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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 9351 to 9400:

  1. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    I am also happy to get into the gory details as to why the popular economic loss estimates are mostly non-sense. (Short explanation: because they are based on the unrealistic assumption that people will not adapt to change.)

  2. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    .Nigel - At least in terms of the economic social science, I believe you are dead wrong. And that’s the problem.

    For example, there are few (if any?) economists involved in making the often repeated prediction that climate change will cost the US economy 10% by 2100. I know of no peer-reviewed article in an economic journal that shows this.

    If you track down where the economic loss estimates are coming from, they are almost always made by climate scientists, not economists.

    And concerning health issues, the situation is not much different. It is climate specialists, not public health officials, making the most predictions.

    [I am basing this opinion on my familiarity with the big IPCC report from the end of last year, the Forth National Climate Assessment (for impacts on the US), and the influential Lancet report on health problems related to climate change - all from about the end of last year.]

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] This discussion would greatly benefit from you backing your claims with references. As it is, this is tending to sloganeering. In particular, please:

    1/ Reference the report(s) for economic losses being calculated by climate scientists. It would be particularly helpful if you showed where in the reports, you see estimates ignoring adaptation.

    2/ Can you be specific about the  predictions on health in the report that you think are authored by inappropriate authorities.

  3. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    Doug & Nigel -  I understand and agree.  But that's not what most people understand "existential threat" to mean.

    I think the tactic will backfire when Deniers point out that we're talking about scuttlefish, not human beings.

  4. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    It depends how esistential threat is perceived. Denialists hear " exaggerated claim that humans would go extinct". Warmists hear " a wide scale threat to many forms of life and socioeconomic systems". DB makes a good point related to this.

    But defintions are important to get right. People who use the term existential threat need to qualify it better, but the use of the term seems to be resonating with the public in general.

  5. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    Markpittsusa, @17, yes I do hear that one. Its important to bear in mind climate change is an existential threat for many animal and plant species. That's what scientists subscribe to and theres plenty of published research on it.

    But some environmental lobby  lobby groups throw the term  existential threat around in a loose fashion to imply humans are at risk of extinction. I'm a bit uncomfortable with this, as it's  not really tenable to me. I haven't read a paper suggesting human extinction is literally possible. But it is not something scientists are promoting with the exception of G McPherson.

    Of course there's  evidence climate change could cause increased mortality in tropical regions.

    But one should ask the question "has the term existential threat and the group extinction rebellion hurt efforts at mitigation"? Oddly enough it seems to it hasn't, and may be motivating mitigation.

  6. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    Existential threat? It depends. For instance the geopolitical unit Bangladesh won't continue to exist as we know it, due to SLR. 

  7. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    markpittsusa @1, do bear in mind climate scientists are not themselves doing research in social and economic issues. Research papers that touch on impacts of the physical science on the social structure of communities, or which evaluate economic outcomes are usually multi disciplinary affairs with several authors expert in their own fields. 

  8. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    nigelj - Here is an exaggeration I see or hear 10 times a day:

    "Climate change is an existential threat."

    How many peer-reviewed scientific papers say that humanity is even remotely likely to cease to exist due to climate change?

  9. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    markpittsusa, sorry for spelling your name wrong. Typo. 

  10. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    dmarkpittsusa "The problem in my opinion is that there is plenty of "willful ignorance" on both sides: On the one hand there is denial. On the other hand, extreme (i.e., scientically refuted) exaggeration."

    I think the willful ignorance is  mostly on the denialist side of things. I concede there is some exaggeration by a few warmist individuals but they are small in number.  Guy McPherson a biologist claimed climate change could cause human extinction within a couple of decades (or something like that) , and a ridiculous website suggested temperatures could soar ten degrees within a decade but these are a very small minority of scientists and individuals. Still its annoying because it gives denialists ammunition.

    I'm not sure what exaggeration you are referring to, but I would make the point that there is no evidence of exaggeration in any of the IPCC findings, and in fact plenty of hard evidence suggests the IPCC are overly conservative in their findings. Such information is easily enough googled. 

    The science is multifaceted and compelling and has therefore not surprisingly lead to a consensus. Claiming IPCC reports are exaggerated is therefore just opinion, and pretty uninformed opinion.

     

  11. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    I'll just offer that watching Fawlty Towers was not only squeamishly amusing but also informative for me in terms of identifying my own Basil characteristics. Indirection is sometimes quite helpful. 

  12. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    I'm not sure I understand how publishing regional model projections is "to move into the social sciences," Mark. 

    More it's the case that these projections most immediately affect decisions to be made around civil engineering and agronomy, as is visible in other papers we list. Social sciences come in as a knock-on effect of that. So, it seems climate scientists (those in the domain of physics) are a few steps removed from the sausage factory driven by their findings.

    As to whether projections are off the mark, I'm not remotely qualified to say. Few of us are, with those few suited for a productive role in critique found in the role of reviewing papers for publications.

  13. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    One Planet Only Forever @11, the problem with penalties and fines for C02 emissions is it would presumably require penalising various corporations who produce emissions and this will be a very hard sell politically because there will be huge corporate push back against parties trying to do this. Likewise for consistency I think you would have to penalise or fine ordinary people for their high carbon footprints, which would probably get huge political resistance.

    I promise you any Party suggesting the idea of penalties or fines idea would plummet to near zero in the political polls, so such policies dont have much chance of being enacted into legislation or would just be cancelled by the next party elected. People have a huge psychological aversion to the ideas of fines or penalties.

    I'm not saying the idea is philosophically wrong, just that its doesn't appear to be remotely viable in the real world. Carbon tax schemes or cap and trade look more poltically viable, and several countries have these. They help modify behaviour. Economics 101. They also have an element of pernalty in them, but its not so "in your face".

    Of course we can penalise bad behaviour in other ways that are indirect. Shaming people and corporations, not voting for them, ostracising them, not using their products and services, etcetera.

  14. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41, 2019

    The problem that I see is that when climate scientists move into the social sciences (economics, public health, etc.) their analysis is often very weak.  So when they say "these things [actual effects on human beings] will happen" in your city/county/state, they are frequently going to be way off the mark.  And of course those errors become valuable ammunition for deniers.

  15. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    nigelj & Wol - The problem in my opinion is that there is plenty of "willful ignorance" on both sides: On the one hand there is denial. On the other hand, extreme (i.e., scientically refuted) exaggeration.

  16. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    One Planet - Who gets to decide what is "misleading information?"  (Give me that job, and I can rule the world.)

  17. One Planet Only Forever at 01:11 AM on 20 October 2019
    Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    nigelj and mike,

    The first step in efforts to correct activity that is discovered to create negative impacts or risk of negative impacts is improved awareness and understanding that it needs to be changed or stopped.

    If that fails to achieve the required correction, the next step is making it harder to get away with the unsustainable harmful behaviour (even if people claim that good things are being done because of the unsustainable harmful activity, none of that Good is sustainable)

    If that step fails then penalties or fines are required.

    And what really needs to be penalized is people who continue to try to spread and popularize misleading information that compromises the efforts to achieve the results through the 'First Step'.

    We reached the stage of requiring penalties for bad climate action behaviour a couple of decades ago.

    It appears that the winners and leaders will need to be penalized to get the required corrections, and maybe penalized for past actions). The longer that people can excuse bad behaviour by complaining that penalties are not helpful or are not justified the worse things will become.

  18. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    WOL, some of the answer might be found here: wilful ignorance.

  19. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    Can anyone explain to me how denialists can, without apparent irony, state that no-one can know weather and climate data prior to around the late 1800s yet state with utter certainty how the MWP, various ices ages and the like were, hundreds to millions of years ago.

    All of which data came from the same institutions and scientists!

  20. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    markpittsusa @6, your fossil fuels versus car accidents analogy is  menaingless because it compares oranges and apples  Cars are not a problem, provided they are driven correctly and if not that is the drivers fault. Fossil fuel production is a problem because it is causing climate change,  reflecting on both producers and consumers. But the way out is things like carbon taxes, or possibly cap and trade, or a "GND" those sorts of initiatives.

  21. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    markpittsusa @6

    Before we talk about solutions we have to identify who is doing the wrong thing, in order to figure out what the best solution is. In the climate issue this includes both corporations and individuals so its messy.  I agree to the extent that an accusatory stance is not helpful eg: "You climate villain need to be cast into the eternal fire". But its hard to escape the fact that corporations and people are to "blame".

    "If a handful of corporations are responsible for most global warming, then a handful of auto makers are responsible for tens of thousands of highway deaths. (So lets make the auto makers should pay.)"

    I have never suggested corporations should pay some form of damages for climate negligence. This is obviously not the right way to approach things, although I wont be standing in the way of anyone who tries it out.

    But corporations all have a responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint. A carbon tax would help push them and consumers to reduce emissions according to the IMF. The IMF seem to think its very practical. Did you read the link? 

    And you still haven't answered my question. What would you suggest be done?

     

  22. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    nigelj. I appreciate your perspective, but I can't see how your comments negate my point. Aren't we are looking for solutions rather than looking for whom to blame?

    Besides the practical problem of trying to make corporations pay, there is a logical problem as well: If a handful of corporations are responsible for most global warming, then a handful of auto makers are responsible for tens of thousands of highway deaths. (So lets make the auto makers should pay.)

  23. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    markpittsusa @4 , heavens above, we should never blame either corporations or ordinary people for this climate mess. Instead we should tell them what they are doing is fine. Give everybody a green light to continue the same behaviour. (sarc)

    What is your solution? Hold hands and sing Kumbya? Is it "more research is needed?"  Statements that technology is the answer, ie stating the obvious? Begging corporations to do better? Just what is it?

    This problem clearly can't be solved purely by individual initiative, because that clearly isn't working. The solutions might be uncomfortable for some, but will require something like a carbon tax and dividend scheme. Even the IMF is on board with that.

     

  24. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    As a practical matter, bashing and blaming the corporations will never work.  That's because corporations are overwhelmingly owned by ordinary people.  Roughly speaking, 50% of the US stock market is in pension funds and retirement accounts.  Roughly another 25% in individual accounts.  And the remainder is in "other accounts," a very large part of which is "sovereign wealth funds," i.e., government owned funds that belong to all the citizens of the country.

  25. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Scaddenp.  Thanks.  Exactly what I was looking for.

  26. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    Now we need our elected "leaders" to start using the portal instead of catering to the corporate agendas of greed and influence.

  27. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    I find the video a bit short of detail and long on promoting Climate Adam. Perhaps it's because in getting old and grumpy. Perhaps the video targets young people quite well. But it's probably not going to be a hit with conservative leaning denialists.

    But one way or the other, whats really needed is a more in depth discussion on tipping points because most people will want a couple of examples and an explanation. Scaddenps references look good and are valuable, but are the other extreme and very technical. 

  28. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Matt, try  this reference  for a starting point (2636 citations) and the follow up reference. I am not that fond of the term "tipping point". This article points to what I think are problematic issues with its use.

  29. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    "Are Blacklock's Reporter et al. honestly confused about the difference between weather and climate, and the complexities of climate computer modelling, or are they just trying to use that complexity to confuse their readers?"

    Probably the later. These people obviously aren't morons, in the main. We are talking about deliberate ignorance. When your income or ideology depends on not knowing, you will sometimes not want to know. The trouble is the deliberate ignorance mindset eventually becomes real ignorance, and maybe kills brain cells!

  30. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Doug - Thanks that makes a lot of sense.  By the way, my own opinion is that tipping points are the "real" issue.  Could you (or other readers), provide any references on this topic?

  31. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Sorry, but I couldn't watch beyond the 50 second point

    This infantile approach turns me off in a big way - just as does the disruption to peoples' lives that E. Rebellion is causing.

    Small children might be briefly entertained by this video, but treating adults who might be persuaded of the cause like infants is counterproductive.

    Those "funny" preflight videos do the same thing - they MIGHT (not, actually, in my case) have people watch them but the message is lost in the flimflam.

    The stark message "If you inflate your lifejacket BEFORE exiting the aircraft, you will not be able to get to the exit and you WILL drown" may not make for pleasant listening, but has a better chance of being understood than just sitting there wondering how much the airline paid for the actors and bands.

  32. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    OK that's an arguably fair point, Mark. 

    Adam mentions permafrost loss and hence CH4 emissions, loss of albedo from reduced ice cover, and loss of forest productivity and the CO2 capture associated with that. 

    Those are three positive feedbacks which (we're told by experts) may plausibly end up being self-driving and self-cementing.

    Now, it's not Adam's intention or style to inform readers by reciting facts and figures; those are available elsewhere. His intention and style is to build audience engagement, clearly with the objective of conveying a very broad-brush sense of the topics he's covering and presumably igniting some curiosity and concern about the overall problem of climate change. 

    But Adam might well include a list of references for the concepts he treats, as part of the content at the end of his pieces. 

    Why not write him and suggest that? 

  33. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Excuse me, comment was meant for bozzz.

  34. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Doug -  Thanks for your reply, but I don't understand your comment.

  35. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Mark, a system always wins. Now, what were you saying about science again?

  36. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Doug - Sorry but I didn't notice any "facts being conveyed."  

    Facts include discussions about probabilities, discontinuities, historical precedents, and generally, what scientists have to say about tipping points.  

    Endless discussions about what "could" happen are useless.  We "could" all die from a meteor collision and not have to worry about climate change.

  37. Canada's ClimateData Web Portal: Normal Science, Not Fake

    Fake news isn't new: capitalism essentially runs on it yet the higher ideal still seems to triumph!

    The laws we live our lives by allow fake news by making public companies prioritise the shareholder.... It has been said that the first line of defence is a moral law: so, after all that being said, "Houston, do we or do we not have a problem?"

  38. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Is this what skepticalscience.com calls “science?” (No wonder there are so many science deniers - in fact, sign me up.)

  39. Tipping Points: Could the climate collapse?

    Strip away the humor and it's a training film, Mark. We need training to deal with an emerging situation. And without that humor we find no problem with the facts being conveyed, right?

    Search Youtube for "humorous training film" and you'll find scads. Humor captures and maintains attention for many folks, making things that are dull or too scary palatable.  

    For an excellent and fun example, see this article about Southwest Airlines and how they use humor to make cabin briefings into engaging entertaiment while conveying important information— hence being more effective. :-)

    Southwest’s plan to conquer the airline industry, one joke at a time

  40. Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019

    Snoopy, have you got a reference for your allegation?

  41. Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019

    According to Danas latest article the ice loss in Antarctica has trebled over the last decade...

  42. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    Vacnol: volcanoes are like pimples: irrelevant...and that is exactly how the scientists in this field view the matter !

  43. Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks

    The Resplandy paper was found to have some statistical errors and was retracted, to be revised and republished in another journal (I'm not sure if that's happened). The authors talk about it all here. However the errors don't invalidate the warming found, just that the level of uncertainty is higher than they first thought. A storm in a tea cup by the denialists. 

  44. Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks

    Robincollins @5 ,

    as far as I can make out, there's no real controversy.

    There was a "Resplandy" scientific paper [Resplandy L.] published 11 months ago, about overall ocean warming.  The paper showed a novel & clever method of assessing ocean changes via oxygen/CO2 alterations.  Almost immediately, it was heavily criticized mathematically by statistician Nic Lewis ~ who pointed out that the warming conclusions were based on statistical figures which were much too fuzzy to be acceptably useful.  The paper's authors acknowledged that criticism . . . and in the slow passage of time, the paper eventually got retracted officially . . . just now in late 2019.

    Possibly, Resplandy & co-authors might be able to re-do their study using more data ~ but it may be that their new "alternative approach" (which I applaud as novel & clever) is unlikely to be as accurate as the conventional buoy-based thermometers.  Thermometers which demonstrate the ongoing warming of the ocean.

    As usual, the propaganda from GWPF, WUWT, etcetera, is trying to give the impression (by blaring headlines) that there is a new problem.  But if you look deeper than the headlines of contrarian blogs, then you find that the mountain shrivels to a molehill.

    A second minor point, was that a recent IPCC assessment had used (or at least cited) the discredited Resplandy paper as a source (alongside a hundred separate papers used).   AFAIK at first glance, this was a typo by the IPCC ~ and referred to the wrong Resplandy paper (it should have been a different Resplandy paper).   Either way, the IPCC's assessment still stands.

    Again, that seems to be a giant beat-up by the "denialists".  Who keep trying to turn a blind eye to the overall evidence.

  45. Brief overview of new IPCC report on oceans and ice risks

    Hi, I wonder if someone can comment on the controversy over the retracted report and the "Cheng Perspective" on oceans warming. See, for instance: https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2019/10/14/retracted-ocean-warming-paper-the-ipcc/

  46. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    I wouldn't call it ambiguous.  I'd call it lying.  It's still not explained why a self-descibed scientific publication would knowingly publish a falsehood.  It seems to me, given the deflection tactics used to rebut my observation, that it was intended to deceive, which is the literal definition of a lie.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB]  You are welcome to your opinions.  When those opinions extend to personal attacks/ad hominems, they are unwelcome here (review the Comments Policy for details).  If you are of the opinion that a particular article or point within an article is erroneous, the burden of proof is incumbent on you to cite credible sources as to why the particular points are wrong and what a more accurate text would look like.

    Sloganeering/personal attacks snipped.

  47. Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019

    Sorry ~ my apologies to Snoopy, but I misquoted Rignot et al.

    The Antarctic ice loss is more than ten times bigger than I said.

    ( 2009--2017 ice loss is about 250 cubic kilometers per year. )

    I was looking at the Antarctic ice loss acceleration rate !

  48. How the Greenland ice sheet fared in 2019

    Sequoia512 @8,

    I think your numbers are a little out.

    Over the last couple of decades, Greenland has been indeed losing somewhere in the order of a billion tonnes of ice a day but that is a net figure. The gross figure for ice loss (ie ignoring the gain from snowfall) is about five-times higher.

    Your 100,000 years to melt half of the Greenland ice sheet at a rate of 1Gt/day would put the size of the ice sheet at 73,000,000 Gt. The ice sheet is considerably smaller at 2,850,000 Gt.

    You ask why the Eemian was so hot? There is an SkS post addrssing that very subject here. The peak of the Eemian is reckoned to have had a "global mean annual surface temperatures ... warmer than pre-industrial by about 1° to 2°C."  So today's global temperatures are not greatly different, and of course we are still warming. The last ice age did follow from the Eemian interglacial but that did require high-latitude Northern temperatures to drop from the peak Eemian, while we are going the other way so not any chance of an ice age arriving wiht AGW running as it does.

    The thorium reactors are an interesting concept. Yet, while there are many projects around the world investigating the technology (including the Norwegian Thor project you mention), it has severe technological hurdles to clear. Note the link on that Thor webpage that says:-

    Put simply, thorium-based reactors are still not economically viable for the most part. ... The result is, that at least for now, thorium reactors are unlikely to gain the upper hand over uranium oxide reactors. It’s possible that thorium reactors could become more dominant in the future, but a lot of work will have to be done to get to that point.

  49. Video: Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2019

    Snoopy @2 , 

    Antarctic ice loss has averaged about 13 cubic kilometers per year since 2001 , but has accelerated in the past 10 years.  (Still quite small ~ under 10% of the ice loss from Greenland.)

    Source: Rignot et al., 2019 (Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences)

  50. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    I am not a scientist but would somebody explain to me how a gas that consists of 400 parts per million is going to heat the other 9600 parts per million in any significant way and why would one of the other green house gases water vapor not have a much greater effect.  

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] See "How substances in trace amounts an cause large effects."

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