate from ~2006 to ~2035, a warmer period (probably warmer than the 1977-2005 warm period) from ~2035 to ~2065, followed by another cooler period from ~2065 to about the end of the century."

This is in explicit disagreement with the IPCC on what is perhaps the most fundamental point of climate science.  Not only that, several of the particulars (e.g. that there is a significant insolation trend over the last 25 years) are simply false.  IOW, Easterbrook is way, way out of the science mainstream, has an obvious axe to grind and is willing to resort to just making things up.

The only way Broad could have missed this is to have done no fact-checking at all.  This was some seriously shoddy journalism in the fine recent tradition of the Times.

Aside from that, my favorite part was titling RP Jr. an "environmental scientist" and then using the same title for Jim Hansen.  In Roger's dreams.  Think he'll ask for a correction?
On Coming tomorrow posted 2 years, 8 months ago 19 Responses

It's complex, but...

John, of course you're correct that there's nothing really new in the AR4 except (and this is important) the confidence levels, and in fact as has been pointed out often enough it was behind the scientific curve before the ink even hit the paper.  The point I was making is that it is an example of more scientific information (albeit from prior research) advancing the debate as opposed to just being a distraction from the needed policy debate.  Of course it's difficult to deconvolute the effects of Katrina, AIT, the AR4, the power shift in D.C., and the recent hot and cold spells, but in that regard I thought the timing of this surge was interesting.  A related question is whether Katrina would have been so pegged to global warming in the public consciousness were it not for the serendipitous publication of the Emanuel and Webster et al papers.

But there's another factor I've been wondering about that you may be able to address:  It seems to me that the last year (probably actually starting with Katrina) has seen a considerable shift in press coverage of climate change, both in terms of content (fewer token denialists) and volume of stories.  Anything to that?On Debate shifting post-IPCC report posted 2 years, 9 months ago 29 Responses

Huh?

Are you sure it was the AAAS? On You be the judge posted 2 years, 9 months ago 2 Responses

Meta

A problem , David, is that we know this sort of attention paid to RP Jr. only helps him in his quest to get even more.

But as long as I've added to the problem by making a comment, the second-most ludicrous post (after this one) I've ever seen on his site (after the crazy carbon-catching windmill scheme) was his recent shameless pitch for a job in the Gore administration.  What's unfortunate is that it was actually very well-done in that we can be confident that Al read it and will remember RP Jr.'s name when hiring time comes around.  This helps explain why getting rid of the negative (and I suspect generally accurate) Wikipedia stuff is so important to him.          On The wages of vanity posted 2 years, 9 months ago 7 Responses

Mitigation

Someone above was confused about the distinction I drew between two different types of short-term mitigation that for some reason the "adaptation denialists" don't like to talk about.  Let me try again:

1.  Things government does to make things worse:  A major example is federal policy on highway construction, which allows (and effectively encourages) continued sprawl development by approving "congestion relief" projects that make long-distance car commuting more feasible.  Another example is direct fossil fuel subsidies.

2.  Relatively cheap, easy mitigation steps that can be taken now:  Examples are conversion to CFC bulbs (by coincidence very topical today), efficiency standards for new construction,  and an extensive efficiency retrofitting progtam for existing construction (financed by what are known as "efficiency utilities" where the long-term energy savings are used to finance the improvements).

I am extremely suspicious of the motives of those who discuss policy in terms of long-term adaptation steps while skipping over the low-hanging mitigation fruit.  
  On It's seductive -- and wrong posted 2 years, 9 months ago 54 Responses

Zakaria

The problems with Zakaria's piece (and the reasons I tend to side with those who think he's being disingenuous) start with his disagreement with a fundamental IPCC conclusion (attributiuon to anthropogenic GHGs):

"And human activity appears to be one important cause."

He doesn't do anything direct with this observation, but it sets a certain tone of uncertainty.

That tone leads straight to ignoring the many immediate mitigation steps that can be taken and focuses on big-ticket items that will require major subsidies (to many of the same entities that caused the problem) and/or not have much immediate impact:

"I state these facts plainly not to induce fatalism or complacency. It's scandalous that we're not weaning ourselves off dirty fuels. Perfecting just two new (and almost workable) technologies--clean coal and hybrid cars--would be a giant leap forward. We could be experimenting with hundreds more technologies and techniques."

Everyone here has been exposed to all of these ideas so I won't go into detail, but I see the immediate mitigation steps as divided into two general categories:  One, things that are being done now that make the problem worse with every new federal budget (e.g., federal transportation policies that facilitate continued sprawl development, direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies) and the low-hanging fruit (e.g., CAFE, conversion to CFCs, a federal efficiency standard for new construction and to retrofit exisitng buildings).  These could all be law within a year and make a huge difference immediately, and Zakaria mentions none of them.  Indeed, that last sentence implies that nothing is ready for immediate implementation.

Then he emphasizes the contradiction:

"(Cairncross) points out that adaptation programs could move forward fast. Unlike plans to slow down global warming, which require massive and simultaneous international efforts, adaptation strategies can be pursued by individual countries, states, cities and localities."

I kind of wonder if that last point was really made by Cairncross rather than Zakaria, but it ignores some realities that are very much within Zakaria's foreign policy expertise:

Can a serious international regime to stabilize the climate be instituted without the U.S. being seen to implemment a serious mitigation program?  In a word, no.

What country will redirect its vast public/private national scientific research establishment toward developing new energy technologies so that, e.g., China and India have options that don't include massive dirty coal?  Er, sorry, for a moment I forgot that only one country actually has such a research establishment.  Hint:  It's not Bangladesh.

Speaking of Bangladesh, possibly the most cynical unstated conclusion in Zakaria's piece is to imagine that there will be significant help for Bangladesh and the other poor countries that will bear the brunt of climate change.  For them,  mitigation action now to keep the problem from getting worse is essential.  

In sum, I completely agree with Dave's concluding point, and think it applies just as much to Zakaria as the other two.  Zakaria's rhetoric was different, but the practical political upshot is the same.  On It's seductive -- and wrong posted 2 years, 9 months ago 54 Responses

Slides

Actually it would make for an excellent several slides:

Show the snow, show the TV weatherman snark, show the record January global temp average that made the news the same day, then point out that extreme precipitation events like the recent snowfall are expected to increase as warming progresses.On No big deal, say Ohio meteoroligists posted 2 years, 9 months ago 6 Responses

Updating the downplaying

Ken, it seems you were still engaged in serious downplaying as of a few months ago.  Note that in the linked document you reject some of the IPCC's baseline conclusions.  Or is it just that "baseline" = the ones you agree with? On How a conservative think tank's foray into climate policy stirred up a media hornet's nest posted 2 years, 9 months ago 25 Responses

No lobbying?

You guys give AEI way more credit than they deserve.

AEI lobbies at the policy level.  Notwithstanding that it's a critical distinction as far as the IRS is concerned, meaning that DeMuth's "heated" response should be seen as being for the benefit of government tax lawyers, in the real world it means nothing.  Probably it would even make an outfit like AEI less effective in their lobbying if they tied themselves too closely to particular pieces of legislation.  

By the way, I'm sure that every one of AEI's fossil fuel industry funders could join EM in claiming no specific advance knowledge of this campaign.  Based on that, should we conclude that the campaign is something that AEI did because it wanted to for reasons having nothing to do with the perceived interests of those funders?

AEI quite consciously shifts its position on climate change in accordance with their perception of which approach will be most effective in advancing the interests of their funders, and those interests are to delay serious action for as long as possible and then to ensure that the process of responding to climate change is as industry-friendly as possible.  Any other approach would dilute the effectiveness of their lobbying.

One last point on the carbon tax:  AEI knows that such a tax is a non-starter in Congress for the forseeable future.  So their new-found advocacy for such a tax vs. cap-and-trade is likely to have what practical effect on legislation over the next few years?

  On How a conservative think tank's foray into climate policy stirred up a media hornet's nest posted 2 years, 9 months ago 25 Responses

Market failure

David, it's a little odd to extol the wonders of cap-and-trade without even mentioning the, um, bumps in the road recently experienced in Europe.  Certainly Congress could design a tax system that wouldn't work well, but at least any such deficiencies would be apparent up front.  Also, it's a lot easier to fix problems with a tax.On A guest essay from Environmental Defense posted 2 years, 9 months ago 41 Responses

It was just the other day...

...that I linked to the original press release announcing the committee, which clearly stated that it would have no legislative power.  The only point the letter adds is that Pelosi will have to approve subpoenas, which is really just an extension of the concept of the existing committees having dibs on witnesses.  I repeat the point that all of this is completely consistent with the original concept of an all-bark committee, and that there never was a feud.

For what it's worth, my hypothesis about what happened behind the scenes is that the Dem leadership, Dingell included, recognized that such a committee is an important part of their strategy to hammer the Repugs in November 2008 (by giving the climate change issue a higher and more focused profile than would be feasible through the existing committee structure).  At the same time, Dingell needed to be seen to engage in some minor public histrionics to make sure his public image as a tool of the auto industry/unions remains unsullied.  What happens with actual legislation during the next two years isn't terribly important since Dingell can be confident that Bush will veto any legislation strong enough to really upset Dingell's constituency.  

And oh yes, isn't that October 30, 2008 date interesting?  Why, it's a Thursday!  Can we say "peak of the news cycle just before the election," Mr. Roberts?  I think we can. :) On Committee Clash of 2007 settled semi-amicably posted 2 years, 9 months ago 1 Response

GW legislation

This gets to be a game of second- and third-guessing, as in whether the 2009 legislation is likely to be anything like the needed end point.  I seriously doubt that it will.  That leads me to my answer of saying that we simply push for what we know to be the necessary minimum, which is 80% by 2050.  Very obviously that has to be combined with the U.S. exercising strong international leadership, and so a little less obviously the bill needs to include a major R+D effort to provide sustainable means of energy production for China, India, etc.  
On Gore to testify to Congress posted 2 years, 9 months ago 11 Responses

Correct paper link

Here.On Opinions on the Fourth Assessment Report posted 2 years, 9 months ago 14 Responses

Huh?

Dave, not only will the committee not have subpoena powers, it won't compete with existing committees on legislation:  "The Select Committee will not have legislative jurisdiction, but will help develop information that will help us give these issues the legislative priority they demand."  In other words, the entire point of the special committee is to spur the legislating committees to action.  But the article you linked to first says, "Dingell is furious, and it's said that he's working to force a vote on the question of whether his committee or Pelosi's new creation is going to have jurisdiction over global warming-related legislation."  Somebody seems to not have their facts straight.

So now Dingell has moved to schedule a high-profile hearing and you say "With a stroke, he sucked the air out of Pelosi's special committee. It's a reminder whose turf is whose."  Aside from the use of kind-of-offensive Beltway insider lingo, which I would hope you could avoid in future, I just don't see that there's a basis for calling this some sort of win for Dingell.  It's possible that this hearing is part of an effort by Dingell, Gordon and Waxman to show that a special committee isn't necessary, but if so that too seems like a win for the forces of light.

Special committee or not, the real rubber hitting the road will be relative to this further remark in Pelosi's announcement:  "I am asking the committees that have jurisdiction over energy, environment and technology policy to report legislation on these issues by June.  We hope to have legislation on global warming and energy independence through the committees by July 4th, so that this year, Independence Day is also `Energy Independence Day.'"      
On Gore to testify to Congress posted 2 years, 10 months ago 11 Responses

AEI

Not long after Andrew outed them, one of the two signatories on the AEI offer letter happily volunteered to be part of Roger Pielke, Jr.'s merry band of "non-skeptic heretics."  He was joined by, IIRC, Benny Peiser and Indur Golklany.  Of course.  Oh, and how could I forget Mark Bahner.  A trifecta!

I hadn't been aware until recently that the WG1 SPM would come out several months ahead of the scientific assessment, but my first thought upon flinding out was that it makes it hard for AEI to make much of a splash even if they do get any bites.  OTOH maybe the Fraser Institute fraud is the substitute effort.  We'll see how that one works out for them, but perhaps the internal disputes around the hurricane and sea level issues will crowd out any other controversial coverage.On It's a frenzy posted 2 years, 10 months ago 9 Responses

The missing half

This mirror idea should be packaged with the proposal to slow global warming by pumping SO2 into the atmosphere.     On U.S. response to IPCC is ... something posted 2 years, 10 months ago 7 Responses

The sky's the limit

Because unfortunately we're going to pass 2x CO2 and not look back.  I suspect something more like 3x will become inevitable by the time there are enough obvious impacts to motivate the sharp reductions needed.  3x gets us two more degrees C even at low sensitivity, and given the recent behavior of the ice sheets I'm quite confident that's enough to terminate the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets (among numerous other unpleasant effects).  Of course I hope to be extremely wrong about this.On Warming people believe, humans at fault, not so much posted 2 years, 10 months ago 30 Responses

Small corrrection

Oops, I should have noted that land use changes are the other major human contribution to past warming (although greenhouse gases will be dominant going into the future).  Probably most important, I forgot to add the "human contribution" phrase.  Although it's a given among people familiar with the science, a failure to keep repeating it may be one cause of the gap (as shown by the poll) between the perception of warming and the willingness to attribute it to humans.On Warming people believe, humans at fault, not so much posted 2 years, 10 months ago 30 Responses

Even scarier than disgusting

See this article about the present rate of CO2 rise.  We may be seeing the first signs of sink saturation.  At a now-conservative annual rise of 2.2 ppm, we will see 550 ppm by 2080 or so.  Such an outcome is now inevitable, and if so we can pretty well kiss the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets goodbye (= about 40 feet of sea level rise).  If we're lucky, the melt will take two or three centuries, but we may not be lucky.  On Sounds ... whaaa? posted 2 years, 10 months ago 17 Responses

AMS certification standards and a modest proposal

According to the AMS site, there's a pretty low bar in terms of the written test for broadcast meteorologist certification (75% correct true/false answers on a test with 100 questions).  Given that climate questions probably couldn't be more than 5% of the test, one could get all of those wrong and still have plenty of room to pass.

Since meteorologists will be increasingly called upon to discuss climate directly as well as interpret weather events in terms of climate change, I think it would be perfectly appropriate for the AMS to change the testing regime so as to ensure that certificate holders know at least the basics.  AMS certifications are really just advice to employers, so a less controversial alternative to modifying the main test might be to have a separate test with an added certification.  For broadcast meteorologists, this would then entitle those who passed the separate test to add CBC(C) to the existing CBC appellation.  Pressure from employers, peers and informed viewers might be expected to do the rest.  On Eh, why bother posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses

Insufficiently "atmospheric" posts

Hey, Andrew, all this policy booshwah is well and good, and let me just say that I'm very happy to see you up on the Hill rather than you-know-who, but inquiring minds really want the low-down on A53F.  Among other things, did Lindzen and that poor, poor grad student even show?  Probably this stuff is a little obscure for Grist, but perhaps over at your other location?

On the subject of the post, it has always seemed to me that while it's extremely useful to educate policy makers and journalists about the tactic you describe, a complete regime change to non-scientizing honest brokers operating in the context of a recast UNFCCC (oops, there I go again about you-know-who) would do little additional good.  As I think we have seen, after a while denialists who stray too far from the science will tend to lose credibility.  Put another way, improvements in the science really are important to advancing appropriate policy.  That will remain true even as we move forward into a policy debate that is much more about the relative value of mitigation vs. adaptation.On An account of one scientist's testimony posted 2 years, 10 months ago 7 Responses

On topic

I notice that the bit that melted was on a rather exposed peninsula.  The speed with which this melting occurred is very much worth paying attention to, but the more immediate question is to what extent similar effects have been seen on the rest of the Greenland shoreline.  This seems like it wouldn't be too difficult to establish by comparison of satellite photos, and I wonder what the answer is.  

Back on the issue of the speed, the most notable aspect of the article was the quote from Greenland ice expert Richard Alley that a foot or two of sea level rise in the next few decades is distinctly possible.  Such an outcome falls into the category of abrupt and very much dangerous climate change. On Overreacts to global warming posted 2 years, 10 months ago 15 Responses