Global Warming Thread

[Mkgillman]

Yeah, I mine bitcoin with my excess power.

But, the whole economy behind bitcoin consumes absolutely ludicrous amounts of power, so you are directly involved in that.

I do also enjoy the “in the 1970s people said...” arguments. You could smoke on airplanes, hell, they were fine with women smoking while pregnant. Plus, we have gotten a little bit better at the whole satellite and computer modeling since then.

Yes, glaciers have been melting since the last ice age, but not at the pace they are now, especially not in Alaska.

What sort of work do you do in Alaska? Is your only export oil? I hear things are pretty expensive up there since almost everything has to be shipped in.

The 70's were great by the way. No political correctness, being free(r)... It's interesting that all the climate modeling today uses all those inaccurate baselines from the 70's and earlier.

During the last ice age the glaciers over northern North America were miles thick. But things are melting faster now right? That's genius level shit there my man!

"Oh yeah, and if you think that sea levels haven’t risen, you either don’t know how to google or are a moron." - Name calling and everything!

Yes, I did call you a name because if you contend that sea level hasn’t changed, you either don’t know how to look for evidence, or you are being a moron. There are thousands of extremely accurate tidal gauges that very clearly show sea levels are rising and at increasing rate:

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

I’m sure you won’t believe that either because you seem to be completely unwilling to examine either the science or the professional consensus regarding climate change. I have zero patience for people who completely deny that anything is changing.

Yes, Alaska is a petro state and the state is terribly overreliant on air cargo to provide consumer goods, though the ~3/5’s of the population that lives on the road system is less carbon intensive than the bush population. Unfortunately, the people who live in remote areas are largely Alaskan native communities that are already experiencing massive impacts due to climate change from permafrost melting, coastal erosion, and impacts to subsistence food sources.

I have never implied that there are easy solutions to this, but laughing it away as paranoia or complete nonsense piss me off when it is something that can be directly observed already. The Alaskan DOT has just released a report that puts the annual cost of climate change to infrastructure and facilities between $100-225 mn/year within the next decade.

[tersh]

Incidentally, my sister-in-law is one of the scientists recognized for "contributing to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC". Aka "1/2000th of 1/2 of the Nobel Peace Price".

Sure there are political considerations...They are making recommendations to governments after all. As soon as you go from "what is happening" to "what should we do about it?", you leave the realm of science and enter into politics.

That's neat. What does she work on? If we're gonna throw our dicks on the table, I'm a working scientist, and dealing with reporting of carbon emissions from various sources, etc, is a big part of my day job, these days, and I've worked with a variety of climate change scientists at UW and elsewhere.

Like this guy? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

I'm not trying to play gotcha, but people ignore alarmists for a reason. I'm not sure being wrong by 5-10 or even 20 years really matters in the long run, but it does have a negative effect on their credibility.

You might want to quote the rest of the article, as it contains material directly relevant to my point:

The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) collects the observational data on the extent of Arctic sea ice, delivering regular status bulletins. Its research scientist Dr Mark Serreze was asked to give one of the main lectures here at this year's AGU Fall Meeting.

Discussing the possibility for an open Arctic ocean in summer months, he told the meeting: "A few years ago, even I was thinking 2050, 2070, out beyond the year 2100, because that's what our models were telling us. But as we've seen, the models aren't fast enough right now; we are losing ice at a much more rapid rate.

"My thinking on this is that 2030 is not an unreasonable date to be thinking of."

And later, to the BBC, Dr Serreze added: "I think Wieslaw is probably a little aggressive in his projections, simply because the luck of the draw means natural variability can kick in to give you a few years in which the ice loss is a little less than you've had in previous years. But Wieslaw is a smart guy and it would not surprise me if his projections came out."

[tersh]

Anyways, scientific consensus in the 70's was that we could be entering an ice age. They may still be right...

Consider getting your information from better sources.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-ag ... -1970s.htm

[mgil]

Without going too far into the weeds, I would like to note that the temperature of the water has a primary effect on its compressional velocity. Salinity has an effect as well, along with the obvious effect of pressure.

Temperatures at the sea surface affect the gradient of the compressional velocity for a substantial layer of the ocean’s water column. This gradient plays an important role in the refraction of acoustic energy propagating through the ocean.

With that being said, certain DoD entities have observed and are concerned with the change in the refraction characteristics of the ocean. They might not lay stakes in a claim of anthropogenic causes, but they do believe the current trend has been an overall warming trend.

[tersh]

Without going too far into the weeds, I would like to note that the temperature of the water has a primary effect on its compressional velocity. Salinity has an effect as well, along with the obvious effect of pressure.

Temperatures at the sea surface affect the gradient of the compressional velocity for a substantial layer of the ocean’s water column. This gradient plays an important role in the refraction of acoustic energy propagating through the ocean.

With that being said, certain DoD entities have observed and are concerned with the change in the refraction characteristics of the ocean. They might not lay stakes in a claim of anthropogenic causes, but they do believe the current trend has been an overall warming trend.

I sometimes ponder the mass of data that certain governmental bodies are sitting on, and how much it might reveal about the state of the world...

But the Pentagon have been climate realists for a good while now, and find it all rather concerning, I am given to understand.

[EricK]

Whatever man... Europe is forecast to have its coldest winter in years.

So is Colorado. And?

The predictions were that cold weather and snow were going to fade away over time. Snow was to be a thing of the past with all that global warming and shit

Can you cite any examples of this? When were any of these "predictions" part of the actual mainstream? I'm genuinely curious, because I've never come across predictions like that.

That prediction was for Britain if I recall correctly, and it's snowed every year since. But do a Google search for failed climate predictions. I'm sure there's lots out there.

Question to all you global warmer's - What exactly do you propose to do about it? Purposefully introduce smog into the atmosphere to cool earth off(just read about that a week or so ago)? Have you changed your affluent lifestyle?

I do get the point of being "green" and all that. I bet I'm greener than most here. I generate my own electricity with my hydro-power system (seen in my avatar). I live on a farm where we grow a lot of the food we eat so a lot of our food is local. I take in truckloads of organics from off-site (that would normally be taken to the dump) to feed my soil. I grow and sell nut and fruit bearing trees in our nursery. etc, etc...

Anyways, scientific consensus in the 70's was that we could be entering an ice age. They may still be right...

Your response seems to lack good faith. You gave a specific example; namely that a serious prediction was that winter would be "a thing of the past." If that was a serious prediction of an actual climate model, then that would be pretty damning (of that specific model). If it's an impression you got from a tabloid or political rhetoric, then just say so. Implying that such a prediction is consistent with the consensus without justification seems either insincere or somewhat ignorant. That's apparent in your erroneous assertion that "scientific consensus in the 70's was that we could be entering an ice age." Some papers in the 70's hypothesized that particulates common in industrial pollution might reflect more light than was warmed by greenhouse gases. These were far from the consensus. And ice ages are not really what popular opinion imagines; it doesn't mean Game of Thrones style perpetual winter.

As to whether you feel like you're more "green" than most, I don't see how that's relevant.

As for what we should do, I think that the longer we wait, the more extreme the action required to have a meaningful impact. But, your earlier statement implies that it would be better if British Columbia had the climate of California. Do you really believe that? If so, what do you base your opinion on?

[JonA]

You might want to quote the rest of the article, as it contains material directly relevant to my point:

The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) collects the observational data on the extent of Arctic sea ice, delivering regular status bulletins. Its research scientist Dr Mark Serreze was asked to give one of the main lectures here at this year's AGU Fall Meeting.

Discussing the possibility for an open Arctic ocean in summer months, he told the meeting: "A few years ago, even I was thinking 2050, 2070, out beyond the year 2100, because that's what our models were telling us. But as we've seen, the models aren't fast enough right now; we are losing ice at a much more rapid rate.

"My thinking on this is that 2030 is not an unreasonable date to be thinking of."

And later, to the BBC, Dr Serreze added: "I think Wieslaw is probably a little aggressive in his projections, simply because the luck of the draw means natural variability can kick in to give you a few years in which the ice loss is a little less than you've had in previous years. But Wieslaw is a smart guy and it would not surprise me if his projections came out."

Yep. The extreme estimate was wrong and rightfully ignored and the more conservative estimate appears to be correct. I guess we are in agreement then? Although I don't know how that jives with what you said here:

The history of sea ice modeling shows that fairly clearly, IIRC. The people who started sounding the alarm bells on that in the early-mid 2000s were considered to be taking very extreme positions when they talked about an ice-free summer Arctic in the 2020s, or 2030s, IIRC.

Who do you think was considered to have the extreme position? Maslowski with a 'conservative' estimate of 2013? or Serreze with a "2030 isn't unreasonable"? (And which one was cited by Al Gore?)

[Skid]

Your response seems to lack good faith. You gave a specific example; namely that a serious prediction was that winter would be "a thing of the past." If that was a serious prediction of an actual climate model, then that would be pretty damning (of that specific model). If it's an impression you got from a tabloid or political rhetoric, then just say so. Implying that such a prediction is consistent with the consensus without justification seems either insincere or somewhat ignorant. That's apparent in your erroneous assertion that "scientific consensus in the 70's was that we could be entering an ice age." Some papers in the 70's hypothesized that particulates common in industrial pollution might reflect more light than was warmed by greenhouse gases. These were far from the consensus. And ice ages are not really what popular opinion imagines; it doesn't mean Game of Thrones style perpetual winter.

As to whether you feel like you're more "green" than most, I don't see how that's relevant.

As for what we should do, I think that the longer we wait, the more extreme the action required to have a meaningful impact. But, your earlier statement implies that it would be better if British Columbia had the climate of California. Do you really believe that? If so, what do you base your opinion on?

I'm doing your homework for you. https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/first ... -nevermind

I'm greener than most because most Greenpeacer's (for lack of a better term) are hypocrites. When I managed a hydro power station I constantly dealt with environmentalists and professional biologists. They'd show up at site in their V8 German SUV's sipping their Starbucks Lattes and complain about my plant stranding 7 salmon fry during a plant trip and forcing my company to spend millions of dollars revamping equipment to prevent this huge transgression on the ecosystem. We'd go out for lunch and guess what, they'd order salmon It kept them employed though, just like the global warming scare keeps the funds rolling in to the scientific world. No conflict of interest there...

I base my opinion on the fact that I would like warmer weather year round, and the earth has always thrived in warmer weather.

[tersh]

You might want to quote the rest of the article, as it contains material directly relevant to my point:

The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) collects the observational data on the extent of Arctic sea ice, delivering regular status bulletins. Its research scientist Dr Mark Serreze was asked to give one of the main lectures here at this year's AGU Fall Meeting.

Discussing the possibility for an open Arctic ocean in summer months, he told the meeting: "A few years ago, even I was thinking 2050, 2070, out beyond the year 2100, because that's what our models were telling us. But as we've seen, the models aren't fast enough right now; we are losing ice at a much more rapid rate.

"My thinking on this is that 2030 is not an unreasonable date to be thinking of."

And later, to the BBC, Dr Serreze added: "I think Wieslaw is probably a little aggressive in his projections, simply because the luck of the draw means natural variability can kick in to give you a few years in which the ice loss is a little less than you've had in previous years. But Wieslaw is a smart guy and it would not surprise me if his projections came out."

Yep. The extreme estimate was wrong and rightfully ignored and the more conservative estimate appears to be correct. I guess we are in agreement then? Although I don't know how that jives with what you said here:

The history of sea ice modeling shows that fairly clearly, IIRC. The people who started sounding the alarm bells on that in the early-mid 2000s were considered to be taking very extreme positions when they talked about an ice-free summer Arctic in the 2020s, or 2030s, IIRC.

Who do you think was considered to have the extreme position? Maslowski with a 'conservative' estimate of 2013? or Serreze with a "2030 isn't unreasonable"? (And which one was cited by Al Gore?)

This seems a bit like willfull misunderstanding.

However, to attempt to make it clear:
Early 2000s models generally suggested end of century for ice-free Arctic.
Some researchers incorporated new data and methods, and criticized the existing models as overly conservative and too slow.
Some of this work was initially treated with a good deal of skepticism, or outright rejected.
Then, over time, nearly everyone revised their numbers downward, in recognition that their models were too slow.

If this paper is correct, then we're STILL probably over-estimating how long it's gonna take:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 17GL074506

In all likelihood, new data on climate sensitivity and ocean heat dynamics are going to result in a similar adjustment overall, because reality has generally been tracking the higher end models, and in some cases, outpacing it considerably.

[tersh]

I'm doing your homework for you. https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/first ... -nevermind

I'm greener than most because most Greenpeacer's (for lack of a better term) are hypocrites. When I managed a hydro power station I constantly dealt with environmentalists and professional biologists. They'd show up at site in their V8 German SUV's sipping their Starbucks Lattes and complain about my plant stranding 7 salmon fry during a plant trip and forcing my company to spend millions of dollars revamping equipment to prevent this huge transgression on the ecosystem. We'd go out for lunch and guess what, they'd order salmon It kept them employed though, just like the global warming scare keeps the funds rolling in to the scientific world. No conflict of interest there...

I base my opinion on the fact that I would like warmer weather year round, and the earth has always thrived in warmer weather.

Skid, if you genuinely are interested in this subject, and have an open mind, I recommend reading around on this page:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Not that it matters.

You are right, the Earth will be fine. The Earth will be fine until the sun burns it into a cinder.
Humanity, however, is quite possibly not going to be fine.

You're an older guy, but I hope you live a good long while. More than the expected 20 years.
You'll probably be fine, for the most part, living where you do, with your lifestyle.

But man, an awful lot of people aren't going to be. Even our best case scenarios at this point look pretty grim.
Our worst case scenarios don't really bear much thinking about, because what's the point?

[DirtyRed]

Humans currently have a very comfortable climatological niche we've evolved in, and we're changing that and will make things quite a bit less comfortable.

Do you mean "evolved” in biological sense? Cause humans have been quite comfortable in climates both warmer and colder than current predictions.

Or do you mean "evolved" in the ”we like our smartphones and simply can't live without them” sense?

Our current trajectory is likely to produce a climatic systems humans have never been around for, something that you have to go back many millions of years (to before the current cycle of ice ages) to encounter.

This means that, short of improbably radical and effective changes, a large swath of the Earth around the equator and through the tropics will be uninhabitable by humans, as the wet bulb temperature will exceed a critical threshold, we'll be unable to cool our bodies, and expire rapidly if outside.

That's what is meant by OCGs post, above.

This is not even touching on the extent to which our current global food production system is very tightly optimized for late 20th century climate patterns.

I give our current society a 50:50 shot of making it, on a good day. I don't think humans are going to go extinct, unless a bunch of really bad, runaway positive feedbacks happen, which is possible. But it's very likely there's going to be a lot fewer of us, and distributed very differently on the surface of the earth.

If technological society can make it through the end of the century without teetering on the edge of collapse, it's possible we'll learn and go on to do truly amazing things as a species. If not, the Earth smashes us into a much smaller niche, as happens to every species that oversteps its ecological bounds.

The Population Bomb 2: Self-Important Hysteria Strikes Back

[EricK]

I notice you didn't acknowledge your error that the consensus in the 70's was predicting global cooling. Are you willing to acknowledge that that claim is, at best, inaccurate?

I'm doing your homework for you. https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/first ... -nevermind

Defending your own claims is not my homework. You made the claim that according to climate science, the children of [England] would never experience winter. Your defense is a tabloid interview of a single person, who said that deep snowfall might become very rare by 2020. That doesn't seem like an overwhelming consensus.

I'm greener than most because most Greenpeacer's (for lack of a better term) are hypocrites. When I managed a hydro power station I constantly dealt with environmentalists and professional biologists. They'd show up at site in their V8 German SUV's sipping their Starbucks Lattes and complain about my plant stranding 7 salmon fry during a plant trip and forcing my company to spend millions of dollars revamping equipment to prevent this huge transgression on the ecosystem. We'd go out for lunch and guess what, they'd order salmon It kept them employed though, just like the global warming scare keeps the funds rolling in to the scientific world. No conflict of interest there...

The fact that you don't like a stereotype of a group of people you met under unpleasant circumstances doesn't do anything to help make your green-ness relevant to the conversation. Even if I accept your claim that the Greenpeacers (which seems to extend to environmentalists and professional biologists) you encountered are hypocrites (which your story does not support), how does that automatically extend to everyone who disagrees with you about global warming? How does that invalidate the actual measurements?

I base my opinion on the fact that I would like warmer weather year round, and the earth has always thrived in warmer weather.

Under different geographical circumstances, without a global human civilization, and at the expense of biodiversity during the transition, which has always been considerably slower in th past (with the possible exception of the greatest mass extinction at the end of the Permian). As Simon pointed out earlier, the only way for BC to get that warm is for warm places to get much warmer. I suppose it's possible that may be a better circumstance in the end, but a rapid transition would not be pleasant.

[JonA]

This seems a bit like willfull misunderstanding.

However, to attempt to make it clear:
Early 2000s models generally suggested end of century for ice-free Arctic.
Some researchers incorporated new data and methods, and criticized the existing models as overly conservative and too slow.
Some of this work was initially treated with a good deal of skepticism, or outright rejected.
Then, over time, nearly everyone revised their numbers downward, in recognition that their models were too slow.

No. I just think you are mischaracterizing what was being criticized and what was considered an 'extreme' position at that time. The criticisms I recall and can find now are levied against "sky is falling" estimates like 2013 (revised to 2016 (revised to 2019)). And/or criticisms that revised estimates were still *too* conservative.

Can you provide an example of someone who's work was wrongfully outright rejected?

If this paper is correct, then we're STILL probably over-estimating how long it's gonna take:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 17GL074506

In all likelihood, new data on climate sensitivity and ocean heat dynamics are going to result in a similar adjustment overall, because reality has generally been tracking the higher end models, and in some cases, outpacing it considerably.

I think the IPCC's current projection is something like 50% chance of summer free ice by 2050. What would you consider a more realistic estimate and how much would you alter it, based on that paper?

[SeanHerbison]

and have an open mind

If that were the case, we'd have a lot fewer arguments. Or rather, the arguments we do have wouldn't get so heated. Personally, I don't have the specific scientific background to understand the raw facts without someone helping me/telling me what they say, and I suspect that's the case for most people. Which means that, unless I fix that deficiency, I shouldn't go looking for the data one way or the other, as I'm far more likely to simply find data points that support the way I'm already leaning.

In the meantime, I can only go with what the consensus seem to be among people who actually do understand the issue and what the raw information says about it. And since I don't understand it first hand, I really shouldn't get all that worked up about it one way or the other, since I don't really have a way of evaluating the arguments being put forth.

But if it were that easy to convince people, they'd probably already have been convinced. So I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this. Oh well.

[JonA]

It's all moot, bitches. I was driving through Yellowstone a few weeks ago, and -- while stunningly gorgeous -- I felt the next mass-extinction in me bones. That fucking place.

Were you listening to Tool's Ænima again?

[Hanley]

It's all moot, bitches. I was driving through Yellowstone a few weeks ago, and -- while stunningly gorgeous -- I felt the next mass-extinction in me bones. That fucking place.

Were you listening to Tool's Ænima again?

You're going to have to explain this reference to me

[Mkgillman]

It's all moot, bitches. I was driving through Yellowstone a few weeks ago, and -- while stunningly gorgeous -- I felt the next mass-extinction in me bones. That fucking place.

Were you listening to Tool's Ænima again?

You're going to have to explain this reference to me

@Nikipedia WE HAVE A CODE MAYNARD HERE!!

[aurelius]

This thread is so meta. Basically every climate discussion had on the interwebs follows this thread.

[strega]

This thread is so meta. Basically every climate discussion had on the interwebs follows this thread.

When do we get to the part where most TV Meteorologists are more skeptical of climate change than the general public?
Or that was at one time the claim, no idea if it's true or not.

[JonA]

Were you listening to Tool's Ænima again?

You're going to have to explain this reference to me

Youtube first, ask questions later.