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Comments 19001 to 19050:

19001. NorrisM at 04:48 AM on 12 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       nigelj @ 52 and scaddenp @ 50.

       I certainly get the message that models cannot predict 10 year cycles.  I guess what I should have asked Bob Loblaw are the model predictions and their variance based upon: 1.  Period 1900 to present; and 2. 1975 to present.

       Thanks nigelj for your explanations of the periods of temperature increase and decrease (or levelling off) during the 20th century.  I know that one of the pet peeves of Lindzen (from one essay by him) has been the use of aerosols to "adjust" models.  All very confusing for the layman.  See my comments to Eclectic and MA Rodger below.

       But if the models are within one SD over 20 years then this is certainly material information.  Reading Christy's chart you would not think so.

19002. NorrisM at 04:30 AM on 12 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       Bob Loblaw @51.

       If I understand your first example, this would suggest that it is appropriate to "average" the various model results and compare them with the actual observations.  In your example, the model of 50:50 chance is correct because the average of the models is bang on with the theory. 

       Although statistics is not my strong suit (I have to admit I did take one course in my undergrad degree (BA Economics), do I understand that a bell curve of the GCM results are within one standard deviation.  If so, what percentage of one SD?

       I do not know if you are able to do this but if you were to elimate both the 1998 El Nino and the 2015-2016 El Nino from the data, how would the models stack up to actual observations excluding those events?

       As to the second example, I think you are saying that the observational information is not good enough to explain the increase in temperature.

19003. rugbyguy59 at 04:19 AM on 12 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       Thanks, Tom. I greatly appreciate the effort, quick reply, and the hints about how to check these things. If one positive thing has come from the hours spent confronting these people it's that my own knowledge of science, climate, and the Internet continue to grow.
       
       scaddenp @6 He's a lukewarmer and somehow the idea that small increases in temp "exaggerated by homogenization" can cause these big changes in the real world makes sense to him... without making him think; Wow, these are some big changes.....!

19004. michael sweet at 03:07 AM on 12 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       Chriskoz,

       The US Navy has already made jet fuel from CO2 recovered from sea water.  They estimate the cost at about US$3-6 per gallon.  It is not clear from the article if they have to pay for the electricity they use to run the process.  If renewable energy was cheap enough you could make jet (or automobile) fuel but the efficiency of the process is low (internal combustion engines are only about 30% efficient while electric motors are over 90% efficient).  In addition, internal combustion motors are high polluting compared to electric if you ike clean air to breathe.

       This is modern technology, not a miracle.

19005. Eclectic at 02:00 AM on 12 July 2017
       It's too hard
       

       Carn @62 ,

       you are too pessimistic by far.   The major problems (caused by AGW) won't be solved by fear & paralysis.

       2050 is 33 years away.  A third of a century.  Look back in history and see what great changes have been achieved in the past 33 years — from the internet/computerization and GPS satellites, to lithium batteries and cheap solar panels.  Or the 33 years earlier still [i.e. back to 1950 ..... almost the Fred Flintstone Age ;-) ..... except for the H-bomb, that is! ] .

       Now look forward 33 years into the likely future : and at the much faster technological rate of change occurring now and increasingly during that third of a century.   And we can do a damn fine job eliminating two-thirds of (present day) CO2 emission rate, using the technology available today.   All it needs is some good old-fashioned Can-Do attitude !   (Surely the Can-Do attitude didn't die out in year 2000, did it? )

       The remaining one-third of emissions will need more effort and R&D — especially the liquid hydrocarbon fuels for planes and ships.   You know it yourself, that the current "biofuels" are a complete scam [carried out for county/state political reasons : not for genuine scientific reasons] as well as being detrimental to actual food-growing (as you well point out).

       No, Carn, let's face it — jetfuel and diesel fuel from renewable sources will require advanced catalysis-based chemistry in yet-to-be-built factories (using recycled organic "waste" feedstock) and/or vat-fermentation with algal enzymes (also using "waste" feedstock).  The latter is already commencing in a tiny way with small pilot plants — but is still $200 or more per barrel of "oil".   But give it another 20 years!

       No need for "the piles of bodies" which will happen with even worse floods, wildfires, droughts and forced migrations, that occur if we fail to act in a sensible intelligent way (to slow down & halt the global warming).

       Rock and a hard spot.  But sitting on our bums will be the worst choice.

19006. MA Rodger at 00:53 AM on 12 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       John S @8.

       Bar one instance, the talk of "ocean" data in this OP/comment-thread refers to SST (sea surface temperature). (Note, there is one statement in the OP saying "oceans are warming" which would sensibly refer to Ocean Heat Content.) The surface air temperature (SAT) above the ocean and also the skin temperature of the ocean will vary greatly with time of day. But unlike on land, it is impractical to monitor SAT at sea to obtain max/min daily values. SST is not greatly affected by time of day, averaging less than ½ºC (as per fig 2 of Kennedy et al 2007) although in still conditions this can be far greater.

19007. John S at 23:51 PM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       waht does ocean temperature mean exactly?  ... e.g. the whole ocean, the surface waters of the ocean or the air 1 metre or so above the ocean

19008. carn at 22:59 PM on 11 July 2017
       It's too hard
       

       Wow, fast responses.

       @59 Tom Curtis:

       "One problem with such an approach is that it cannot generate very rapid change."

       I agree.

       "The longer we take no, or little, effective action, the more rapidly we will have to respond later - and the more rapidly we respond, the higher the economic cost of the response. If we delay long enough, then only direct regulation, and/or direct government capital investment will be rapid enough a response. Delay too much longer after that, and the cost of action will be more than the potentially catastrophic costs of AGW."

       That might be the case; but there are some who seem to think we are already past the point of anything but direct action; and others who seem to think that such direct action would in any case outweigh the negative consequences of what the former try to prevent by direct action.

       But all this seems to be in my eyes "guesswork"; so it seems we have no way to determine e.g. "till 2025 non-direct mild action is sufficient and its negative consequences would be likely acceptable", "till 2035 non-direct but not so mild action would be sufficient", "till 2040 direct action still less severe than doing nothin would help", "beyond 2040 only drastic direct action would help, but likely would do more damage than what it prevents"; anybody filling such numbers would probably be guessing.

       Or is there any reliable study in that direction?

       "You may have noted how the president M. Macron has indicated that France should be able to achieve something close to zero nett CO2 emission by 2050 (but you will also have noted that France already has the advantage of much nuclear power). Still, other advanced countries should be able to achieve the same goal — if led by long-sighted statesman-like politicians (rather than the present batch of short-sighted politicians)."

       The later being close to my point; we have the politicans we have; they must politically do the job. Does Macron base his goal on a realy factual well thought basis and with already the concept of a plan in mind? And can we therefore expect, that when he and his successors carry out such plans do it with minimized otherwise damage?

       Or is Macron just an empty babbler, who just thinks it scores some points to say such things with no actual plan or concept and ending up that somewhere in 2030-35 some hasty stupid things will be done, so enviros can be pleased for the next election?

       Pretty hard to tell from the distance.

       And my question is:

       "Whether and how this risk [of incompetent politicians pursuing ecological goals doing more harm than good] compares to the risk of doing nothing [so to the effect of a 5-6°C warming, which doing nothing might lead to] or only what hurts little about CO2 emissions [so to the effect of a 2-4°C warming, which doing what doesn't hurt might lead to]"

       "Carn @59 , I must also ask you to clarify how fitting a billion solar roof-panels will cause "a body pile numbering millions"."

       I'll first do it with this one:

       "Biofuels:"

       Incentives by governments to use biofuels -> higher prices for respective "biofuel" plants -> more area devoted to "biofuel" plants -> higher food prices -> as governments happen to be non-competent they do not do enough about this issue -> some poor people starve due to governments pursuing biofuels.

       "solar"

       Incentives by goverment to use solar power & government incompetence leads to insufficient funding of grid structure, backup powerplants, storage -> in a period of long but not unexpected low solar output, grid brakes down for several days -> civil unrest -> dead bodies

       Doing this for the 13 other points i think is irrelevant, because sometimes governments mess up things so glaringly simple (e.g. building an airport; thats child play compared to decarbonizing economies), that governments if it happen to be at its worst certainly can mess up any of these points

19009. Eclectic at 20:57 PM on 11 July 2017
       It's too hard
       

       Thank you, Tom Curtis.  The situation is straightforward.

       Carn @59 , you really need to clarify the line of argument you are wishing to make [or perhaps I am wrong in assuming you were trying to make any such thing].

       Surely it is difficult to find any historical lesson that can be applied generally to the rest of the world, from the unique event of the "Great Leap Forward" (and the unique situation of then-Communist China, around 60 years ago).   And even more difficult to find relevant parallels between the "GLF" and the modern world with respect to the need to de-carbonise the national economies of the world.

       You may have noted how the president M. Macron has indicated that France should be able to achieve something close to zero nett CO2 emission by 2050 (but you will also have noted that France already has the advantage of much nuclear power).   Still, other advanced countries should be able to achieve the same goal — if led by long-sighted statesman-like politicians (rather than the present batch of short-sighted politicians).

       Venezuela is currently a sociological basket case.  IMO, no useful lessons are to be learnt there, about solar power / wind power / etcetera.

       Carn @59 , I must also ask you to clarify how fitting a billion solar roof-panels will cause "a body pile numbering millions".

       Clarity, Carn.  Clarity, please!

19010. Tom Curtis at 20:19 PM on 11 July 2017
       It's too hard
       

       carn @59, the preferred option for many policy advisors is to simply place a price on well mixed GHG emissions based on their CO2-eq contribution to warming.  Different policy advisors have different preferences as to how to do that, with perhaps the most popular current option being the fee and dividend model were a carbon tax is imposed on emissions, and reimbursed to citizens on an equal per capita basis.  The advantage of such mechanisms is that the majority of decisions are made by private actors, with the consequent market efficiency that often entails.

       One problem with such an approach is that it cannot generate very rapid change.  The longer we take no, or little, effective action, the more rapidly we will have to respond later - and the more rapidly we respond, the higher the economic cost of the response.  If we delay long enough, then only direct regulation, and/or direct government capital investment will be rapid enough a response.  Delay too much longer after that, and the cost of action will be more than the potentially catastrophic costs of AGW.  That point is the AGW "skeptics" end game.

       So, in response to your question, currently minimal government action of a type already proven to not "stack up the bodies" by responses to other issues is sufficient to effectively solve the problem.  But not taking that minimal action will cost us.  Indeed, not taking it in 1990 when the isue was sufficiently resolved that it should have been taken, has already cost us.

19011. carn at 19:16 PM on 11 July 2017
       It's too hard
       

       Sorry if there is already another article for this question, but this is the most fitting a found:

       "The bottom line is that while achieving the necessary GHG emissions reductions and stabilization wedges will be difficult, it is possible. And there are many solutions and combinations of wedges to choose from."

       I understand this to mean that the only thing proven or at least made plausible is that technically sufficient reductions would be possible.

       But that the exact choice and the concrete implementation would require political activity; e.g. choosing the most preferred "wedges" and implementing policies; e.g. deciding to pursue the nuclear wedge and implementing the necessary policy choices (which could be many from selecting the optimal safety requirements - too high and costs are too high and building speed is too low, too low and risk of serious accident is too high - to sufficiently training, equipping and politically supporting riot police, so that anti-nuclear protests are subdued quickly enough).

       Is it somewhere/somehow studied if politics is actually capable of doing that?

       Is it somewhere/somehow shown that the risks of having politically such far reaching issues decided and implementet by politicians, courts and agencies of "average" competence are lower than the risks from doing nothing or only very limited action about CO2 emissions?

       Please understand as background for that question, that in my view it is undeniable that when government does large restructering of economy there is a certain risk - could be well in 1- 10% region - that government just messes things up and little of what is intended is achieved, while some or even many dead bodies pile up.

        

       Most extreme examples would be the great leap forward with a body pile of maybe 30 millions and the holdomor of maybe 7 to 10 millions. A less severe example would be today Venezuela, where "fortunately" the body pile currently numbers maybe only in the hundreds or thousands.

       Based on this, i think one should at least consider the issue, that a severe but messed up CO2 reduction effort being enacted upon 2+ billion people (depending upon which nations one considers to have too high per capita emissions) could also end up with a body pile numbering millions or tens of millions.

       Whether and how this risk compares to the risk of doing nothing or only what hurts little about CO2 emissions, is my question and what hard scientific evidence exist in this direction (by which i mean something different than economist X produced one study supposedly showing that the economic benefit would outweigh the disadvantages in year 2070; because economics is simply not a science suitable for reliable predictions on such time scales)

       Thanks for answers

19012. MA Rodger at 17:05 PM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       The comment NorrisM @49 has turned full circle to address what NorrisM described in an earlier interchange as "what also troubles me in everything that I have read so far on climate change." That interchange ended with NorrisM withdrawing to read up on SkS comment threads and for some reason "the Nigel Lawson GWPF site."  It would be good to nail this discussion rather than have yet another run round the houses.

19013. Tom Curtis at 16:47 PM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       I made an inadvertent error when I wrote @5, "...the changes from 2000 to 2016 was to reduce the trend from 1950 to 2000".  In fact the reverse is the case, with the trend increasing from 0.11 C/decade to 0.15 C/decade.  The reasons for the change, however, remain fully justified as detailed above.  Sorry for the error.

19014. chriskoz at 16:08 PM on 11 July 2017
       Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter
       

       Not only that, but the improved analysis shows that the atmospheric (lower troposphere) temperatures are warming faster than the Earth’s surface.

       Shouldn't it be as actually expected, given tropospheric tropical hotspot predicted by models at ~10km, which is right about TLT/TMT channels (Microwave Sounding Unit channel 2, and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit channel 5) Carl Mears is talking about in the study herein?

       Maybe it's time to update this article based on the study herein?

19015. scaddenp at 14:51 PM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       Just wondering if your pseudo-skeptic also believes:

       1/ glaciers cant be melting because somewhere there is one advancing

       2/ Sealevel rise is caused by coastal subsidence

       3/ NASA, JAXA, ESA are conspiring to doctor photos of the poles to make it look like ice is melting.

       After all, if GW is just due to adjustments to the temperature record then it follows that ice cant be melting and the sea isnt rising.

19016. Tom Curtis at 14:21 PM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       rugbyguy59 @4, if your pseudo-skeptic informant could navigate to those pages (linked from here), he could also navigate to the history page on the same site, where an explanation of the differences is given.  Between 2000 and 2016 the major changes are:

       • The change from the GHCNv2 (with data from 7200 stations) to GHCNv4 (with data from 26,000 stations).
       • The change from Hadley Centre’s HadISST1 (1880-1981) and OISST data Sea Surface Temperature data to ERSST v4 Sea Surface Temperature data, the later embodying a far better knowledge of, and therefore adjustments for differences between methods of measuring temperatures from ships.

       In addition, NASA GISS switched to using satellite night light data to identify areas of increased urbanization for the urban heat island adjustment, and areas above sea ice had temperatures determined by air temperature rather than by underlying water temperatures (which in winter can be 10s of degrees warmer).

       The effect of the changes from 2000 to 2016 was to reduce the trend from 1950 to 2000, ie, the end of the period of overlap, as can be seen in this graph:

       

       As can also be seen, the effect of the changes over the years have been minor, except for that between 1987 and more recent versions.  Of course, the 1987 version relied on just 2,200 stations (8.5% of the current number), and had no Sea Surface Temperature data.

19017. chriskoz at 13:51 PM on 11 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       CBDunkerson@3, ubrew12@5,

       With my imagination, I think the cost (~energy input required) of reducing oxydated compounds to their elements - Si or Al or C in CO2! - depends on the amount of oxidation that you have to reduce.

       The first example you give: cost of re-reducing recycled (=slightly contaminated) Al cans, involves just removing paint contaminant. Compared to bauxite processing, which involves large amounts of electricity for electrolysis to separate Al from Al2O3, the energy input is almost nothing and the benefit recycling an abvious no-brainer.

       The second example: Si re-reducing from used solar panels - I'm not sure how much oxydation is there and if the process would be much different to melting down sand. I welcome material engineers to shed some light here.

       The third example - scraping carbon out of the CO2 in atmosphere - is a pure fantasy: so much oxidation, needless to say CO2 dillution down to 0.04%, is to overcome. On top of that we're talking about convincing science deniers to use precious energy for nothing but influence some "invisible trace gas", while they want all available energy for themselves and don't care about said gas. Very hard, next to impossible, unless future technology miraculously delivers unlimitted free clean energy (nuke fusion proponents tried to market it as such but failed).

19018. rugbyguy59 at 13:45 PM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       In a discussion with a pseudo-skeptic there was only one point that he made that I couldn't understand. It related to temperature adjustments and so I will ask about it here. He produced two global temp records from NASA that were quite different:

       This one he says is from 2001
       FigA.txt 2001 from GISS
       
       And this one is from 2016
       FigA.txt 2016 from GISS

       I've not been able to find anything that would explain why there is such a difference. I'm assuming both data sets are from NASA. I also know there are more than enough reasons to know adjustments are doing the right thing but is there anyone here who has run across this one and knows what the reasons are?

       Moderator Response:

       [BW] Replaced link text to make it shorter

19019. Eclectic at 13:38 PM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       Thank you for that explanation, Bob Loblaw @51, though I am not sure that is at the heart of NorrisM's line of inquiry.   I suspect he wants black-and-white certainty — without regard to questions of probabilties & the consequent need for prudent risk-management of planet Earth.

       Nigelj @52, some of those graphs have not been updated with the latest real-world temperatures (which show a better match to the old "predictions").

       NorrisM @49 , you are making a mountain out of the molehill that was the Koonin-chaired panel of scientists back in early 2014.

       Metaphorically speaking : in a scientific ocean rivalling the Pacific in size, the Koonin/APS review was a momentary ripple in a lagoon.    And a ripple that was stillborn. [ er, sorry about the mangled metaphor ;-)  ]

       NorrisM, you have made the mistake of equating the Koonin/APS review with something like a major case before the Supreme Court.  But the situation was quite different.  Doubtless the scientist-participants would have done a bit of "brushing up" before the panel met — but there would have been nothing like the lawyers' preliminaries where weeks of careful polishing of comprehensive presentations (prepared by teams of high-powered lawyers/barristers) before battle commenced.

       Furthermore, the matters discussed were only a tiny section of climate science.  And from my reading of the transcript, nothing much came forward that was substantive or in any way conclusive.  Really, the result was stillborn.   So I don't see how you can justify cherry-picking such a "non-event" and drawing any lessons from it.

       (B)  You do well, to put a "tick mark" of suspicion against some of the denialists (such as Lindzen).   Not only does their case not hold water, but you can see how their underlying thinking is severely tainted/motivated by non-logical emotional bias.   Lindzen, for instance, holds that our planet was created by Jehovah [i.e. the pre-Christian deity] as a self-correcting mechanism, and so it cannot deviate from the ideal narrow condition suited to humanity.   Or so Lindzen seems to believe.   Such is the power of emotion-driven illogical thinking, that it results in Lindzen being quite unfazed that (repeatedly!!) the physical evidence keeps showing him to be severely wrong.

       Self-deception and delusion are the essence of climate denialism.

19020. nigelj at 12:19 PM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       NorrisM @49

       You might find this helpful. I'm exploring it myself, to try to make sense of it all.

       This link is a graph of models versus reality up to 2015. The first two graphs are the most relevant and clearest

       www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/

       You can see temperatures are generally following models reasonably well, but as I said before slightly under, but not by much. Last years temperatures, 2016, means they are even less under.

       Please note, like the comment above says models cannot ever exactly predict year to year temperatures, wiggles, or decadal temperatures. They predict longer term trends approximately, over 20 years,  and the general track, and predict end point temperatures which is what concerns us most.

       The pause originally appeared large, and outside of what models predicted as expected natural variation (wiggles). You can see in the graphs in the link above it isnt actually so large. Recent temperatures and better data on the pause has changed things.

       The warming from 1900 - 1940 has been attributed in almost all reseach to a combination of CO2 and increased solar activity. It should be pointed out solar activity sunspot cycles only has a limited impact over short periods 1 degree maximum for short periods.

       The flat period from 1940 - 1970 (approx) has been attributed to high particulate emissions from the post war industrial boom.

       The warming from 1970 - currently has been almost 100% attribted to CO2.

19021. Bob Loblaw at 11:20 AM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       NorrisM:

       In your fourth paragraph, you pose two questions that indicate you still are not recognizing what global climate models can and cannot do. Let me try to provide some sort of explanation.

       The first question is If the models are capable of predicting the future then they should have had an answer for the supposed "hiatus"

       But the models are not capable of predicting short term variability, such as El Nino events. They do have El Nino events, but the timing is more or less random and does not match the exact sequence of a particular set of years. Different model runs with slightly different starting conditions will place El Nino events at different times.

       Thus, you can't use the timing of El Ninos and related temperatures to test model skill. If El Ninos are simulated with a similar frequency and magnitude as the real world, then the model has skill even though the timing isn't exact.

       Let us take a non-climate model of a familar concept as an analogy: tossing a coin. With a fair coin, there is a 50:50 chance of heads or tails with each toss, and I will model a sequence of ten tosses using a spreadsheet with a random number generator. I will repeat the model simulation 9 times. Here are the sequences, with the counts of heads and tails:

       1.    HHTTTTHHTT    4    6
       2.    TTHHTHTTTT    3    7
       3.    TTHHHHHTHH    7    3
       4.    HHHHHHTTTT    6    4
       5.    THHTTTTHTT    3    7
       6.    THHTTTHHTT    4    6
       7.    TTTTHTTHTH    3    7
       8.    HHHTTHTHTT    5    5
       9.    HTHTHTTTTH    4    6
       10.    TTHHTTTHTH    4    6

       Now, you may notice that there are 10 sequences, not nine. I also did one real coin toss sequence, and generated one more random number to decide where to place it in the order. One of the above ten sequences is real; the other nine are modelled.

       Note that none of the sequences are the same - therefore none of the model sequences exactly matches the real sequence. You cannot conclude from this that the model is wrong, however. It may be, but you can't tell that from this data.

       Can you identify the real sequence? If not, then the nine modelled sequences are realistic enough to pass this sniff test. And with the global temperature record, we can have many model runs but only one real sequence, just as I have done with the coin tosses.

        

       On to question 2: "If the physics explain this 25 year increase in temperatures (1975-1998), how do you explain the temperature increases and decreases that I had referenced earlier, especially the .3C rise from 1900 - 1940 or so."

       The earlier period is more difficult to deal with because we do not have sufficient data to force the models - measurements of essential variables such as radiation, atmospheric dust, etc. were fewer and less accurate.

       Again, I will use simple analogy with a simple model.

       • My model says that A + B = C.
       • Today, I know that A = 3.03 and B = 7.64, and that C = 10.71, with all values uncertain to +/-0.05.
       • My model predicts that C = 10.67 today, with an uncertainty of +/-0.07 (because of the uncertainty in A and B). My model is 0.04 off the known value of C, but within the error bars of both my estimate and the measurement.
       • In the past, A was 4.1 and B was 3.7, both with uncertainties of +/-0.5. The model says C would be 7.8+/-0.7.
       • The known value of C was 8.5+/-0.05. The model error of 0.7 is not necessarily due to a poor measurement of C or a poor model, however - it could be due to the lack of knowledge of the input values A and B. The error is larger, but the uncertainty bounds are also larger.
       • I could play with the values of A and B to get better agreement, but there is little point. Without a time machine to go back and get better measurements, I would not know if the better agreement is because I got a better value with a good model, or whether I just managed to get the errors in A and B to offset the errors in the model.

       Does this clarify what can and cannot be done with a (climate) model?

19022. scaddenp at 10:50 AM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       NorrisM - " If the models are capable of predicting the future then they should have had an answer for the supposed "hiatus" "

       You are still not grasping the point I already stated that the models have limitations on what they predict and in particular have a/ no skill at decadal prediction and b/ dont pretend too. Model evaluation is subject of chp9 of the IPCC report. If you want to know the answers to your questions, then try reading it. Insisting model predict what they catagorically state they cannot is denier rhetorical ploy.

       Mid-century cooling is discussed on this site here.

19023. NorrisM at 09:16 AM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       Thanks for the comments on my last post.  My apologies to Tom Curtis for attributing the comment re Koonin to him.  Eclectic your comment was not vicious in any sense but I do think we should stick to what people say and not who they are (although I have to admit if anyone has some "strong fundamentalist religious leanings" I cannot help but put a tick mark against anything else they say even though it may be completely rational). 

       This morning at home when I opened this website, the reply of Andy Laicy (sp) to Koonin opened in front of me magically.  It was a detailed answer to the short questions I had posed relating to the "hard physics" which had been answered in short fashion by Tom Curtis (I had only asked for yes no answers at the time).  Laicy's reply is pretty understandable even for a layman.  So this explains the solid science based upon physics.

       So there is a rational explanation that makes sense to most scientists whether they be climate scientists or other scientists.

       So the question comes down to whether, using this science incorporated into a GCM, you can then actually predict the future.  As a layman, the two things that puzzled me after being initially convinced by the Dessler book was:  1.  If the models are capable of predicting the future then they should have had an answer for the supposed "hiatus" and 2.  If the physics explain this 25 year increase in temperatures (1975-1998), how do you explain the temperature increases and decreases that I had referenced earlier, especially the .3C rise from 1900 - 1940 or so.

       But for now, I would like to concentrate on what I believe is the "discrepancy" that Christy has proposed based upon his diagram.  What surprises was the passive reaction of Santer and Held when questioned by Koonin about Christy's diagram.  They made references to some studies that had examined this discrepancy in the past but did not comment on their conclusions nor did they strongly object to what Christy was alleging.   Surely, if the difference was only marginal that they would have said so at that time.  It was absolutely basic to their case.

       I guess this "basic to their case" is another question.  What has really troubled me is if you cannot reconcile major differences with the models and observations (if that is the case) then how can you still believe that we are still in the 3C range rather than 1-1.5C by 2100?  Is this where Hawking and other non-climate scientists are?  To them, is it irrelevant that the models are not sophisticated enough to predict the future?  Or does it all come down to position that the models are predicting things? 

       In other words, does the case for anthropogenic warming of 3C stand or fall on the models?  If not, then why?

       But, I have to say, even if we are so sure that this period of warming was caused by humans, then surely there still has to be a full answer for why the temperature went up from 1900 to 1940.  For me, notwithstanding Michael Mann's hockey stick, I would also like to have some explanation for the MWP (even his most recent graph seems to acknowledge this warming).  But it would go a long way to at least have a rational explanation for the warming in the first 40 years of the 20th century.

       I suspect that the answer to the model discrepancy is that it is a small discrepancy.  But if this is the case, then why did Santer and Held not say so when they had the golden opportunity, knowing that the transcript of the APS hearing would effectively be read by the world.

       To SkepticalScience Editor:  I saw one attempt to "reconstruct" the Christy diagram but it was very confusing continually flashing from one thing to another.  Could you not do a "simple" reconstruction showing where the "red line" should be and where the "blue dots" should be.  Leave out the "ranges" just as Christy did or perhaps have three lines, High, Medium and Low Case.  It would be very helpful.

19024. Riduna at 07:53 AM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       The above cmments say it all, as does:

       http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2017/07/NOAA-NASA-Hadley-CRU-Global-Average-Surface-Temperature-Data-EPA-CO2-Endangerment-Finding-best-project.html?m=1

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link. Please create them with link tool in the comments editor rather than wasting moderators time.

19025. nigelj at 07:21 AM on 11 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       Ubrew @10, I agree I think the Clinton email issue was a little "overblown". Obviously she did wrong, but there's no evidence harm was done (although as TC points out the potential was there) and no evidence of malicious intent.

       However just to clarify my point, in my view the email thing made her virtually unelectable. It created huge and understandable suspicions in the publics perception (rightly or wrongly) right through the campaign and finally exploded again the the final week. It probably lost her the election more than anything else. Trump used the issue to the maximum.

       We should not conclude that she lost due predominantly to her policies, so called elitism, lies (and there were a couple) or alleged hypocisy. These are probaly negative factors and some contributed, but not the main reason she lost which was the email issue. In fact I think her policies were largely sensible for what its worth.

       I agree with the rest of what you say about Fox news, Trump, appearances, personalities, trying to personally discredit people. I'm no fan of any of this.

       Unfortunately though many people make their political decisions based on little more than personality and gut instinct rather than policy, but the very last thing we need is to encourage yet more of this. Shame on Fox News.

       The Russia thing is all just speculation. Innocent until proven guilty. But there an awful lot of smoke, etc, etc. However it's not really relevant to my comments.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Russia/Email scandals are a long way from climate science. Enough please.

19026. nigelj at 06:46 AM on 11 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       Norris M @43, this is just my two cents on climate models. This is the simplified explanation. 

       First just google the nasa giss global temperature record (the long term one since around 1900) or hadcrut if you prefer. Notice it generally tracks up but with many wiggles along the way. The fact is climate modelling can predict the track, but not the wiggles, because they are erratic natural variation.

       Climate models  have predicted the track reasonably well over the last 25 years, but temperatures are still slightly under. It's believed oceans are absorbing more heat than expected, delaying warmring slightly, but this is only a delay.

       Notice in the same graph that the pause since 1998 is very small. Notice there are many small pauses along the way. The claim by people like Koonan etc that the pause was not predicted is somewhat out of date, based on old data. It was not as big as first thought, so is within expectations. It is more of a wiggle, obvious in the graph.

19027. One Planet Only Forever at 06:28 AM on 11 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       SingletonEngineer@4,

       I share your concern that the current economic games driven by popularity and profitability without restrictions that ensure that only truly sustainable activity is allowed to compete to win will fail to care to recycle lithium-ion batteries.

       There are many information sources but the following pair seem to be fairly comprehensive:

       • "The future of automotive lithium-ion battery recycling: Charting a sustainable course"
       • "The Lithium Battery Recycling Challenge"

       Lithium can be recovered from the slag for reuse. It is just that because full recycling of non-renewable resources is not required the cost of extracting the lithium for reuse is about 5 times the cost of new lithium.

       The problem is not the technology. The problem is it the lack of leadership (by all of the wealthy and powerful leaders/winners of the games) to ensure that only truly sustainable activity gets to compete for popularity and profitability.

19028. nigelj at 06:26 AM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       It's certainly false to claim everything or most things are adjusted up. The following link is a good explanation of why temperature adjustments (corrections)  are made. I tracked this down to figure out whats going on.

       theconversation.com/why-scientists-adjust-temperature-records-and-how-you-can-too-36825

       It's the raw data thats "unreliable" to some extent (although not hugely). Urban heat islands bias things up, stations are moved, often biasing things down, thermometers sometimes break, or are old and less reliable, etc. These are corrected, and are easy enough to quantify. It  would be crazy not to correct for these issues.

       The following link shows raw and adjusted data for global land, ocean and land ocean combined temperatures.

       variable-variability.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/homogenization-adjustments-reduce-global-warming.html 

       Land temperatures are adjusted up slightly, but ocean temperatures are adjusted down, and combined land ocean temperatures are adjusted down! This is the most important and complete data set.  This  seems lost on the denialists. 

19029. wili at 05:33 AM on 11 July 2017
       Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
       

       Noam Chomsky - "The Most Dangerous Organization in Human History"

       www.youtube.com/watch?v=O34JM4Xdf3g

19030. ubrew12 at 01:47 AM on 11 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       I'm no expert, but you can melt down sand, reduce it (take out the oxygen) and crystallize it into Silicon solar cells.  Eventually, those fail as their contacts short out and from re-oxidation.  It doesn't seem a stretch to imagine re-reducing the cell, separating out the contacts from the Silicon, and recrystallizing the Silicon, but again, I'm no expert.  It's like recycling Aluminum cans.  You can make the cans from bauxite, but its easier to remelt the cans themselves and recast them.

       These things aren't nonrenewable the way burning gasoline is nonrenewable.

19031. ubrew12 at 01:40 AM on 11 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       I don't want to argue Clinton's culpability here at skeptical science.  I would note that if you are sent a classified email from an unclassified system (as the FBI found of all such Clinton emails), it doesn't seem proper that you alone should be prosecuted for it.

       My broader point was that there seems to have been, or still is, an effort among rightwing media to train their viewers to 'spot the hypocrit'.  If people are being trained into thinking of motive first, and evidence second, then it's that much easier to turn them to cynicism, which I agree with Runciman is epidemic in the US today.  As a society we are obsessed with motive to the exclusion of evidence.  Media has gone from print to television.  But on TV its much easier to encourage the viewer to use 'visual shortcuts', shortcuts that may have been useful when we were all swinging in the trees, but today are used to herd us into tribes.  In effect, the signal is being lost to the noise.

       One thing I didn't see on this weeks selection of reading material was this article in New York Magazine by David Wallace-Wells: "The Uninhabitable Earth... What climate change could wreak- sooner than you think".  It's possibly a bit alarmist, but he paints a very sobering picture of what the future holds if we don't get a handle on this problem soon.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] The David Wallace-Wells article that you have flagged was posted on July 9 (US). The most recent Weekly News Roundup was posted on July 8 (US). A link to the Wallace-Well article will be posted on the SkS Facebook page later today. The article will therefore be included in the next edition of the Weekly News Roundup.

       Based on Michael Mann's reaction to the Wallace-Wells article, I have elected not to post a link to it on the SkS Facebook page. See:

       Fear Won't Save Us: Putting a Check on Climate Doom by Michael Mann, Common Dreams, July 10, 2017

       Also see:

       Are We as Doomed as That New York Magazine Article Says? by Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, July 10, 2017

       Stop scaring people about climate change. It doesn’t work. by Eric Holthaus, Grist, July 10, 2017

19032. Tom Curtis at 00:46 AM on 11 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       ubrew12 @10, from former Director Comey's statement on the Clinton Emails:

       "From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent."

       "With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”

       "With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account."

       From the combination of these three quotes, it is clear that Clinton made confidential (and indeed, top secret) information vulnerable, and it is not known that that vulnerability was not exploited by hostile powers.  Nor is it known that it was.

       Further, the evidence that Trump or his campaign knowingly colluded with Russia in its attempts subvert the US Presidential election are, to date, circumstantial.  It is consistent with that evidence that no knowing collusion took place.  Therefore, so far as the evidence currently goes, Clinton was guilty of a worse offense than Trump has been shown to have committed.  Of course, the investigation into Trump and his associates is not yet finished, and it is entirely possible that he or his campaign will be shown to have knowingly colluded, which would be a much worse offence than Clinton's.

       In the meantime we should neither understate the case against Clinton, nor overstate the case against Trump.

19033. SingletonEngineer at 23:54 PM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       I'm surprised to read some of the comments about lithium recycling.

       "ubrew" mentions melting down old batteries, presumably to reclaim lithium.  I have only been able to find references to furnacves for reclamation of cobalt, coupled with mention of waste slag that contains a mixture of elements, not all of them pleasant.  So far I have only been able to locate one such commercial operation, in Belgium.  I have seen mention of another, unnamed, operation in the States. 

       CBDunkerson refers to a "robust lithium battery recycling industry" which I would like to know more about.  It seems that even the EU has no firm plans along these lines.

       Of course there are a number of bench prototypes and proposals floating around, but there are also many types of lithium battery, each with differing design, many of which are particularly fiddly and each needing a degree of disassembly before recycling (or partial recyclong).  I have read that recycling of lithium from batteries is a very difficult proposition and is thus at least a decade away at practical scale.

       That leaves three questions:

       1.  Where is there evidence of a robust lithium recycling industry?

       2.  Is recycling of lithium currently energy-competitive with sourcing lithium from minerals?  Restraints?  Pre-conditions?

       3.  Is recycling lithium from batteries currently economic?  If so, where and under what circumstances?

       These are not trivial considerations.  Any person who proposes a reliance on lithium based batteries must be prepared to ensure that the necessary lithium and other raw materials are or will be realistically available and affordable.  Proposals are for future billions of motor vehicles plus super-batteries providing stability to networks.  Our current mobile phones and power tools are meerly scratching the surface.

       IMHO, lithium batteries and solar PV panels are destined to become landfill, unwelcome in recyclers' waste streams, for some time to come.

19034. CBDunkerson at 22:30 PM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       There is actually a fairly robust lithium battery recycling industry despite the low cost of new supplies. Thus, if stocks ever ran low that would drive up prices and lead to more recycling. The same is true for many key materials that people worry about 'running out' of.

       In theory we could even pull carbon out of the atmosphere to create new hydrocarbon fuels... there just isn't any currently cost effective way to do so.

19035. Eclectic at 22:24 PM on 10 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       NorrisM @43 , if I may add several points to the posts from TC, MAR and DB :-

       (A)  The claim (by Koonin?) of climate model projections having been much "hotter" than the observed rise in global surface temperature — is nowadays a claim which is severely out of date, since the development of record high temperatures in years 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / and YTD 2017.

       In other words, the claim (of model "failure") is wrong.  And consequently it is invalid to say mainstream climate science must be wrong because of "model deficiencies".

       (B)  Certainly Koonin "is no dummy".   Yet there are many smarter people than Koonin : but AFAIK hardly any of them are climate change deniers (in the way that Koonin is a denier i.e. a denier in the sense of someone who minimizes AGW and claims it is of negligible size & importance).   Of course, here I refer to intelligent people who understand the science.

       In no way do I wish to suggest that there cannot be brilliant 200+ IQ artistic minds / mathematical minds / business minds / or legal minds [ especially ;-)  ]  who are nevertheless deniers of climate change ..... but it is simply that those types of brilliant minds fail to understand the issue and therefore their opinions (and intelligence) are inadmissible in the case.

       (C)  # As a matter of interesting comparison : work by Professor Lindzen (in the late 1980's) projected only a very slight temperature rise for the past 3 decades.  Currently, his modelling has run approximately 1.05 degreesC below reality.  That full degreeC is hugely, hugely, hugely off target.  Several other denialist-type scientists have made projections that also turned out to fall embarrassingly short of reality (though not as severely poorly as Lindzen's).

       Overall, it is quite laughable how badly wrong the denialists get things!!!

       (D)  Unlike with Lindzen and Curry, there is AFAIK no apparent evidence that Koonin is in the pocket of Fossil Fuel Industry.  Nor does he seem to be a political extremist, nor AFAIK a religious extremist.  And he is too young to be likely suffering from subtle forms of mental senility.

       So, what is the explanation for Koonin as an intelligent guy with a (non-climate) science background, holding opinions which are roughly equivalent to "Flat Earth" ??

       To comprehend this puzzle, we must work upwards from our knowledge of human nature.  "Motivated Reasoning" (particularly so, in the intelligent) is an extremely powerful force, owing to the way that our human emotions usually overrule the human intellect (unless we take stern measures to remain coolly objective i.e. scientific, through developing insight into our own motivations).

       Somehow, somewhere in his mind, Koonin has allowed himself to bend & twist & contort himself into overlooking/ignoring the obvious (the obviously "Round Earth", so to speak!! ).   His "motivated reasoning" is pushing him into a failure to understand the general scientific picture involved in the Greenhouse process & its consequences — he chooses to lose himself in a maze of minutiae, and chooses to fail to comprehend the basic process : a process which is so basic that it is easily comprehensible by even a moderately intelligent high school science student.

       But such is the perversity of the human mind — and all too often!

19036. Daniel Bailey at 20:43 PM on 10 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       "I think both sides of this debate"

       In the discussions around global warming and its anthropogenic causation, there are those who focus on the science using the scientific method and logic, seeking reproducible evidence that best explains what we can empirically measure.

       Then there is everyone in the extreme minority, those who ignore the above in favor of slander, innuendo, unsupported assertion and character assassination in favor of promulgating false equivalence to support the ephemeral facade of "debate" and "sides".

       But it is not about the science, the bulk of the science was settled, decades ago. Deniers posing as skeptics set up a charade tableau of false equivalence to poison the well of public acceptance of that science.

       A parsimonious harping at the font of stolen, out-of-context and context-less emails proven not germane to the science is continuing on in the prosecution of the agenda of denial.

       Truth, science and reputable journalism all sacrificed to the unholy alter of false equivalence under the guise of promulgating a fallacious "debate".

       There is no debate. All that remains is the informed and the uninformed.

19037. ubrew12 at 20:36 PM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       I also thought the 'Clinton hyprocrisy' argument was the weakest of Runciman's otherwise excellent essay.  After all the heat and noise over Clinton's email server, how much classified material made it into the hands of our enemies? None. And arguably this was because of her use of a private server. This might not be notable except, at the same time, the Trump campaign was in conversation with those same enemies in common cause to win the election, with no media interest until after Nov.

       "it's...of little use to impugn... motives"  Turning skeptics into cynics is how money can influence elections and public decisions, like inaction on climate change.  For years, Fox News directed its viewers to look at how people talk, when they talk, and not what they are actually saying.  You'll never see a Trump or a Hannity slouching, looking askance, and fiddling his fingers.  He'll always sit ram-rod straight, look you right in the eye, and in full military-bearing... lie to you.  By training their viewers to focus on how people look when they're talking, rather than judge what is coming out of their mouths, Fox News is training people to be cynics.  And the way to combat this, I think, is to draw people back into the conversation: What is actually being said, and how reasonable does it appear to be?  Almost everything that comes out of Trump's mouth is 'word garbage', but you can't deny the straightforwardness with which he said it.

19038. ubrew12 at 19:58 PM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       I'm pretty sure the Lithium in batteries is not 'used up' from the charge/discharge cycle.  Old batteries, filled with micro-shorts and other forms of oxidation stress, can be melted down and reduced again into new batteries.  Likewise old Silicon in solar cells.

19039. MA Rodger at 19:22 PM on 10 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       NorrisM @43.

       You set out your position saying "If the only way to criticize the legitimate questions that Koonin has raised is to attack Koonin without addressing his reasons, then I will be very disappointed with the replies to this comment."

       The reply @44 can be forgiven for criticising Koonin without perhaps "addressing his reasons" for his "legitimate questions" as it is surely beholden on you to set out clearly what you think Koonin's "legitimate questions" actually are.

       Regarding the branding of Koonin as a "science-denier" @9, this does appear to be justified. The Koonin NYJ article linked @44 is paywalled but an account of it elsewhere sets out quotes from the article which show the man is well away with the fairies. I would say the third excerpt is the real clincher.

19040. Tom Curtis at 14:49 PM on 10 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       NorrisM @43 states:

       "Tom Curtis on a reply to my reference to Koonin, questioned Koonin's independence. At that time, I had no idea who Koonin was other than that he was a physicist who had been appointed by the APS to head the Climate Policy Panel."

       The claim is incorrect.  I have not specifically discussed Koonin in this thread, and certainly not in reply to NorrisM.  My only specific reply to him in this thread prior to this one(@8) pointed out that a causal claim he made @6 was invalid.  Granted that Eclectic applied some of my more general comments about motivated reasoning to Koonin @10, but even that does not call into question Koonin's independence.

       Given, however, that NorrisM has explicitly raised the issue of Koonin, I note that mere credentials do not grant wisdom.  There are even better qualified people than Koonin who fall into the climate "skeptic" camp, but the proportion of similarly qualified people who disagree with, or unconvinced of the hypothesis of AGW is very small relative to the proportion who accept the science.  Nor are that small proportion able to give cogent reasons for their disagreement.

       An example of this is Koonin's nonsense claim that "...human additions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the middle of the 21st century are expected to directly shift the atmosphere’s natural greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%."  Koonin defended this claim at Climate Etc, by comparing what he calls the greenhouse effect, ie, the downward IR flux at the surface of 342 W/m^2 to the 2.3 W/m^2 anthropogenic forcing since 1750 (both figures taken from IPCC AR5).

       The immediate problems with this claim are that the greenhouse effect is the difference between the upwelling IR radiation at the surface and the IR radiation to space (ie, 159 W/m^2 based in the AR5 figures); and that that total includes not just the forcing but the feedback responses from water vapour and the IR effect of clouds.  The proper comparison is therefore between either the forcing of 2.3 W/m^2 and the 40 W/m^2 of the Total Greenhouse Effect which is due to well mixed Green House Gases, or possibly between the forcing plus its equilibrium feedback response and the total greenhouse effect.  The former gives a 5.8% change to date, while the later gives at least a 2.9% response (based on the water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks at least doubling the effect of the forced response).

       In short, Koonin's article and his defence of it shows he lacks understanding of the physics of the greenhouse effect at a fundamental level.  His article is comparable to somebody trying to explain what is wrong with specal relativity without understanding what is meant by a "reference frame".  Given that he wrote and submitted his article after the APS symposium where he obtained the views of six climate scientists, that lack of understanding is very disturbing.  (For more on the article, see here.)

       No amount of qualifications can justify a scientist pontificating on a subject on which he makes such fundamental errors.  Indeed, that he does so shows that despite his qualifications, he has researched the topic at an entirely superficial level; or taken his information almost entirely from anti-science sites (such as WUWT, where that faulty argument gets a regular replay).

19041. nigelj at 12:57 PM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       The David Runciman article is very perceptive on the whole, with some caveats. I certainly agree the whole climate issue has become very politicised and the scepticism has become cynical denialism.

       I don't understand why people get so obsessed with motives of various people involved on either side of the debate. Regardless of motives, the laws of physics, equations etc are not altered by motive. I also think the evidence for a warming world is so overhelming and varied, that its literally insane to think its some sort of conspiracy.

       However it's possibly also of little use to impugn the motives of sceptics too much. It's never going to prove them wrong, although my private thoughts are very criticial.

       I wonder about the discussion on lies versus hypocrisy. The article argues that people preferred the liar trump over the hypocrite clinton. This is very debatable, as Trump himself is a huge hypocrite arguably more so than clinton.

       I think Clinton lost primarily due to the email scandal. I struggle to see how they ever thought she could win with that monkey on her back. She has several obvious flaws, but I dont think hypocrisy was a huge factor here. None of us perfectly walk the walk, and the public know this. Anyway all I'm saying is be careful how you interpret that election result.

19042. NorrisM at 12:01 PM on 10 July 2017
       Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible
       

       nigelj, Tom Curtis and Eclectic.

       If the Department of Energy does decide to form a Red Team Blue Team to examine climate change, then I think I can sit back and watch the fireworks rather than spend an inordinate amount of time reading all of the thread on this website dealing with the questions of the climate models trying to understand the debate.   The reason I say this is that I think the real battleground will be whether the climate models have (a) accurately hindcasted the past climate (without adjustments that are needed to match reality); and (b)  accurately predicted the future climate changes over the last 20 years. 

       Perhaps a part of the debate will be that irrespective of the discrepancies that exist the "hard science" not only proves the 1C increase but also the "positive vapour feedbacks" although I would have to think that would be an uphill argument.  Perhaps the answer will be that the differences in predictions and observations are minor.  As I noted elsewhere, if they all cannot agree on the facts because of the lack of proper instrumentation measuring things then that would at least argue for more funds dedictated to measurements which has to be a positive for both sides. 

       As I have noted on the other climate model thread, during the APS Panel chaired by Steve Koonin, both Santer and Held (at pages 503-505) acknowledged that the climate models have not been able to predict the changes.  So the real issue will be whether both sides can agree on a "revised" Christy chart. 

       Tom Curtis on a reply to my reference to Koonin, questioned Koonin's independence.  At that time, I had no idea who Koonin was other than that he was a physicist who had been appointed by the APS to head the Climate Policy Panel. 

       Since that time, I have done a Wikipedia search of Koonin and his credentials are stellar.  I have also read the Physics Today article on his WSJ OpEd in the fall of 2014 and read his recent statement suggesting a Red Team Blue Team approach.  Not too many people have their Doctorate in Physics from MIT.  Not too many people have risen to the position of Undersecretary of Energy for Science under the Obama administration.  Yes, he did work at one time for BP where he was responsible for long range technology including alternative and renewable energy sources.  But this guy is no dummy.

       So when as a sophisticated scientist as Koonin at the APS hearing expresses surprise at how far the models were off from observations, it makes me take note and  ask how many "non-climate scientists" really understand how far the models are off from what has been happening with temperatures.  It made me ask how much most non-climate scientists really know about the actual physics.  Are they largely relying on the climate scientists without any real investigation on their own part?  What are the fields of science necessary to construct adequate models?  Reading the comments of SemiChem on fluid dynamics made me ask whether this was an area properly represented.  What strikes me is that there are so many areas that it has to be difficult for one or two people to have a sufficient grasp on all the relevant areas.

       Back to the differences, I am NOT saying that there cannot be valid explanations for these differences in the models and observations but unless I am missing something, if you have models that are two times off what is actually happening, it does make you pause. 

       So, of course, the issue will then be just how far off are these models.  In fairness, all three IPCC climatologists (contributors) were not ready to concede that there was as much difference as Christy suggested but they certainly admitted there were clear discrepancies and they did NOT say (as they easily could have) that the discrepancies were minor.

       Koonin is now the Director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University.  He was a past professor of theoretical physics and provost of Caltech.  If the only way to criticize the legitimate questions that Koonin has raised is to attack Koonin without addressing his reasons, then I will be very disappointed with the replies to this comment. 

       As I noted before, I think both sides of this debate should welcome any efforts by members of the Trump administration to get to the bottom of this.  Let the chips fall where they may.  Given that Trump is here to stay for at least another 3.5 years, what is there to lose? 

       If Koonin was indeed appointed to head this Red Team Blue Team investigation, I think you would have someone who would ensure that all sides are properly represented.  I have to assume he chose the 6 climatologists who participated in the APS Panel in 2014.

19043. nigelj at 08:12 AM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #27
       

       Electric cars are clearly the way of the future, with so many upsides and no real downsides. Even Trump might buy one, if it's painted gold.

       I understand the world has pretty large reserves of lithium, but its not an infinite resource, so are there other workable possible battery technologies as well? 

19044. nigelj at 07:14 AM on 10 July 2017
       Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter
       

       I just don't understand Judith Curry at all. She is certainly very vague.

       She says climate gate raised genuine doubts with her. I find this incomprehensible, because I have looked at the actual evidence and there's just nothing there, nothing wrong and various investigations have found the same. So what is she on about? She is certainly unable to specifically say when asked. She  is a scientist for goodness sake!

       Yes, climate scientists do sometimes make mistakes like anyone, but there was nothing remotely significant in the climategate thing! In fact when you look at the desperate attempts to get dirt on climate scientists, and the many documents found (or hacked illegally) theres just remarkably little dirt there.

       I think Curry is an attention seeker, and this is her way of creating a following of people on her blog.

       Of course climategate showed some grumpy scientists complaining about somebody trying to publish a sceptical paper, and hoping it might not get published. This is people in a frustrated mood, as we all get, it is not evidence of a global conspiracy!

       Jo Nova and Judith Curry are of course entitled to their websites. Free speech and all that is very important to me. It doesn't change the fact the content is largely nonsense.

       People like Joe Nova claim to be intelligent, discerning sceptics, but they do not apply this equally to everything, they ignore patent nonsense, so they are intellectually shallow.

       They are not genuine sceptics. I think they simply have some deep seated distrust or dislike of climate science, that is probably a mish mash of different motivations, some genuine scepticism, but I think much of it more about gut reactions, politics and protecting their general world view. You will learn precious little reading their websites.

19045. nigelj at 06:49 AM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       Climategate was unfortunate. Of course it was theft of documents we shouldn't ever forget that, and an attempt to dig dirt and basically politically motivated.

       The accusations turned out to be empty, (no surprise there) and several official investigations found nothing wrong.

       It was almost just rotten luck. Things were leaked and some of the language used was unfortunate and not a good look, unless you knew the background. I was familiar with the term "hide the decline" and knew it wasn't how it sounded, but from the point of view of the general public this understandably sounded sinister. Its rotten luck, and sometimes the events of history turn on such things.

       The hackers and climate sceptics are driven by a whole mish mash of vested interests, excessive, paranoid fears  about government regullation, and protecting personal wealth and established power bases, and even just personal habits. Climategate played into their hands, and gave them a further excuse. Any investigations probably "fell on deaf ears" but remember the general public and moderately open minded people have more respect for official investigations. Still it was rotten luck, and could have had a rather large if disproportionate impact on the whole debate.

       Nevertheless the denialists and wealthy power play denialists in particular are acting unacceptably like OPOF says, and values have to change. I think they need to change back to the more ethically focussed and moderate, consensus seeking capitalism before the "greed is good" nonsense emerged in the 1980s. 

19046. nigelj at 06:34 AM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       Ubrew @5, thanks for the tip on the article. I have just read a very good book on scepticism called "Skeptic, by Michael Shermer" and it's the healthy, rational form of genuine scepticism. This writer also wrote "The Moral Arc". People who read this website may be interested.

       He does an excellent chapter on the scientific method, logic and misleading fallacy arguments, then works through the main of the historical conspiracies like 911 etc, as well as climate change denialism and why it doesn't make sense. He was in fact once a climate change sceptic, but changed positions when he looked deeper at the issue. He uses this as an example of rational scepticism.

       If I'm honest with myself I'm at a stage where I'm tempted to say some very brutal things about climate denialists, but I restrain myself. It is not going to persuade people, especially the hardened conspiracy theory, elite hating people like for example Steve Bannon.

       Society probably follows some sort of bell curve where you have a big group in the middle who can be persuaded by sensible, constructive argument. It requires showing genuine flaws in denialist rhetoric and as you say exposing the hypocrisy, and I would say the contradictions. But it must be done simply, and very skillfully, and often people get too tangled up in detail and endless qualifications. There is of course definitely sometimes a place for this sort of detail but it depends on context. This website is a good place for detail, but Michael Mann lets himself get a little to bogged down by details sometimes and also personalities and when you are in some form of climate hearing process or talking to the media you have to keep it simple, clear and focussed. 

       There is a group who will "never" be convinced. Theres no point agonising over them. They tend to mainly have poor educations etc. There are people who still believe tobacco is harmless, and evolution is a myth.

       The more important goal is to convince ordinary, sensible people, and people in positions of power. Intelligent people have their world views and biases, but generally also have at least some flexibility of thought, (although the current Republican Party doesn't exhibit much of this. It wasn't always that way. But i feel they are currently perhaps an exception).

       You are right about Clinton and Trump. She can be patronising, a cold fish, not a good communicator etc. Trump is easier to relate to, but it's still in my view all confidence trickery stuff.

19047. tcflood at 06:31 AM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26
       

       tcflood @7, nigelj @8, gingerbaker @10:

       Here is an interesting pass at evaluating the debate that also has useful references/links within.

       https://theconversation.com/energy-wonks-have-a-meltdown-over-the-us-going-100-percent-renewable-why-79834

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed link. Pleas learn how to do this yourself with the link tool in the comment editor.

19048. One Planet Only Forever at 02:10 AM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       ubrew12@5,

       "Climategate" exposed the exploitation of criminal theft of emails by very smart undeserving wealthy people who abused bits of information completely out of context to achieve a damaging objective. "Climategate" did not expose subversive actions by scientists. The worst that it exposed was the use of terms that can have a meaning twisted when they are taken out of context (like presenting the average of longer periods of data to hide a short-term decline, or excluding tree ring data that was inconsistent with all of the other data until the inconsistency was better understood). The fact that many people still believe it exposed anything else is a serious problem.

       Increasing awareness and providing better explanations of what is going on is effectively being attacked by damaging irresponsible adults telling other people that they can believe what they prefer to believe and that anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a hypocrite and all manner of other derogatory names.

       Unltimately, the only future for humanity is for the vast majority of the population to become compassionate considerate responsible adults who will rationally evaluate what is presented to them with the objective of improving the future for all of humanity. And that majority must have no hesitation to disappoint the stubborn people who resist becoming responsible adults because they like the idea of getting away with less acceptable behaviour.

       The expectation that everyone must be allowed to believe whatever they want to excuse or defend doing what they please is the problem. Climate science is only one of many 'constantly improving understandings of what is really going on' that have exposed the fundamental problem. The solution to that problem is not the responsibility of climate scientists, acting to correct the problem has to be understood to be the responsibility/obligation/expectation of every 'leader/winner' (in business and government) in every society on this planet, no matter how unpopular or less profitable the many required corrections may be regionally.

19049. ubrew12 at 00:27 AM on 10 July 2017
       2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27
       

       For those interested, I highly recommend the David Runciman article: "How climate scepticism turned into something more dangerous".  Some quotes from that article: "climate scepticism is being driven out by climate cynicism. A sceptic questions the evidence... A cynic questions the motives... In these politically charged circumstances, there is no safe space for the facts to retreat to. That was made clear by... “climategate"... the emails betrayed the scientists’ awareness that the idea of a consensus on... climate change was under concerted attack. So they went out of their way to shore up the consensus. Which, when revealed, confirmed to their opponents that the consensus was a sham... we dislike hypocrisy more than we dislike lying... [and this] is not just a problem for climate politics. It is a problem for democracy... Trump has always been careful not to come across as the wrong sort of hypocrite: the kind who seems to be talking down to people. Hillary Clinton was not so careful. And when the voters get to choose between the two, the hypocrite loses to the liar... We live in an age when mistrust of politics has spilled over into mistrust of expertise... To respond with ever-greater certainty in the name of science is a big mistake... climate science... in the age of Trump should not keep saying that the populists are lying about the consensus. They should say that they are hypocrites about the doubt: they do not practise what they preach because they think they know the answers already. Climate change deniers argue they are only trying to discover the truth. We should all be sceptical about that."

       Denial thrives on the idea of science hypocrisy.  It is combatted not by attempting science purity, but by hammering on denial hypocrisy itself.  At the very least, point out how someone cannot be a skeptic if he ignores the ocean of evidence before him to focus on one bit of cherry-picked data.  And keep hammering the idea that much 'denial' is being funded by an industry with a $22 trillion interest in the outcome of this debate.

19050. jgnfld at 00:23 AM on 10 July 2017
       Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter
       

       @29

       The Greek scholar in my family assures me  of a couple of things:

       Thucydides wrote in a terrible, deeply nested style that is hard to work with. She said that many translations are more understandable that the original!

       WRT the specific Greek terms underlying "sovereign reason" she says the term relates to "autocratic" more than any more positive connotation. That is rather than "motivated reasoning" one might render it as reasoning like an autocrat. 

       WRT Jo Nova, her political views totally outweigh her accurate reporting of actual science as this case clearly typifies.

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