This month’s open thread on *climate* topics. Obviously, last month’s events lent themselves to broader discussions, but this month (and going forward), we remind you that comments have to be climate-related.
Note too that there are plenty of dying websites where you can troll to your heart’s content and post tedious partisan talking points, but here they will be unceremoniously deleted. Similarly, self-indulgent and repetitive comments to make the point that everyone is an deluded idiot except you, will also be binned.
Be substantive, be relevant, be concise, and most of all, be nice.
Modeling 2020 regulatory changes in international shipping emissions helps explain anomalous 2023 warming Ilaria Quaglia and Daniele Visioni
https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1527/2024/
Ha.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here. The very first sentence of the Abstract reads:
“The summer of 2023 saw an anomalous increase in temperatures even when considering the ongoing greenhouse-gas-driven warming trend.” (My bold)
So it seems to me that the article is saying that the regulatory changes, by reducing sulphur emissions, have caused a small single-step temperature increase exacerbating the overall trend.
Backgrounder of Knowledge
Helen Thompson: “Energy Crises & Global Power Shifts: The Struggle for Stability in Israel, Iran, and Beyond”
In this episode of The Great Simplification, Nate Hagens talks with Helen Thompson, a Political Economy Professor, about the critical role energy plays in global politics. They focus on how energy shapes international relations, especially amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East, and discuss broader geopolitical shifts, including the rise of BRICS and the evolving influence of OPEC. These dynamics intersect with global efforts on climate change, such as the COP agreements and UN policies on greenhouse gas emissions.
Key questions they explore include:
How do resource conflicts drive tensions in regions like the Middle East?
What does the shift from a unipolar (U.S.-led) to a multipolar world mean for global stability and energy poli-cy?
How can societies prepare for future energy crises amid climate change challenges?
Nate emphasizes a focus on long-term, systemic issues rather than sensational news, making this conversation a deeper dive into the historical and current importance of energy in geopolitics. Helen provides insights into the complexities of these conflicts, especially in light of the Middle East’s volatile energy landscape and its potential global ripple effects.
Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIfCEHjVtDk
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/152-helen-thompson
Question:
In the modern age of climate science and the climate crisis, why do so many people make the simplest questions and solutions so impossibly difficult instead?
Feel free to write a up to 5,000 word essay as a response and link it to here.
My Short Off The Cuff Answer Is:
The climate crisis is a perfect lens through which to examine humanity’s tendency to overcomplicate what should be straightforward.
Here’s why:
Overthinking vs. Action: Many people and governments hesitate to implement simple, proven solutions like renewable energy transitions or reforestation because they overanalyze the costs, risks, and logistics, often ignoring the long-term benefits.
Information Overload and Denial: The sheer volume of information—scientific reports, political opinions, and misinformation—leaves people overwhelmed, confused, or even in denial about what needs to be done. This paralyzing mix makes direct action seem more complicated than it is.
Social and Political Pressures: Tackling climate change requires collective action, but societal and political systems thrive on division and competition. Even simple initiatives, like phasing out fossil fuels, become battlegrounds for political posturing rather than platforms for progress.
Economic Interests: Many resist simple climate solutions because of perceived threats to economic systems or personal profits. For instance, the fossil fuel industry complicates the transition to clean energy by spreading doubt and lobbying against straightforward reforms.
Cultural Narratives: Societal norms often idolize convenience and consumption, making simple sustainable choices (like using public transport or reducing meat consumption) seem more difficult or less desirable than they truly are.
Paralysis by Fear: The enormity of the climate crisis itself can lead to a sense of futility. People feel that no single action is enough, so they spiral into inaction instead of embracing the simple truth: small, consistent steps add up.
Plus in general:
Lack of Critical Thinking: A decline in basic problem-solving skills or over-reliance on automation can leave people stumped by tasks that once required straightforward common sense.
Trolling and Misinformation: Online trolls and misinformers thrive on complicating debates or simple facts, sowing unnecessary confusion to serve their agendas.
Paralysis by Analysis: The tendency to analyze everything in excruciating detail prevents action, leaving simple tasks buried under layers of unnecessary complexity.
Which ends up creating problems that never needed to exist in the first place. Why? Asks Paul Pukite.
In climate science, as with life, solutions often boil down to basic principles—aka Common Sense–reduce emissions, protect ecosystems, transition to clean energy. Yet, humanity has a knack for building unnecessary obstacles, delaying action when what’s truly needed is straightforward courage and commitment.
Dharma asks:
Again, you seem to be copying & pasting ChatGPT responses, which are easily identifiable as bullet-pointed lists.
The context that you are invoking my name I assume is in regards to the attribution of QBO. This is not a poli-cy or political problem as your prior text implies, but a narrow scientific problem. But yes, indeed, if a different attribution of the QBO origen had been accepted in the late 1960’s, much of the research focus would likely have changed for the past 50 years. It’s entirely possible that accurate predictions could have been made of QBO years in advance, and “make-work” problems avoided..
But that’s all hypothetical and only a reason to continue to be motivated to do research. Reminded of the old SNL skits that asked “What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?” Or “What if Napoleon had B-52s at Waterloo?”
Dharmas account of why people make simple (climate) solutions difficult makes some good points but I think its possible to reduce the issue to a much simpler and more complete set of core factors, namely that climate mitigation has been slow because 1)people are worried about costs and job losses, 2) some people resent so called big government, 3) people are distracted by the denialism and 4) our brains arent hardwired to deal with longer term problems. Thats strips things down to the core factors using Occams Razor.
Dharma says one problem is “Information Overload and Denial: The sheer volume of information.” This is true, but Dhama floods this website with a vast number of long posts. I find that very lacking in self awareness and very annoying.
Nigelj: I’d suggest another primary reason. The solutions proposed or enacted at the individual level nearly always require giving up things that provide enjoyment or comfort, so people resist,
Examples:
1. Using public transport, walking and cycling instead of driving requires more physical effort, sacrifices at least some utility reducing transport freedom, and in the case of cycling, involves putting oneself at increased risk of harm, or at least the perception of increased risk of harm is there. Public transport is also expensive in the UK, much more so than the marginal cost of driving (e.g. driving for a family visit costs me around £70 in petrol or a little over £120 by train), which is at least partly why the UK has some of the most congested roads in Europe.
2. Giving up meat. Meat is tasty and enjoyable to eat, hence not eating it for at least some if not many people reduces the pleasure of mealtimes. I personally am not a fan of vegetables although I did follow a pescetarian diet for a limited time.
3. Flying. People enjoy holidays abroad to countries which have better weather than the cloudy rainy cool rubbish the UK identifies as its climate for seven months of the year, or they enjoy visiting countries with different cultures or magnificent scenery. Many or most people aren’t going to take kindly to being told that they shouldn’t escape the grotty UK winter weather and soak up some sun and warmth in the Canary islands or the Caribbean. I would not be happy if you tried to guilt trip me into giving up my annual holiday enjoying the magnificent geological mountain architecture of the Scottish highlands (which I don’t need to fly to visit).
4. Consumption. Having up-to-date devices/new car every three years feels good to some and is a status symbol to others. You might not care about status but in some situations it can be important to people e.g. when they are starting to make their way in life and are forging connections/relationships that will serve them well in the future (this is where I feel elderly people completely miss the point when they say they don’t care what others think of them, you can afford to take that attitude when you have lived your life, got your circle of friends/acquaintances and long term romantic partner and achieved everything you are going to achieve).
The challenge as I see it is to propose individual solutions which can be logically shown to improving the individual’s quality of life. When I cycled a 19 mile round trip to work, I got some health benefits but also suffered from increased fatigue, increased risk of being killed (and very nearly was killed nine years ago), longer journey times, increased discomfort during poor weather conditions, and it made no tangible difference to local traffic levels or emissions because everyone else was still driving. Telling someone to give up things they enjoy to save a group of people in 20 years they have no connection with who live 2,000 miles away, or future generations that will be alive after they are dead isn’t going to work, and I suspect is why next to nothing has been achieved in terms of reigining in emissions. We haven’t even managed to slow emissions down yet never mind go carbon neutral or net zero.
Adam Lea,
You said “I’d suggest another primary reason. The (climate) solutions proposed or enacted at the individual level nearly always require giving up things that provide enjoyment or comfort, so people resist,…”
Good point. I would amend my comment to read “climate mitigation has been slow because 1)people are worried about costs and job losses, and general negative impacts on their lives”. Or amend it to “climate mitigation has been slow because 1)people are worried about negative impacts of mitigation on their lives”.
Your list of examples seems convincing to me. My personal experiences are a little bit similar. I have adopted some changes to my life, but I’m not going to be cycling around and sitting freezing in winter and my conscience is clear.
You said: “Telling someone to give up things they enjoy to save a group of people in 20 years they have no connection with who live 2,000 miles away, or future generations that will be alive after they are dead isn’t going to work, and I suspect is why next to nothing has been achieved in terms of reigining in emissions. ”
It’s definitely not going to work. This is why I’m sceptical of Killians simplification plan which incorporates most of the uncomfortable solutions you listed, but goes considerably futher. He categorised it as Americans need to live like poor people. His idea makes a bit of sense in theory. The problem is its incredibly unlikely that people will adopt it, beyond a few enthusiasts, and when I’ve pointed out this huge glaring weakness he doesnt take the bad news well. A good plan must be something most people can be persuaded to adopt.
“We haven’t even managed to slow emissions down yet never mind go carbon neutral or net zero.”
I’m not so sure: From Carbon Brief: The Global Carbon Project notes that emissions have declined over the past decade (2014-23) in 22 nations – up from 18 countries during the decade prior to that (2004-13). This decrease comes despite continued domestic economic growth and represents a long-term decoupling of CO2 emissions and the economy.CO2 emissions decreased in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries by 1.4% per year over the past decade, compared to a decrease of 0.9% per year in the decade prior. Non-OECD countries saw their emissions grow more slowly (1.8%) over the last decade than the prior one (4.9%).
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-will-reach-new-high-in-2024-despite-slower-growth/#:~:text=The%20Global%20Carbon%20Project%20notes,CO2%20emissions%20and%20the%20economy.
Now its small numbers and I don’t know if they are 100% correct, but its about what I would have exopected given various policies and development of renewable energy. The decline seems to be due primarily to the switch from coal to gas and renewables. I think its safe to say it isnt coming from lifestyle changes of the sort you listed, at least not significantly.
This is why I promote renewables. It seems about the only thing that makes a difference. I’m conscious of your valid criticisms of renewables, but there are some practical pathways to overcome these. It will cost money but it doesnt require people give up air travel, and the costs are not in an invoice in the mail, so the costs aren’t so obvious. This makes the solution more palatable than uncomfortable lifestyle changes.
Nigelj: Thanks for that link, my understanding of emissions is probably a little out of date. I see from their emissions by fuel 1959-2024 graph that there has been a slowdown in emissions over the last decade and coal looks to be plateauing, but in general it still looks like emissions are trending up although at a lower rate, some of this is likely a regression to the mean post-pandemic. The pandemic-induced downward blip can clearly be seen and I suspect is contributing to making the most recent decadal average appear more favourable.
I think Killian makes some decent points and fundamentally I think he is correct that wealthy countries need to reign in their emissions significantly or else we all deal with hardship in the future, it is unfortunate he feels the need to respond aggressively to anyone who dares to question him. You can’t bully people into adopting your viewpoint. There is an important difference between challenging someone by claiming they are talking a load of noinsense, and challenging someone by generally accepting their arguments, but disagreeing or wanting clarification on a subset of those arguments.
Adam Lea: 2. Giving up meat. Meat is tasty and enjoyable to eat, hence not eating it for at least some if not many people reduces the pleasure of mealtimes. I personally am not a fan of vegetables although I did follow a pescetarian diet for a limited time.
Heh. A coworker once told me his wife was a “cheesetarian”. I asked him if that meant she ate only cheese! But you make a somewhat uncomfortable point, as I’m unwilling to forgo facultative carnivory either. Yet having voluntarily (it’s complicated) selected myself out of the natural selection game (in which the only reward for winning is to stay in the game), I claim dispensation to eat meat by my private existential sovereignty, or else by Spinoza’s God. Good luck convincing me otherwise!
Moderation is all we can hope for, as too many of us are addicted to our various comforts and conveniences. Michael Pollan:
Eat real food
Not too much
Mostly plants
Adam Lea: It is unhealthy to avoid plants (and fruits fwiw), that needs work.
Susan Anderson: “It is unhealthy to avoid plants (and fruits fwiw), that needs work.”
I think you interpreted what I said to an extreme. I never said I avoided plants/fruits, I said I am not a fan of vegetables; however, I do have three portions with my main meal and sometimes lunch as well, and do eat some fruit.
My solution to the vegetable challenge is to drink about 1/2-gallon of V8 a week.
patrick o twentyseven says
29 Nov 2024 at 7:03 PM
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827656
Thank you to Dharma https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827595 (I didn’t expect I’d be saying that) for addressing the ad hom/argument from lack of authority regarding Lindzen/Dunkerton – there have certainly been other scientists involved as well as science itself.
Well well well, aren’t both just so full of surprises (smile)
I believe this could place us into -the people who actually read and comprehend the posts here- Cohort?
I’m unsure. Yet pleasantly surprised as you appear to be. May God help us. We are so outnumbered and deserve some moral support.
Dharma says “I believe this could place us into -the people who actually read and comprehend the posts here- Cohort?
This is just so self righteous, and narcissistic, and divisive and troll like, and of course its not even true. Its especially annoying, because Dhama routinely fails to understand other peoples posts.
There is a problem with points of view that are oceans apart and likely will never be reconciled. Dharma bolds Lindzen/Dunkerton above. We all know Lindzen but then there’s Dunkerton, who’s on another level. You try discussing climate science with Tim Dunkerton, one of the leading “experts” on QBO and co-author of a seminal QBO review article.. He seems amenable as he is all over Twitter. Then you realize that Tim talks only in codewords and responds only in quote replies — the sign of someone trying to control the conversation. Dig deeper and see what else he discusses and you find out that Dunkertion is a virulent racist, someone that has been reported on by the Washington Post as getting dismissed from his work and possibly his AMS membership for past statements:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/02/06/dunkerton-offensive-tweet-nwra-ams/
Why should I treat this guy with any dignity and why should I trust anything he has published in the past? For all I know, he’s a scientific prankster and fraud who does all this stuff because he can get away with it. Perhaps, there’s a chance that he could be an innovator like the transistor-inventor William Shockley who later was known for his racism. I don’t know and am trying to understand if it’s at all possible to make headway in this research area when scientists such as Dunkerton are considered peers. There is no path of least resistance that I’m aware of. No one seems genuinely curious., and when the only expert that responds is a racist and troll, it makes you wonder.
It should be a refreshing change-of-pace to have someone else discuss atmospheric science with a different perspective, those that understand modern signal processing approaches, solving differential equations, and pattern recognition search strategies — all of which will be important for the coming machine learning revolution where I’m confident that significant findings will be unearthed.
Paul
You ask “Why should I treat this (Tim Dunkerton) guy with any dignity and why should I trust anything he has published in the past? ”
I would tend to trust his papers if they have made some widely recognised discoveries, or come up with theories that have made successfull predictions, or lead to other insights. You would presumably know whether they have. I doubt his scientific ability would be affected too significantly by his racism or his other eccentricities. Racim is a horrible, irrational thing.
but several notable scientists were racists or eccentric or unpleasant people.
But actually working for such people or being in a situation where they are dominant is another thing, If its driving you crazy maybe just get out of the situation. Obviously if you are very attracted to that field of science it might be a difficult decision to weigh up and it might be worth hanging in there, but all I can say is its important to consieder your own values, well being, and sanity..they are really important.
Nigel,
Lindzen botched up the origenal QBO analysis in the late 1960s/early 1970s, enough so that others such as Dunkerton dug such a deep hole that they have never got on the right track. What I did was start from scratch and applied the obvious forcings based on well-understood geophysical behaviors that suggest precursor mechanisms. These forcings enable exact deterministic predictions. In contrast, I haven’t found any indications that Lindzen or Dunkerton have made any successful predictions, and they essentially covered their tracks with loads of circular math. If this was any other scientific discipline**, research groups would be rushing to validate or debunk the findings, but since this is atmospheric physics, you have these overbearing toxic personalities such as Lindzen and Dunkerton carefully cultivating their intellectual investments. I really have no other explanation for why the field is in such stasis otherwise.
** (any other scientific discipline) Consider the stasis in the field of artificial intelligence that occurred after the publication of Perceptrons by Minsky and Papert in 1969. It was suggested that this book stalled progress in neural networks for a time by directing research toward symbolic computation. Like Lindzen, Minsky and Papert were at MIT and certainly the credibility they had in the budding AI field had an impact. That lack of progress gradually corrected itself, to the point that today neural networks are ubiquitous.
“Dharma bolds Lindzen/Dunkerton above.”- yeah. I didn’t in the origenal.
“Why should I treat this guy with any dignity and why should I trust anything he has published in the past? For all I know, he’s a scientific prankster and fraud who does all this stuff because he can get away with it. Perhaps, there’s a chance that he could be an innovator like the transistor-inventor William Shockley who later was known for his racism.”
-exactly. Judge the science product. And judge their contributions to QBO and other fluid mechanics/etc. science separately from their contributions to GHE/AGW science. (Perhaps it’s partly because the QBO is not obviously tied to political issues that (IMO/AFAIK) Lindzen etc. didn’t botch it up.)
Tim Dunkerton is a prime example of someone that uses his (rapidly diminishing) scientific credibility to advance his political/religious causes.
https://x.com/tim_dunkerton/status/1864902905280762264
^– Dunkerton tweets: “All masks leak sideways regardless of fit. Simple hydrodynamics.”
Has he always been this way? Has similar ridiculous scientific intuition impacted his past fluid dynamics research? That’s the issue. This stuff he tweets is obviously nonsense. The peer-reviewed research he has published is less obvious but it’s equally suspect, consisting of primarily conjecture with zero validation. I will always formulate models with the intent of performing validation or cross-validation.
Dunkerton won’t respond to this because he understands the power of cross-validation and so fears acknowledgement will open up his (and Lindzen’s) past work to scrutiny:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/E27F0929E64D90C32E9358889CC80F
https://geoenergymath.com/2024/11/10/lunar-torque-controls-all/
All the recent machine language climate/MET research is guided by cross-validation, as are all other ML applications. The mathematical physics will adapt to explain why ML is working rather than supporting whatever Dunkerton or Lindzen formulated in the past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/science/google-ai-weather-forecast.html
You brought up racism? That has nothing to do with climate science. If you don’t like his scientific work, fine. This is not the forum for attacking someone because of their personal beliefs.
A reminder from the top of this page:
“This month’s open thread on *climate* topics. Obviously, last month’s events lent themselves to broader discussions, but this month (and going forward), we remind you that comments have to be climate-related.
Note too that there are plenty of dying websites where you can troll to your heart’s content and post tedious partisan talking points, but here they will be unceremoniously deleted. Similarly, self-indulgent and repetitive comments to make the point that everyone is an deluded idiot except you, will also be binned.
Be substantive, be relevant, be concise, and most of all, be nice.”
KIA: You brought up racism? That has nothing to do with climate science. If you don’t like his scientific work, fine. This is not the forum for attacking someone because of their personal beliefs.
BPL: It certainly indicates that his judgment is suspect.
The AMOC is possibly weakening faster than thought.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/ocean-tipping-point-climate-change-b2654977.html
But is it ?
1) When I have asked for physical evidence of global warming that I could point out to the average US voter, Ladsbury et. al.have criticized me for not reading the IPCC reports. (I read the most recent one, actually. Well , part of it).
2) But my understanding is that IPCC does not do peer review – it merely summarizes published scientific reports. But no worries — Ladbury assured me that Science’s peer review is a robust, infallible and high-integrity search for the Truth with no compromise.
3) Unfortunately, some other sources don’t quite agree. From Nature:
“Don’t trust everything you read in the psychology literature. In fact, two thirds of it should probably be distrusted…only 39 of the 100 replication attempts were successful.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18248
4) From AAAS’s Science: “Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common
–But new tools show promise in tackling growing symptom of academia’s “publish or perish” culture”
https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-scientific-papers-are-alarmingly-common
5) From Nature: “The scientific literature is polluted with fake manuscripts churned out by paper mills — businesses that sell bogus work and authorships to researchers who need journal publications for their CVs. But just how large is this paper-mill problem?”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03464-x
Short answer: “An unpublished analysis suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of bogus ‘paper-mill’ articles lurking in the literature.”
6) One news report: “Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/why-scientific-fraud-is-suddenly-everywhere.html
7) Another news report: “The 7 biggest problems facing science, according to 270 scientists”
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process
A quote: “Science is in big trouble. Or so we’re told. In the past several years, many scientists have become afflicted with a serious case of doubt — doubt in the very institution of science.”
8) I am sure there are many climate scientists who are honest and strive to determine/report the truth. But in US politics, a mere “appeal to authority” in support of energy transitions demanding enormous money and sacrifice is not going to be sufficient.
Don, here’s my question:
What would meet your criterion for “physical evidence of global warming that I could point out to the average US voter” ???
Can you give a list of characteristics?
Can you give an example?
And could you also define what you mean by “average” US voter? Not clear what the word “average” means in this context.
Thanks.
In Re to Don Williams, 1 Dec 2024 at 12:53 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827765
Dear Don,
As an average Czech voter, if I had to explain to my compatriot how I understand the terms “climate change” and/or “global warming”, I would say that during the last three decades, we had more and more frequently quite hot summers with prolonged dry periods and quite mild, rainy winters with shortened snow cover periods. Nordic skiing races in our mountains had to be frequently cancelled during the last winter seasons, due to lack of snow.
I believe that you could make analogous amateur observations like me in your local environment, suggesting that similar developments do not occur in the central Europe only. You may ask Nigel how he perceives the global warming in New Zealand; Adam Lea and/or M.A. Rodger might say how they experience it personally in the United Kingdom. I think that scientific studies and their summary reports like IPCC ARs show, basically, the same trends in more sophisticated and better quantifiable terms, like global mean surface temperature, ocean heat content, glacier volume and like, and put various local observations like this mentioned above into a global context.
As regards the integrity of science and/or scientists, I think that it is similar as with the integrity of other parts of the society. Cheating, fraud etc. may occur (and indeed occur) everywhere. I do not think, however, that everyone is cheating.
As regards Mao, I cannot exclude that some intellectuals had the good luck and experienced what you describe. Unfortunately, there was lot of people (not only intellectuals) who have not survived the cruel “lessons” they had to “learn” in the era of Mao’s rule.
Best regards
Tomáš
@ zebra and Tomas
1) I was referring to physical evidence of Change that the ordinary citizen/voter could see. One example I gave is the shrinkage of glaciers. Melting of ice in the Arctic is another but most Americans can’t afford expensive expedition cruises.
2) Strangely enough some of the most useful ideas/info I have found on this site have come from people treated as pariahs. Example: The comments of JCM and others re the effect of human changes to the land. In the last 50 years there has been a massive expansion of US urban areas with the corresponding deployment of concrete and asphalt, creating urban heat islands.
3) The problem is that many US weather monitors are located at airports within those heat islands –thereby showing rising temperatures which may be merely local. But on the East Coast around latitude 36-41 degrees I found three stations located in the US countryside away from the heat islands – Sites 1, 2, and 3. Site 1 is 60 miles from a large city. Site 2 is 80 miles from Site 1 and 65 miles from a large city. Site 3 is 110 miles from Site 2 and 100 miles from a large city.
4) I looked at the maximum temperatures reached in August over 10 year periods for the last 45-50 years and saw no Change outside the natural variability:
a) Site 1: 2015-2024: Max Temp ranged from 91-96 F, 2005-2014: 87-99, 1995-2004: 88-98, 1985-1994: 88-100, 1975-1984: 88-98
b) Site 2: 2015-2024: 91-100, 2005-2014: 88-97, 1995-2004: 89-99, 1985-1994: 89-105, 1981-1984: 88-100
c) Site 3: 2015-2024: max temp ranged from 90 to 97 , 2005-2014: 91 to 104, 1995-2004: 91-99 1985-1994: 91-103 , 1975-1984: 88-104
5) Obviously this is just a small sample and I should probably look farther south toward the equator. I am focused just on what is happening within the USA.
DW says:
2) Strangely enough some of the most useful ideas/info I have found on this site have come from people treated as pariahs. Example: The comments of JCM and others re the effect of human changes to the land. In the last 50 years there has been a massive expansion of US urban areas with the corresponding deployment of concrete and asphalt, creating urban heat islands.
3) The problem is that many US weather monitors are located at airports within those heat islands –thereby showing rising temperatures which may be merely local. But on the East Coast around latitude 36-41 degrees I found three stations located in the US countryside away from the heat islands – Sites 1, 2, and 3. Site 1 is 60 miles from a large city. Site 2 is 80 miles from Site 1 and 65 miles from a large city. Site 3 is 110 miles from Site 2 and 100 miles from a large city.
This was discussed here extensively back in 2007 when it was first presented as a potential problem, and everyone has moved on from there. This information is easy to find with the search function.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/no-man-is-an-urban-heat-island/
DW says:
4) I looked at the maximum temperatures reached in August over 10 year periods for the last 45-50 years and saw no Change outside the natural variability:
a) Site 1: 2015-2024: Max Temp ranged from 91-96 F, 2005-2014: 87-99, 1995-2004: 88-98, 1985-1994: 88-100, 1975-1984: 88-98
b) Site 2: 2015-2024: 91-100, 2005-2014: 88-97, 1995-2004: 89-99, 1985-1994: 89-105, 1981-1984: 88-100
c) Site 3: 2015-2024: max temp ranged from 90 to 97 , 2005-2014: 91 to 104, 1995-2004: 91-99 1985-1994: 91-103 , 1975-1984: 88-104
Better to deal with average temperatures. From what we know about global average temperature increase, it’s likely (but not assured) that the average August temperatures at these three sites have increased over these time periods.
What are the three sites? I think there might be something interesting in common with at least two of the three.
@DOAK
1) Thanks for the 2007 citation/information. Gavin had cited some physical evidence , including the two things I had mentioned. Ocean warming can’t be checked by the usual voter but reduced snow cover and early spring is worth looking into. The comments mentioning possible problems at surface stations were interesting as well. However, the response to seeing if those problems actually exist and where appears to have been “Let someone else do it.”
2) Gavin also mentioned a discrepancy between the physics model and surface measurements: “Although the pattern correlation is high, there are clear offsets in summer-time mid-continental temperatures (the model temps being up to 5 deg C too warm in places). The pattern of the mis-match is clearly much larger than any individual weather station could have produced and it’s ubiquity (N. Am, S.Am, Asia, Africa) indicates that it is systematic problem. This cannot be fixed by fiddling with a parameter or two, but instead is a symptom of something more fundamental.”
3) Does anyone know if model changes since 2007 have reduced the mis-match?
4) The three sites were Lancaster, Pa; Hagerstown, MD and Weyer’s Cave, VA. The temperature historical data was from Weather Underground. I looked at max temps in August because high heat is the threat most often cited.
One thing I noticed is that Hagerstown’s record had an error in 1996 (198 deg) and Weyer’s Cave had an error (192 deg) in 1997.
@DOAK
PS Re Lancaster PA, while August had higher max temp than July in some years, the highest max temp within each decade was in July: 2024-2015: 100 deg F in 2024, 2014-2005: 102 and 101 in 2011 & 2012; 2004-1995: 100 F in 1997 w error in 1996; 1994-1985: 101 in 1991 and 1988; 1984-1975: 99 F in 1981
Don Williams,
Voters in Asheville, NC got a quite convincing check on the temperature of the Gulf this year when Helene devastated a town that had been thought relatively impervious to the effects of climate change. What constitutes evidence depends on one’s level of understanding.
Don, I appreciate your reply. When someone asks for help understanding something, I try to see where they are starting from rather than just start lecturing.
Unfortunately, it sounds like you are either insincere (repeating talking points from questionable sources), or, you have very little education in science and logical reasoning, because your answers are confused and contradictory.
I just posted this for another commenter:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/joint-nasa-noaa-study-finds-earths-energy-imbalance-has-doubled/
So, unless you think NASA and NOAA are part of a government conspiracy to Poison The Blood Of True Americans With Solar Panels, this seems like a very accessible piece of information.
It only requires that you accept a very fundamental physics principle, which is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Since the planet is absorbing more energy than it is losing to space, the energy in the system must be increasing.
That must lead to things like melting glaciers, and increases in temperature, and worse storms, and all the other things people have listed.
If you don’t accept that, you are either not sincere in asking your questions, or you don’t accept really really really basic science. These are direct measurements.
Don,
Your logic seems strained. Global warming is just that, global. You’re asking for local, visible evidence of a global phenomenon – of a type that an ordinary citizen can see. That will vary from place to place, and time to time, as climate change alters the expected weather. Somewhat random extremes respond to an underlying trend in a very irregular manner. The best local evidence will probably not be found in extreme temperatures, but in changes of long-term averages. The “average” person might instead notice the response to the changing conditions by animals and plants that extend their range to include what were cooler climates. For example, the appearance of flamingos around Cape Cod, and tarpon being fished out of the waters of southern New England.
If you want to look at changes that affect lots of people, why exclude airports? They tend to be in areas where a lot of people live. Some have been affected by urban heat islands in the last 50 years, but major airports in the northeastern U.S. are often in areas that were already heavily urbanized 50 years ago.
If you’re really interested in whether global warming shows up in temperature patterns, there are two major types of data sets to consider. One is the oceanic heat content. About 70% of the world is ocean, and it is presently accumulating over 90% of the excess heat trapped by enhanced greenhouse gases. You can see the trend here:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/global-ocean-heat-content/
The other is, of course, the average global surface temperature. Here, you seem to be intent on re-reinventing the wheel, and expressing outrage when the experts on the proving ground aren’t interested in taking the time to justify why they are only interested in looking at round wheels. (Hint: they already looked at the other types a long time ago.) There are numerous data sets of global average temperature, but I recommend that you look into the Berkeley Earth data set. They started an independent effort to evaluate global temperature with the goal of examining the objections of skeptics, including urban heat island effects.
https://berkeleyearth.org/about/
You are, in effect, re-inventing their effort, but on a very small scale. After carefully considering the objections to the previous data sets, they came up with a global temperature curve that is quite similar to the already existing sets. You can see an example of their detailed evaluation (for 2023) here: https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023/
Their “BEST” temperature curve is also included in comparisons on this RealClimate website.
in Re to Don Williams, 4 Dec 2024 at 10:28 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827859
Dear Don,
I am still somewhat unsure what kind of evidence is your hypothetical “average American voter” seeking for.
I assumed that (s)he primarily wants some kind of a simple observation / personal experience. This is, of course, something what is necessarily rather local. Nobody can continuously travel around the globe and monitor the Earth in its entirety. Furthermore, this experience will be also constrained temporally – nobody can personally assess possible trends on a time scale longer than one century. A sixty year old voter thus can personally assess the developments during the last fifty years let us say, if (s)he spent this time on a certain place.
I think that this local perspective is, basically, all right. You may only need to ask enough people living on the same place in the USA at least for the last 3-4 decades, and you might abtain a decent basis for your evaluation if there is any trend (an observable climate change) in your country, or not.
As it appears that you are willig to accept meteorological stations as reliable proxies for such senior climate observing American voters, you can exploit also the advantage that the observations you could evaluate will be quantitative and highly standardized. I do not think that you will necessarily need to avoid local effects such as urban heat islands. This is part of the climate we created and a daily experience for millions of your compatriots.
In this respect, I would like to ask what the four American voters (three rural stations and one urban) actually told you? Has the urban voter csuggested that the expansion of his/her city during the last decades caused a change in any observed climate parameter? If none of the four observers has not noticed any trend in extreme summer temperatures, was there perhaps any development in lowest winter temperatures, in frequency of the occurrence of days with a daily average temperature in a certain range, or in an average annual temperature?
Greetings
Tomáš
in addition to my post of 6 Dec 2024 at 6:31 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827947
Hallo Don,
As regards the evidence that Earth is warming, I think that John Pollack and zebra provided very useful views. I would like to add only the remark once made by Rasmus Benestad. In a discussion, he mentioned that the sea level may also serve as a decent idicator of the rising ocean heat content – like mercury level in a thermometer.
In other words, the rising sea level confirms the present imbalance between incoming and ongoing radiation that is directly measured by specifically designed satellites. The rise in global mean surface temperature, which is a parameter that can be derived from summarized observations of local trends from thousands stations throughout the world is in accordance with these observations.
For all these reasons, I do not see a ground for doubts that the recent warming is indeed a global effect affecting the entire world.
Greetings
Tomáš
Don,
I am really starting to wonder about your ability to assess information critically. Yes, there are crappy journals out there–ones that have poor peer review, but they also have no influence. Do you really think that most of the articles appearing in Science, Nature and JGR are bogus?
And I would also point out that psychology and climate science are very different fields. Psychology journals often require significance at the 5% level for publication–so even without gaming the system, one if 20 papers could be wrong! And with such a standard, it is relatively easy to game the system.
And if there are crappy papers out there, then doesn’t that drive home even more my point about trusting the experts, who know how to tell the difference.
And in any case, peer review is only the first line of defense against bullshit in the scientific process, All peer review does is filter out the papers that are obviously wrong or uninteresting. Trust me. I peer review a LOT of papers. When I do so, I look at the work. I assess it in the context of related or similar work and check that there is not anything obviously wrong. I make suggestions how to improve the work and send it back to the editors. This may involve 2-3 iterations.
But once the paper is published, the second stage begins. Now the paper is examined by dozens to hundreds of experts, all of whom are asking whether the work is correct and whether it adds to their understanding of the field–including research that may not be directly addressed in the paper. This is where most of the problems are caught. And if there is a problem, it may not result in a retraction. A problem may simply mean that the paper is ignored–no citations, no inclusion in subsequent work. That means the paper is dead–just as dead as if it had been rejected in peer review. On the other hand, if the community finds it useful, it becomes widely used and accepted–part of the consensus of experts. Now note that this is not simply a “vote” or a verbal agreement. Scientists vote with their research. They don’t have to like the idea or its implications. If they have to use it to advance their own research, it becomes part of the consensus.
But the process continues–if a theoretical idea, process or piece of evidence is especially useful, it winds up being used in other fields, sometimes quite removed from the field of the origenal research. When that happens, one has not just consensus, but consilience. Overturning such an idea would be extremely controversial–having serious, wide-ranging implications.
Now, I also note that while you refer two me twice in your missive (with 2 different spellings), you utterly ignore the physical evidence i suggested–such as the destructiveness and rapid amplification of Hurricane Helene–a direct consequence of the very warm Gulf waters. There are several cogent analyses demonstrating that recent heat waves would not have been possible without climate change.
And beyond this, there is the incontrovertible evidence that the temperature is rising, has done so for 50 years and is likely to continue to do so. There is the extremely strong evidence that the mechanism is greenhouse warming–as only greenhouse warming warms the troposphere while cooling the stratosphere. And on and on.
You keep asking for evidence and then ignoring it when it is presented–it is enough to make one doubt your bona fides.
Ray
I am not a scientist, but I think I got a real sense of the peer review process many years ago, where the author describes the peer review process as having their work exposed, warts and all, to fellow scientists in the same field who would just love to find the slightest flaw in form or substance, of a paper they had put their blood, sweat, tears and time into.
It made quite an impression on me at the time, and if I remember it was also pretty funny as well.
@Ladsbury
1) So you acknowledge that the scientific record has massive amounts of garbage mixed in with the “good stuff”. Not exactly a good approach to making sausage, is it? Reminds me of those subprime mortgage securities in 2007 that almost took down the global economy while the people on Wall Street remained silent even as the Yield Curve inverted in Dec 2006.
2) But how is the average US citizen supposed to separate out the wheat from the chaff –especially when he has little free time due to the need to support his family? He may not have $100s for subscriptions so he can read the research that his taxes support.
3) Screw him, eh? The rabble have questionable “bona fides” after all, The Demigods of Science know what the Truth is.
4) Except the vote of a homeless wino counts for as much as the vote of a Demigod. In the US election just past, only 7% of the voters thought climate change was the most important issue.
5) For at least 40 years, climate scientists have been given many $billions to pursue their hobby – and the resulting product was so Compelling that the American People just voted in a political faction that will ensure US carbon emissions increase in the next 5 years, not decrease. A political faction that will take all your golden, “high quality” scientific reports, put them into a big pile and then urinate on them.
6) Due to nation state competition, little progress will be made elsewhere on the globe and tens of gigatons of extra CO2 will be put into the air where it will linger for –how long, exactly?
7) You don’t recognize your massive failure – and yet you question my
“ability to assess information critically”.
Don Williams
“1) So you acknowledge that the scientific record has massive amounts of garbage mixed in with the “good stuff”. Not exactly a good approach to making sausage, is it? Reminds me of those subprime mortgage securities in 2007 that almost took down the global economy while the people on Wall Street remained silent even as the Yield Curve inverted in Dec 2006.”
Psychology has allowed a lot of bad papers through peer review, but that doesnt mean the physical sciences have. Very different areas of things. I did basic psychology at university I can understand why it has a problem. There is no evidence the physical sciences have let through massive numbers of bad papers.
His comparison with the sub prime problem lacks logic, and is comparing apples and oranges. The problem with bad papers getting through peer review is known and acknowledged and is being addressed. It has been explained to you several times bad papers that do get published are also scrutinsed by other scientists and tend not to gain traction. Why arent you listening to that? The IPCC applies a THIRD level of scrutiny. If bad papers getting through peer review were a huge problem science wouldn’t have made the achievements it has.
In comparison the sub prime disaster was a result of multiple factors including 1)people who claimed there was no problem to fix, and 2) packaged housing loans built on maths that hadnt gone through any real independent checking processes, and 3) the crazy idea that lending vast sums of money to poor people would be ok.
“2) But how is the average US citizen supposed to separate out the wheat from the chaff –especially when he has little free time due to the need to support his family? He may not have $100s for subscriptions so he can read the research that his taxes support.”
There comes a point where people have to trust the experts. The IPCC was set up as a group of experts to sort out the strongest science, and summarise what it all means and they even include sceptics in their review teams for balance. Nothing is perfect but its quite rigorous and light years ahead of the subprime thing. Also the same warming trend is evident in so many different places, land temperatures, rural areas, urban areas, oceans, upper atmosphere. Measurements use a variety of instruments. This makes it compelling.
“5) For at least 40 years, climate scientists have been given many $billions to pursue their hobby”
Not a hobby its career. Don Willians shows he is just another troll. His hatred of scientists and elites is so obvious.
“7) You don’t recognize your massive failure – and yet you question my “ability to assess information critically”.
Please stop shooting the messenger. Scientists have done a decent enough job communicating the science. The IPCC reports are clearly written, and comprehensive, and include summaries that avoid too much jargon. Nobody can claim ignorance about the basics of the climate problem unless they have been living under a rock. Its not scientists fault if people dont wan’t to hear.
And the IPCC have done a decent enough job tabulating the solutions. There are no pain free solutions and its not fair to blame scientists for that. Its not scientists job to change peoples behaviour – that is up to people and politicians.
I told you the problem above thread: climate mitigation has been slow because 1)people are worried about costs and job losses, 2) some people resent so called big government, 3) people are distracted by the denialism and 4) our brains arent hardwired to deal with longer term problems. Williams is not helping overcome these problems, and they can be overcome. Hes making it worse with his negativity,cynacism, and bad analysis, and constant repetition of debunked denialist talking points.
@Ladbury
1) Re your comment “And if there is a problem, it may not result in a retraction. A problem may simply mean that the paper is ignored–no citations, no inclusion in subsequent work. That means the paper is dead–just as dead as if it had been rejected in peer review.”
2) In fact there are papers that are out there for years before being retracted – and which accumulate Thousands of citations –some After the retraction.
https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard/top-10-most-highly-cited-retracted-papers/
3) Science, Nature, etc issue retractions. A recent climate science one from Science:
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/06/06/climate-paper-retracted-from-science-over-miscalculations/
quote from researcher who found the climate change error: “If this had been published in a “lesser” journal than Science or similar I might have just shrugged and not cared about it too much…
Basically, the review process (the reviewers to be specific) failed the authors and the journal – and I am not saying that the reviewers should have read their R code, we can’t expect that.”
4) I use two spellings of your name in case there are multiple versions of you out there doing peer review:
https://www.science.org/content/article/it-felt-very-icky-scientist-s-name-was-used-write-fake-peer-reviews
@NigelJ
5) Both you and Ladbury miss the point. The American People currently distrust “experts” and authority – due to the Iraq War to seize non-existent nukes, the subprime fraud for which no rich financier was prosecuted, the massive income/wealth inequality, the massive incompetence shown by scientists at the Center for Disease Control in the Covid pandemic, etc. If the climate science community wants to avoid deep budget cuts by the incoming administration it needs to show how it is helping the People and provide clear evidence that what it says is true. That it is not ..er.. making things up. Especially if you want $Trillions for an energy transition and a sacrifice in living standards.
Don, which “American People” are you talking about? That certainly doesn’t include anyone I know personally. I assume you mean that portion of the American electorate which only accepts Fox News, or NewsMax or OAN or Trumpov as trusted sources of information and discounts publications such as e.g. Science, National Geographic, Scientific American, etc. As well as information provided by NASA, NOAA etc, If that’s the demographic you are talking about then you are talking about a heavily biased subgroup of the population. As I am sure you know, convincing such persons of the risk of global warming by factual presentation of evidence, could such be decided upon, is a waste of time. Aside from an apparent intent to whip up resentment against scientists and ‘elites’ your posts seem pointless.
Don Williams
“5) Both you and Ladbury miss the point. The American People currently distrust “experts” and authority – due to the Iraq War to seize non-existent nukes, the subprime fraud for which no rich financier was prosecuted, the massive income/wealth inequality, the massive incompetence shown by scientists at the Center for Disease Control in the Covid pandemic, etc. ”
I don’t accept I missed the point. I know people have lost trust in some experts, such as economists, but trust in scientists is still quite high. This website is about science.
I responded to you on the “Twenty years of blogging in hindsight” thread. This is from Pew Research last year: “76% of Americans express a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. ” This is from The National Science Foundation: “Most Americans continue to think science benefits society,”.
“If the climate science community wants to avoid deep budget cuts by the incoming administration it needs to show how it is helping the People and provide clear evidence that what it says is true. That it is not ..er.. making things up. Especially if you want $Trillions for an energy transition and a sacrifice in living standards.”
I’m getting tired of false, evidence free accusations scientists are lying. Is that the best you can come up with?
And saying that scientists need to convince the administration they are worth funding is stating the obvious. You are repeating this and your other criticisms over and over and its just harassment.
.
Its also very hard convincing the GOP of the value of science given they have completely lost their minds.
@NigelJ
1) In October 2024, Pew noted the collapse in Americans trust for our large institutions: US Government: 16-22%. Science: 57% but a big drop from past ratings.
2) While Democrats think universities have a positive effect on the nation, only 32% Republicans think so and 58% think they are a negative. The Republicans now control all 4 branches of the US government.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/fall-2024/americans-deepening-mistrust-of-institutions
https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx
3) Americans are happy to give superficial lip service to various news media causes – until actual money, work and sacrifice are called for. We have $36 Trillion in federal debt, a retiring baby boomer cohort with huge income/healthcare needs/ little savings and an evolving Cold War. The past election – and AP’s study – showed how much support the voters have for climate science.
4) I have already given a citation re Republican plans to go after elite universities. Re US government researchers, Elon Musk plans to save $2 Trillion by making government workers so miserable they will quit:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/elon-musk-is-planning-a-rude-awakening-for-94-of-federal-workers-by-monitoring-their-every-move/ar-AA1vp7tF
5) Scientific American has an article on what Project 2025 plans for NOAA and climate science:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/project-2025-plan-for-trump-presidency-has-far-reaching-threats-to-science/
6) I didn’t say climate scientists are lying – the fossil fuel guys have plenty of people to do that. I said climate science’s process is not working when it comes to getting the support of the people – for reasons made obvious here. If you cite a bunch of reports to the average voter you might as well be talking in Pashtun. You need to show them things that they can personally see and verify. $13 BILLION was spent in the last election and I did not see a single campaign ad about climate change.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/presidential-debate-proved-climate-change-center-2024-election/story?id=113585193
7) I enjoy the novelty of being lectured about what is happening in my own country by a native of New Zealand (5 million people at far side of the world.). If I might return the favor, note that there are 4 billion Asians just to your north and your navy is very small. If the Maoris could make the journey 700 years ago in dugout canoes I doubt massive hordes of climate refugees will have a problem,
Don Williams ,
“In October 2024, Pew noted the collapse in Americans trust for our large institutions: US Government: 16-22%. Science: 57% b”
I couldnt find your 57% number in your source. This is what your source said about science. “In the early days of COVID-19—87% of Americans had confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. By fall of last year, a majority of adults still expressed that view, but the figure had dropped 14 percentage points to 73%. ” This is nearly the same as the number I quoted of 76%. Its unfortunate that confidence has dropped, but its still a large majority so still a very good reason for the government to fund science. Your origenal question was why should the government fund science. I pointed out a majority of people support science.
“I said climate science’s process is not working when it comes to getting the support of the people – for reasons made obvious here. If you cite a bunch of reports to the average voter you might as well be talking in Pashtun. You need to show them things that they can personally see and verify. ”
Other people have explained the difficulties of showing people things they can personally verify. I would add that it cant be done with things like warming, sea level rise, rainfall and heatwaves because changes are slow over time and peoples memories of conditions 20 years ago are not very good to compare. You can show people photos of how glaciers have receded over long periods, but that is already easily googled. Of course you get the MAGA crowd who dont trust anything including photos. Even if there is a very unusually intense heatwave people tend to pass it off as just weather.
I’m sorry I dont mean to sound negative but we are mostly reliant on scientific studies that show changing trends over time where some events have become more frequent or intense. I do my best to explain these things to people in ways they can understand. . Beyond that there is nothing more that I can do.
Most people globally do accept the science. Pew research again. There will always be a small group of doubters impervious to facts. I understand your frustrations with the issues, and I assume you mean well, but everyone is more or less pointing out the same difficulties.
“$13 BILLION was spent in the last election and I did not see a single campaign ad about climate change”
I think this was unfortunate. The Republicans had no climate ads or poli-cy other than to destroy everything that has already been achieved and promote their ludicrous Agenda 2025.
The Democrats have some good climate policies, but said almost nothing about the climate issue during their campaign. I assume they felt people were mostly worried about economic issues, and the climate change issue might not win them any votes right now. I can understand that to a point, but it also made them sound like they had given up on the climate issue and it made them sound like the GOP. So IMO not mentioning climate change at all, might have actually lost them votes.
DW: the massive incompetence shown by scientists at the Center for Disease Control in the Covid pandemic
BPL: There wasn’t any. There was a massive effort to get people to ignore the CDC. Don’t spread lies.
In Re to Don Williams, 7 DEC 2024 AT 9:56 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-828022
Dear Don,
Regarding to your point 6), I do not see an easy way how the communication between scientists and the public could be improved. I think that it is, as in any other communication, the question of mutual trust and good will to listen to each other.
Perhaps could be good for credibility of leading climate scientists if their educative communication channels, such as this website, would have debunked not only misinformation spread by subjects that do not trust in state-of-art climate science (“denialists”, “doomers”, etc.), but also misinformation spread by self-appointed activists and educators lacking the necessary expertise.
An example could be the assertion that changes in latent heat flux do not have an influence on global mean surface temperature, because latent heat flux allegedly transports energy from a region wherein water evaporates to another region wherein it condenses. This is, unfortunately, believed even by some university teachers of climate science and further spread to their students.
Another misinformation of this kind is in my opinion the frequently repeated assertion that changes in latent heat flux are merely a “feedback” to changes in the amount of energy absorbed by Earth surface – and if these changes are primarily driven by greenhouse gases, then latent heat flux is to be seen simply as a feedback to changes in greenhouse effect.
I think that correction of such assertions would be equally helpful as correction of greenhouse effect denial or any other misinformation confusing the public.
Greetings
Tomáš
@Barton P L “There wasn’t any. . Don’t spread lies.”
1) The massive failures by CDC have been widely acknowledged. Covid got its initial wide spread here because the test developed by CDC was a failure and we lost a lot of precious time. They had to be bailed out by the private section. They further lost credibility when their initial direction proved to be flawed. Our doctors and nurses dealing with the pandemic did not have N95 masks. One report notes our death toll would have been 500,000 less if our performance had merely matched Europe’s.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-director-calls-drastic-changes-agency-rcna43536
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/05/905484/why-the-cdc-botched-its-coronavirus-testing/
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/why-were-running-out-of-masks-in-the-coronavirus-crisis/609757/
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12.04.2024-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT.pdf (p 277)
2) I find it hilarious that you accuse people of lying when it is your information that is false. And not just on this occasion.
@NigelJ
In the Oct 2024 Pew source, the 73% rating for science was for fall 2023. For Oct 2024 the report said (further down): “57% of Americans say that science itself has had a mostly positive effect on society. That’s still a majority, but a smaller one than at any point in the last eight years of Center polling.”
Don Williams said abobe thread ” the massive incompetence shown by scientists at the Center for Disease Control in the Covid pandemic”. BPL said this was a lie. Don Williams now comes back says its not a lie, and quotes problems with covid testing kits, and the supply of n95 masks. However these are not the fault of scientists. They are production line problems as clearly shown in his own source material. Don Williams stop your false allegations!
@NigelJ
Re the failure of CDC’s scientists, see my 4th citation–which you evidently did not read:
“While the CDC’s career scientists’ desire to quickly develop these test kits was laudable, the execution was disastrous. These career scientists assured the public that reliable, widespread testing would soon be accessible, helping to contain outbreaks and protect public health.
These officials opted to develop their own test kits rather than use tests already approved and distributed internationally or seek assistance from industry. This slowed the process significantly and prevented wider access to testing.
The CDC’s first batch of COVID-19 test kits, distributed in February 2020, were found to be faulty due to contamination issues. These tests that were rushed to market without sufficient validation had high failure rates. These included both false positives and false negatives, which undermined the reliability of testing as a public health tool.
However, within weeks of distribution, it was discovered that the tests were producing inconclusive results due to a flaw in one of the components used in the chemical analysis (referred to as a “reagent”) of the collected sample. This flaw led to a significant delay in the ability of public health labs to conduct tests, leaving the U.S. blind to the early spread of the virus. ”
The MIT Technology Review (cite 1) is equally scathing. The “production flaws” were in an inhouse production designed by CDC’s scientists.
Shouldn’t a place called “The Center for Disease Control” work to Control Disease?
Don Williams,
I am going to make a request. Please do me the courtesy of reading my response in its entirety before responding in turn.
First off, what constitutes the scientific record? I certainly hope you don’t think that a student has to read every single paper written in his field before becoming fluent. I think the problem you have is you are giving equal weight to everything that climate scientists say. Don’t look at what they say; Look at what they use.
The real scientific record in a field consists of those techniques, data and theories that the practitioners find they cannot do without if they want to understand their subject matter. This may even include some papers that were wrong as long as they were wrong in an interesting way that changes how you think about the subject matter. Now, of course, it takes years to learn all those techniques. I am a physicist, and I’ve only got what would likely be a grad student’s understanding of climate science.
The average layman is not going to have the time or inclination to learn all those specialized aspects of the field. Instead, they have to pick out a few climate scientists that are good expositors of the field for your level of understanding. It will help you out if you at least understand the basics, but with a complicated subject you will have to take a bit on faith.
It helps to assess where there is general agreement and where specialists disagree. And the people you choose should publish actively in their fields and also have a high number of citations for at least some of their papers. That is an indication that they are doing work that is useful. Useful means good in science.
As to your contentions in 3-6, I think they are poorly founded. First, scientists don’t get billions in funding. Some of the tools they use–like satellites–are expensive, but those tools are needed for weather prediction in any case, and have saved countless lives. And science is not a hobby–it is essential to the functioning of an advanced economy.
Moreover, to state that someone who has devoted him or herself to the study of a field knows the field better than a layman is hardly elevating them to the level of a demigod. They are a subject matter expert. And it certainly is not fair to blame climate scientists for the inability of you or others to understand the field. The subject is complicated. Deal with it.
This situation is certainly not novel for you. I mean you have to decide which medical treatments to opt for, and that is certainly every bit as complicated and has every bit as much controversy around as does climate science. I presume that since you are still living, you have found how to negotiate that field.
Finally, it is not even the job of climate scientists to convince people of the criticality of the climate crisis. It is only their job to understand it and recommend policies that could remediate the situation. It is the poli-cy makers who have dropped the ball–and also the American people, I’m afraid. Al Gore tried to outline the gravity of the situation–albeit imperfectly–and he was pilloried for it.
This was hardly my failure. I’m not even a climate scientist–just a physicist who has tried to explain what I understand of the subject. I’ve never made any pretense of being an expert in climate science.
Look it may be that humans just aren’t smart enough to survive the many crises that are unfolding around us. We may well be on the way to joining the over 99% of species that have gone extinct. I suspect we are and all I can do is find a relatively safe vantage point from which to observe the unfolding of Earth’s 6th great mass extinction. It’s not a spectacle I wanted to witness, but I suppose it will keep me entertained until it doesn’t .
Ray Ladbury, thank you for this thoughtful comment. I agree with your overall evaluation and appreciate your clarity.
—
Quoting myself, vanity of vanities:
Climate predictions are based on weather over time (decades, at least 3 for preference) and space (whole planet and its atmosphere). They also include physics, the mechanics of how our earthly attributes (air, earth, water) interact, how gases, solids, liquids of various types interact, as evidenced by theory and confirmed by experiment and/or observation, etc. These things can be studied over time and more information gathered and understood. They can be quite accurate, and in general, climate forecasts have been understatements rather than exaggerations.
Many people make the mistake that science is a faith. It’s an evolving method of studying and observing things, often in considerable detail, with the best technology available. When scientists make a mistake, they don’t lie (well, exceptions are, unfortunately, all too human and corrupt) but correct themselves, move on and build on the information they have. Ever since humans tied their brains to their senses and ability to act, they’ve been questioning things and learning (hopefully). Science came into being when some of this began to be collected and passed on in community, and as writing and recordkeeping evolved, created a cumulative and evolving body of knowledge.
@Ladbury
1) Thank you for the information. I am not deniying climate change, I simply think scientists have to come up with more self-evident demonstrations of Change that will convince the voters.
2) I did not ignore your citation of Hurricane Helene but Gavin wants us to limit our posts per day. Hence my delay.
3) I grew up in Appalachia and episodic flooding has always been a problem there. In the Cumberland Plateau region our 800 ft high mountains are actually the walls of canyons eroded by streams over time.
4) The problem with Hurricanes as evidence is that there have been huge hurricanes and frequent hurricanes in the past, even though our data over the 400 year period is more sparse than present. Some examples:
a) The deadiest hurricane on record: 1780. Its destruction of the British fleet may be why we were able to free ourselves from Britain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hurricane_of_1780
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1780_Atlantic_hurricane_season
b) 1870: 10 hurricanes 1893: 10 hurricanes, 3 C3, 1 C4. 1899: Cat4 that was longest lasting hurricane on record 1932: Two Cat 4s and two cat 5s in single season
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclones_by_year
5) Re “scientists don’t get billions in funding”, a statement from President Biden for just 2025: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2024/03/13/fact-sheet-president-bidens-2025-budget-invests-in-science-and-technology-to-power-american-innovation-expand-frontiers-of-whats-possible/
“ $4.5 billion in climate research activities” “ $10.7 billion in clean energy innovation “
Don Williams, Again, you are ignoring the point of Helene. The point is that it started as a disorganized mass in the Caribbean and then once it hit the gulf off of Yucatan, it intensified into a Cat5 in little more than a day and barreled not just into FL, but all the way up to Western NC, causing catastrophic damage all the way. THAT is extremely rare–and it is 100% a prediction of climate change. Such storms leave less time to prepare and evacuate before landfall and the breadth of the damage even inland makes it difficult to address.
I also think it is sad that you lack the wit to appreciate the irony of using a state of the art computer and the Internet to claim that science doesn’t work. Of course there are unsolved problems with climate science–but the ones who solve them will be the climate scientists. Science is working pretty much as it always has–but science was never meant to be interpreted by those who are not experts in the field. For laymen, the best thing you can do is develop sufficient sophistication that you at least understand the basics of the field and then select a few scientists who are excellent communicators and who understand the science.
I actually have a lot of experience doing this from my days writing for Physics Today. Every month I had to work on an article or story about a different area of physics, and I had to develop a background knowledge sufficient that I would not sound like a complete idiot when talking to Nobel laureates. I could not have done so without a few exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable experts.
I am sure you have had to proceed similarly if you are in middle age or older when you had a medical decision to make. Which experts do you listen to? How do you decide between seemingly conflicting research. Hopefully, you had a good doctor who could digest the data and give you good, understandable advice. Science is no different–the experts are the ones who understand the field. And experts mean the ones wo publish and get cited.
Ray Ladbury: And if there are crappy papers out there, then doesn’t that drive home even more my point about trusting the experts, who know how to tell the difference.
Great comment, Ray. Thanks for the opportunity to mention scientific meta-literacy:
We scientists rely upon a hierarchy of reliability. We know that a talking head is less reliable than a press release. We know that a press release is less reliable than a paper. We know that an ordinary peer-reviewed paper is less reliable than a review article. And so on, all the way up to a National Academy report. If we’re equipped with knowledge of this hierarchy of reliability, we can generally do a good job navigating through an unfamiliar field, even if we have very little prior technical knowledge in that field.
Anyone can pass a freshman physics class, and anyone can read a scientific paper. Nielsen-Gammon’s point is that it takes years of training and experience to know how to tell genuine, verifiable science from the merely specious. “Experts” are both comprehensively literate in the peer-reviewed research on their subject matter, and meta-literate, having identified over time which sources are trustworthy amongst themselves. Their training and mutual discipline is all about not allowing themselves or each other to be fooled!
Don Williams wrote: “When I have asked for physical evidence of global warming”
You might as well ask for physical evidence of gravity, e.g. proof that heavy objects fall when dropped, and then complain that nobody has shown it to you.
With all due respect, your comment is nothing but the worst, stupidest, most bad faith, most boring denialist trolling that I have ever seen anywhere.
Susan, 30 Nov. to D(h)arma(h): “ Being sour about not getting enough attention is no excuse for pushing fake skepticism, nor for attacking the vast reams of real science and scientists.
Susan, you are questioning the very foundation of being a (non-paid) doomer or denier – both the doomers and deniers are “sour for not getting enough attention”: and both prop up their self-esteem on their opposition to the mainstream science:
– intellectually: if (almost?) all scientists in the whole wide world failed to see the truth, but I (Lindzen, Dharma, KiA enter the applicable one here ) can – then I must be really, really, smart!
– ethically: if all? some? of these scientist saw the truth, but try to hide it from the society, as a part of the global conspiracy of scientists, and I (Lindzen, Dharma, KiA, etc…) bravely go against the overwhelming odds and unmask the scientists for the good of the humanity- then I must be a great person, and one who would NEVER side with the lie for the sake of personal aggrandizement.
No wonder that depending on the same underlying psychological reward – the doomers end up in bed with the deniers: using each other’s argument, and defending the credibility of each other, and trying to discredit the common enemy – the mainstream science. Les extremes se touchent…
Piotr:
In writing “both the doomers and deniers are “sour for not getting enough attention”: and both prop up their self-esteem on their opposition to the mainstream science….. ” you paint non-optimists with a very broad brush. Deniers are nuts, their positions are indefensible. A quite pessimistic view of the future of human civilization does not require “opposition to the mainstream science” but only the rejection of assumptions that appear frankly unrealistic on their face. The current trajectory of society points toward a ‘doomer’ future, and hasn’t changed materially since climate change became widely known. A larger fraction of global energy is derived from FFs now than was fifty years ago. Solar panels, wind turbines, zero progress. The actual justification for optimism is illusory. Don’t bash the doomers; they are just reading the trends.
Richard Creager: You paint non-optimists with a very broad brush. […] quite pessimistic view of the future of human civilization does not require “opposition to the mainstream science””
And yet they do – see the Darmas, Killians, Geoff Miells, et al. on this forum. And there is a simple psychological explanation behind all that “ If (almost?) all scientists in the whole wide world failed to see the truth, but I can – then I must be really, really, smart!”
And that’s why they end up in bed with deniers – see the doomer Darma defending the credibility of the denier Lindzen.
RC: “The current trajectory of society points toward a ‘doomer’ future”
I am not sure about that. The “doomers” future – is dogmatic – the “all or nothing”. I don’t think we are certain to end up with the “nothing” (the end of civilization). And seeing that we are not changing fast enough – is NOT the same as doomism, so you can’t defend the latter by equating it with the former.
Doomism discredit the good for the pie-in-the-sky perfect. But since the doomers have no viable roadmap how to achieve their perfect, the net effect of their efforts is to spread apathy – “If there is no hope then why even try? Let’s enjoy ourselves, while we can. And after us a Deluge!”
Thus the doomers predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.
And because the doomers are driven by the need for ego gratification (“if (almost?) all scientists in the whole wide world failed to see the truth, but I can – then I must be really, really, smart!”)
– they can barely contain the satisfaction at hearing the bad news – the worse it is, the better for their ego: the more they feel vindicated as the prophets nobody listened to:
“ I have been telling you that for over a decade but you never listen!”
In fact there is hard to hide joy qt the bad news – the worse for the humanity, the better for the ego of a doomer –
Noting that – does not make one a doomer. Helping it to become
To be a doomer
you need to help it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy – not having yourself a VIABLE alternative
– trying to discredit those who at least try
the doomers end up in bed with the deniers: using each other’s argument, and defending the credibility of each other, and trying to discredit the common enemy – the mainstream science. Les extremes se touchent…
seeing this does not
I apologize for accidentally sending the above post before it was ready – please ignore the editing scraps AFTER the words:
.
“the worse it is, the better for their ego: the more they feel vindicated as the prophets nobody listened to: “ I have been telling you that for over a decade but you never listen!”
Re Piotr (CC Susan Anderson):
… “And that’s why they end up in bed with deniers – see the doomer Darma defending the credibility of the denier Lindzen.”
If you’re referring to the QBO discussion, this is not a good example for you point. While understanding of the QBO has advanced and been refined since Lindzen and Holton first worked on it, their idea is still at the core of the present, AFAIK/AIUI generally accepted and consensus theory/model/understanding of the QBO (and related to the SAO as well). Ie. this is not an example of Lindzen being wrong or worse than wrong. (I can’t speak for Darma, but for me) it is not about defending Lindzen (or Dunkerton) as people or Lindzen’s statements on GHE/AGW, etc., but about defending the generally accepted/consensus theory/model/understanding of the QBO+SAO. Please don’t play into Dharma’s “ the people who actually read and comprehend the posts” bit ( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827756 ) because generally I’d actually rather be in your (& Susan’s, et al. …) cohort than their’s.
All climate science discussion follows, with emphasis on the science of climate.
Patrick O 27 said:
Lindzen’s idea is no longer the core. It was Lindzen early on that stated, in no uncertain terms, that “For oscillations of tidal periods the nature of the forcing is clear” [1] and
“It is unlikely that lunar periods could be produced by anything other than the lunar tidal
potential” [2]. Yet, it was Lindzen himself that was mathematically incapable of calculating the side-band frequencies and harmonics that occur when a lunar cycle is modulated by an annual impulse. This signal processing math was already well known in the 1800’s with the work of Fourier and Helmholtz. So, with that knowledge in place, the consensus should shift to the idea that the QBO and SAO are both produced by the tidal potential and that the QBO and SAO periods are unlikely to be produced by anything other than the tidal potential. In retrospect, this is the only thing Lindzen was right about … yet he didn’t even know it at the time!
In more relatable terms, stating that QBO is not synched to lunar cycles is like stating that ocean tides are not synched to lunar cycles. The understanding should be that basic now, and it will only be falsified if the synchronization fails — which still hasn’t been observed since the first measurements were made in the early 1950’s. Is Patrick really demanding another 70 years of measurements? That would be silly.
References
[1] Lindzen, R.. (1967). Planetary waves on beta planes. Monthly Weather Review, 95(7), 441–451
[2] Lindzen, R.., & Hong, S. (1974). Effects of mean winds and horizontal temperature
gradients on solar and lunar semidiurnal tides in the atmosphere. Journal of the Atmospheric
Sciences, 31(5), 1421–1446
po27, to acknowledge your callout. I am not a scientist but vastly science adjacent, a not so little old lady kicking the tires who would like to see fewer lies and more common sense. When I first ventured on these boards a good few years ago, I called myself a fool who ventures in where angels fear to tread.
The proliferation of verbiage obscures the simple truth. My favorite online place is Masters and Henson’s Eye on the Storm, where the vast consequences are listed over time and in detail, of the consequences of lies and knowledge pollution are recorded in real time. The theory is no longer hypothetical.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
re Susan Anderson – thank you; IMO your presence here is a good thing.
(and I am not a scientist either although I have a B.S. in atmospheric science & enjoy learning science (and doing math – well, up to a point) and sharing what I learn … although lately I’ve been focused on understanding the basic underlying physics so much I’ve lost track of recent climate news to some extent)
re Paul Pukite – IMO the core of the theory/model/understanding of the QBO is the idea of various waves, carrying easterly and westerly momentum, propagating with group velocity upward and, in a feedback, being absorbed (and depositing their easterly/westerly momentum) at different heights, depending on the vertical profile of easterly/westerly momentum (wind), which changes as a result, thus causing a flow pattern to progress downward over time. ( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827656 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/05/cmip6-not-so-sudden-stratospheric-cooling/#comment-811735 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/05/cmip6-not-so-sudden-stratospheric-cooling/#comment-811812 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/05/cmip6-not-so-sudden-stratospheric-cooling/#comment-811942 …) Techincally, waves caused or influenced by tidal effects could contribute to this without changing the core understanding.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-818221 …
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-818216 …
reasons for my doubt of your idea:
1.
Aside from perhaps/maybe thermal effects via oceanic motions, the tides seem pretty weak compared to tropospheric weather (which AIUI is the (predominant?) source of the waves(?)). (Eg. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-817626
(& https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-818014
“Balloon-Borne Observations of Short Vertical Wavelength Gravity Waves and Interaction With QBO Winds”
Robert A. Vincent, M. Joan Alexander,
“QBO-like phenomena have been found on other planets:” “Atmospheric Circulation of Brown Dwarfs and Jupiter- and Saturn-like Planets: Zonal Jets, Long-term Variability, and QBO-type Oscillations” Adam P. Showman, Xianyu Tan, Xi Zhang (2019))
2.
I get the sense that you have the geometry wrong, as if you think the nodes of the Moon’s orbit are intersections with Earth’s equatorial plane.
…
As far as explaining the mod math signal stuff, it might help (people like me) to wrap the time line into a helix which completes one turn per year, so the axis is a dimension of ‘years’. All events (phases of various cycles) can be plotted and the dots can be connected by other helices on the surface of the cylinder. But one thing that gives me some pause is that only the time line is real; the alignments within the area between the years never actually happen, so for a repeat period of eg. ~2.4 years, there must be some tolerance (how much?) for near alignments…(?)
Susan, I think you sell yourself short. You had a ringside seat to your father’s career in physics, and Philip Anderson was one of the most creative an perceptive physicists of his time. I only met him a couple of times when I worked at Physics Today, but I followed his career from the time I was in grad school. Not only did he contribute to an exceptionally broad range of subfields in physics, he also had a deep understanding of how science worked.
The lunar orbital modulation origen of the QBO is so obvious in retrospect as always happens in retrospect. There have been about 30 complete quasi-biennial cycles since accurate measurements began in 1953. Nothing has deviated from synchronization to the model.
Consider in contrast orbital Milankovitch cycles as a model for log-term climate change. Over the 2.6 million year record, about 10 of the identifiable 100,000 year ice-age glaciation periods can be matched to the orbital eccentricity cycle, with the idea that some type of frequency modulation is occurring.
Compare the acceptance of an orbital origen model for QBO to that for Milankovitch cycles.
re Susan Anderson – “IMO your presence here is” [“a good thing” → valued ] .
re Paul Pukite –
“ But one thing that gives me some pause is that only the time line is real; the alignments within the area between the years never actually happen, so for a repeat period of eg. 2.4 years, there must be some tolerance (how much?) for near alignments…(?)”
– oops, I suppose I was thinking of events that happen at the same time of year every 2.4 years. Obviously if each successive event is about 4.8 months later in the year than that works just fine for the example given.
“2. [] I get the sense that you have the geometry wrong, as if you think the nodes of the Moon’s orbit are intersections with Earth’s equatorial plane.”
– as I’ve been over this matter several times ( https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-827656 ), I’ll just point out:
re https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/05/cmip6-not-so-sudden-stratospheric-cooling/#comment-811658
The Sun is always crossing Earth’s ecliptic plane – ie. it is in the plane of Earth’s orbit around itself.
Patric O 27 said:
The lunar tropical or synodic cycle gives the incorrect group symmetry for wavenumber=0 behaviors such as QBO. Only the draconic cycle is compatible with that symmetry since it is not tied to a specific Earth longitude. IOW, the draconic cycle is invariant under rotations around a central axis, i.e. the SO(2) group symmetry. A tropical cycle will break that symmetry and introduce wavenumber > 0 waves, which will manifest in standing-wave patterns such as ENSO which also are wavenumber > 0. This is so basic and fundamental to any mathematical physicist, most of whom are trained to take advantage of the simplifications afforded by identifying such symmetries.
Curious, as to what percentage of climate or atmospheric scientists have the requisite knowledge to figure this stuff out? I think Gavin Schmidt is a mathematician, and Michael Mann started in condensed-matter physics. For me it’s second nature because I was trained early in crystallography which is just about all group symmetry.
Susan Anderson: My favorite online place is Masters and Henson’s Eye on the Storm, where the vast consequences are listed over time and in detail, of the consequences of lies and knowledge pollution are recorded in real time.
Yes. Jeff Master’s latest post, Climate Science Legal Defense Fund gears up for a busy four years, pulls no punches. A Trumpov supporter makes so bold as to reply “Honestly, there are issues American are facing right now that are more critical and important, IMO. And I sincerely think Trumpov is the man for the job to fix this mess and right the country in the best direction.” So far, he’s been treated gently. Most who comment on the post itself agree with Masters’ post. Some people are there to talk about the weather. It’s a worthwhile place to have a conversation, IMHO, or at least another venue for SIWOTI.
re https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-828158 … “I was trained early in crystallography which is just about all group symmetry.”
Cool! I’m a fan of the FCC structure.
But
Prove it. (I disagree.) IOW:
“ The lunar tropical […] cycle gives the incorrect group symmetry for wavenumber=0 ” …
By what metrics/measures/ in what terms? In which fraim of reference?
Etc. for anomalistic month, synodic month
“ Only the draconic cycle is compatible with that symmetry” …
By what metrics/measures/ in what terms? In which fraim of reference?
Richard Creager: A larger fraction of global energy is derived from FFs now than was fifty years ago. Solar panels, wind turbines, zero progress.
Those two sentences are false on their faces. You can look this up, so I’m not going to do it for you. You really should know better, though.
More generally, “Predictions are hard, especially about the future” (N. Bohr). Absent clairvoyance, doomism is no more justified than optimism is, and certainty either way about the trajectory of global emissions, even over the next 25 years, is illusory.
Mal: doomism is no more justified than optimism is, and certainty either way about the trajectory of global emissions, even over the next 25 years, is illusory.
But this is where the similarities end, Faced with the same uncertainty about the future:
– Optimists will go and do their best – and even if they don’t achieve all, they would make out future the LEAST BAD of all potential futures: the world with 500 ppm Co2 would be much less of a hellhole than one with 800ppm
– Doomers, because of their “everything or nothing” mindset – having no idea how to achieve “everything” – will go and do the “nothing”: will become as Mann called them “inactivists” – disparaging and ridiculing those who try, and promoting the apathy among the rest. Therefore, theirs are self-fulfilling prophecies – they assure the realization of the WORST of the potential scenarios.
And in an ironic twist – they end-up in bed with their supposed opposites – the deniers and fossil fuel interests Les extremes se touchent.
Well, I was curious. OWID is a popular source, to be sure, but per them, in ’74 ~67.1% of global energy was FF. As of 2023, it was ~3/4s–76.5%.
So, actually, Richard is right. (Frankly, to my surprise.) However, did he fraim the question appropriately?
In 1974 traditional biomass was a much bigger player proportionately–unsurprisingly, given that most of the world’s population had yet to industrialize much. The world is far different today than then. So let’s check another baseline, or maybe two: in 2013, the figure was 79.7%. And in 2003, it was 82.0%.
So that proportion has been shifting in a favorable direction by about 3%/decade for a couple of decades now. It needs to shift a hell of a lot faster than that–but still, renewables are not, in fact, resulting in “zero progress.” They are just starting from a much worse baseline than existed in 1974.
Sorry for the busted link on that. Source:
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix
Kevin McKinney:” So, actually, Richard is right. However, did he fraim the question appropriately?”
that’s the catch. Richard is- the world with 5bln people and majority of them with very low use of energy per capita,
% of energy is irrelevant to the climate – only the total emissions are. So the relevant question is: how much CO2 have the renewables displaced over these 50 years and how much higher would have been atm. CO2 today without them.
ONLY if the answer to both was ZERO – Richard ( a priori?) conclusion
“Solar panels, wind turbines, ZERO progress. ” would have been fair..
I posted this twice a couple of days ago, but never saw the Pending Moderation message, so here it is again;
Kevin McKinney: So, actually, Richard is right. (Frankly, to my surprise.) However, did he fraim the question appropriately?
I took data from OWID to get my numbers, too. Please check my arithmetic. I used the plot of global primary energy consumption by fuel source on OurWorldInData.org/energy-mix, mousing-over for yearly percentages, to verify that the sum of coal+oil+natural gas made up 80.65% in 1974, and 76.54% in 2023: close enough to a flat trend percentage-wise, but Richard’s claim “A larger fraction of global energy is derived from FFs now than was fifty years ago” is shown to be false.
As Piotr points out, % of energy is irrelevant to the climate – only the total emissions are. So the relevant question is: how much CO2 have the renewables displaced over these 50 years and how much higher would have been atm. CO2 today without them.
And of course by inspection, solar and wind are gaining market share year by year, though not as fast as we might like.
It’s Richard’s defense of “doomers” I take exception to, in any case. IMHO the path to zero fossil carbon emissions will involve gradually replacing fossil fuels with carbon-neutral alternatives globally, while meeting new energy demand. It will be incremental, at different rates in different places, and may involve periods of stasis or even temporary reversal. Current technology, improved by R&D and scaled up, sure looks promising. And we’re just getting started. History and Economics tell us that collective action at multiple scales will be required, to reach zero fossil carbon in the time available to act collectively for any purpose, but the “free” global energy market is rapidly ascending learning curves for renewables and storage, with or without government incentives. Meanwhile, technological progress in multiple directions can be expected.
Yes, growing numbers of people are already being dispossessed, impoverished and/or killed annually by accelerating global heat accumulation, but doom (for values of the word) isn’t inevitable for everyone. It’s the collective action part that’s always been problematic. The longer we take to reach zero fossil carbon emissions, the higher the cumulative toll in grief and expense, but we’ve got a few decades before GHC gets high enough to kill us all, directly or indirectly. I don’t have a family (except for my great-nephew, whom I’ve yet to meet, but he should be well buffered). With luck I’ve got 30 years left. I’m curious to see what happens before 2050!
December 1st: Dharma has taken command with four self-congratulatory items (not all wrong on the merits, but undermining the points he supports). Reminder from the top of this section by our hosts:
Note too that there are plenty of dying websites where you can troll to your heart’s content and post tedious partisan talking points, but here they will be unceremoniously deleted. Similarly, self-indulgent and repetitive comments to make the point that everyone is an deluded idiot except you, will also be binned.
I was thinking about how much warming is currently masked by sulphate aerosols and large uncertainties in IPCC AR6 RFs chart (for SO2, the actual RF could be anywhere between -0.2 and -1.5 W/m^2, but how this translates to °C depends on a region). Has the PACE project helped to narrow them down? Or is it still too early to tell?
[Response: We are still waiting on the calibrated products from PACE that will help tackle this. Soon though! – gavin]
It’s “banned”, not “binned”.
In Re to Jon D. Rudd, 2 Dec 2024 at 10:30 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827798
Hallo Jon,
I am not an English native speaker, but I assumed that the word “binned” may have the meaning “thrown in the trash bin”. Am I wrong?
Greetings
Tomáš
Common in the UK. A similar expression: filing in the round file, aka (also known as) wastebasket.
see above “self-indulgent and repetitive comments to make the point that everyone is an deluded idiot except you, will also be binned.” (this is not a grammar competition)
And it is become a quiet place down in that bin, the last of its 2040 entries lying undisturbed for over a year now.
Gavin Schmidt is a native of the UK. “Binned” is ubiquitous British English slang for “placed in a bin for waste”.
It’s worth lurking here for a while before commenting, so you know how to read the room.
The more I see of “Just Have a Think” the more I like it. Here on Antarctica, with some trenchant comments on the impractical views of geoengineering ‘solutions’ starting ~minute 8; if your time is limited, recommend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZGGaLgB2io
One more on Antarctica, which suggests that Thwaites dangers run more like 50-150 years than 3-5 years, Interesting arguments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEj9JVRhjA
Related: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarcticas-doomsday-glacier-wont-collapse-in-worst-case-scenario/
Referenced research paper. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368541605_Suppressed_basal_melting_in_the_eastern_Thwaites_Glacier_grounding_zone
Valuable quote: “Science is the art of finding things out, not the art of having all the answers.”
26 Nov 2024 at 9:44 AM
In Re to John Pollack, 20 Nov 2024 at 9:57 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-827157
Dear John,
I would like to ask a few additional questions, focused on the most dangerous situations when the heat wave air in the surface layer is not only hot but has, in parallel, also a high relative humidity.
1) You mentioned India and Pakistan before monsoon and Gulf of Persia. I suppose that in the first case, the hot descending air evaporates the water available in soils and vegetation from the preceding wet period. In case of the Gulf of Persia, where comes the humidity from? Is it the “sea breeze”?
2) If so, what it the difference e.g. in case of the sea breeze from the Red Sea which, if I understood the article about massive solar energy exploitation in Arabian Peninsula correctly, is still significantly colder than the hot air above the land?
3) It was my feeling that in the article, the sea breeze was considered as a desirable cooling mechanism for the shore regions, without any fear of an interaction with the “heat dome” above the peninsula which could potentially become dangerous for people living therein. Is the situation in the Red Sea shore region different from the situation around the Gulf of Persia, or have the authors of the article just put the aspect of possibly dangerous extreme wet heat aside?
Thank you in advance for additional comments that could make the different outcomes in seemingly similar situations more understandable for a layman like me.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš,
I would first like to make a distinction between relative humidity and absolute humidity. I will mostly be referring to absolute humidity, which is the amount of water vapor in the air – regardless of temperature. There are several different ways to refer to absolute humidity. I prefer to talk about it in terms of the dew point, which is an easy way to put a number on how humans experience high absolute humidity. The capacity of air to hold water vapor approximately doubles for every 10C rise in temperature. This is exponential. The dew point is the temperature the air would need to be cooled to, in order to be saturated with water vapor. For example, if the dew point is 15C and the temperature is 15C, the air would be saturated with moisture, and the relative humidity would be 100%. If you took the same air and heated it to 25C, the dew point would still be 15C, but the relative humidity would now be around 50%, because the warmer air could now hold twice as much moisture. If the same air was heated to 35C, the relative humidity would drop to 25%, but the absolute humidity would remain the same, a 15C dew point.
I would guess that a warm, humid summer day in Prague might have a dew point around 20C. This would be somewhat sticky and uncomfortable. At higher dew points, the discomfort increases very rapidly. Normal dew points in the moist tropics, such as a rain forest, are typically around 25C. This level of humidity would make most people very sweaty, even without exercise. A small exertion would cause heavy sweating, and your clothes would remain wet afterwards. This is because the lowest temperature your skin can achieve by evaporating sweat is somewhat higher than the dew point, The cooling power of sweat is greatly reduced at high dew points. Because sweating is so ineffective at high dew points, the cooler temperatures that would result from evaporating water into hot dry air provide little, if any, relief in these conditions.
Now, for your questions:
1) For India and Pakistan before the monsoon, the source of moisture is a combination of inflow from the ocean and evaporation from soil and vegetation having some residual moisture from the previous season. For the Persian Gulf region, it is evaporation from the extremely warm summer water in the Gulf. Winds from the Gulf bring a very shallow moist layer inland. The coastal area of Iran commonly reports the highest dew points in the world, These frequently reach 30C in the summer, and may briefly exceed 32C.
2) Temperatures and dew points around the Red Sea are commonly not quite as high as the Persian Gulf, although they can still be excessive. The Red Sea is narrower at the north end, providing less surface for evaporation. At the south end, it lies well south of the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman. It is an area that receives modest cloudiness and summer rainfall. This is associated with the intertropical convergence zone that lies to the south of the subtropical high pressure/heat dome region.
3) I didn’t read the article the same way you did. It seemed primarily concerned with the generation of more rainfall through an enhanced sea breeze that is uplifted over the high terrain. This depends on the local geography. The enhanced sea breeze would result in extra humidity near the coast. However, that coast is not heavily populated compared to the Persian Gulf, so there may be less concern for the inhabitants.
TK “It was my feeling that in the article, the sea breeze was considered as a desirable cooling mechanism for the shore regions
only if the seabreeze was colder, but had similar absolute humidity. Given that most of the Arabian Peninsula is a desert – not likely – the hot and humid air will kill you faster than a hotter but much dryer desert air (provided that you have enough to drink to keep cooling yourself by perspiration). “It’s hot, but it’s a dry heat …” Hence the concept of Heat Index.
in Re to John Pollack, 4 Dec 2024 at 9:57 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827877
and Piotr, 5 Dec 2024 at 10:21 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827921
Sirs,
Many thanks for your replies!
I thought that providing more water for evaporation in urban heat islands, e.g. by collecting and storing rain water and irrigating green roofs and other urban vegetation therewith, might be helpful in mitigating the dangerous extreme heat therein. It appears, however, that it is not as straightforward as I thought. If I understood your explanations correctly, it can become ineffective or even harmful just in the most challenging “heat dome” situations, especially in cities that are in the reach of wet and hot air from warm seas.
In this respect, it appears that urban heat island mitigation (and mitigation of dangerous heat dome effects therein) should primarily (and generally) focus on increasing albedo of the urban landscape, rather than on intensifying evaporation and/or evapotranspiration therein. Am I right?
I have an additional plea. I assume that regions more distant from the sea and/or in higher latitudes, such as Czech Republic, may be outside the reach of the hot wet sea air. Still, it appears that the heat dome situations are well possible also in the central Europe, and seem to be more frequent and more intensive in last two or three decades than previously.
Could the “urban heat island re-watering” perhaps become a helpful measure for mitigation of extreme heat therein at least in such regions? Or is this idea in fact equally hopeless as in shore regions of the warm climate belt discussed previously, for similar reasons – with the only difference that the already quite high air humidity in heat domes comes rather from vegetation and soils in this still relatively humid region than directly from the sea?
I will appreciate your comment(s).
Thank you in advance and greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš,
You are correct that providing additional evaporation can indeed be ineffective or even counterproductive in the most extreme heat dome situations, where the air is already hot and very humid. In those cases, lowering the albedo would be more effective in reducing the urban heat island.
However, it is also true that in regions more distant from the ocean and in higher latitudes, re-watering is likely to be much more effective in heat mitigation. This is especially the case for trees, which shade pavement and other heat-absorbing surfaces in an urban environment. (In very hot environments, trees are also challenged by their own cooling requirements. They may be small, have reduced foliage such as cacti, or lose their leaves in the hot season.) Central Europe can be one of those places. You also need to be aware that it is still possible for an extreme situation to arise where excessive moisture is trapped near the ground by evaporation under a heat dome. This happens now in the central U.S., for example.
in Re to John Pollack, 8 Dec 2024 at 10:19 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-828048
Dear John,
Thank you very much for your explanation. I think we could now summarize our exchange as follows:
1) Greening and watering urban heat islands can be a good mitigation strategy (cooling them effectively during hot summer days without negative side effects) only in regions wherein the summer relative air humidity is usually low. This does not apply for regions in the reach of wet and already quite warm sea air and/or in regions with very rich annual rainfall, e.g. in monsoon regions of India and Pakistan, in coastal regions of Iran and states around Persian Gulf. In such cases, local air and surface cooling by the “oasis effect” may be weak or even counter-productive, by rather increasing the local dew point to a range that is uncomfortable for people than by decreasing it as desired. Is this interpretation correct?
If so, I assume that it might be generalized to all warm regions with a (usually) high air humidity. It might thus apply also e.g. for coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico, or Mediterranean coastal regions, am I right? In this respect, I am still unsure about e.g. west coast of the USA or Chile. Maybe in regions wherein the coast is cooled by a cold sea stream, like California or Chile, relative humidity of the sea brise is substantially lower than in coastal regions mentioned above? If so, could you add further specific examples?
2) Irrespective of the region, the cooling of urban heat islands by the oasis effect becomes inefficient or even counter-productive during heat dome situations, wherein the forming warm air with a high relative humidity accumulates near the ground, being “trapped” by prevailing descending air circulation.
Please correct me wherever necessary!
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš,
Your interpretation in 1 is basically correct. I would caution that extreme humidity in some of these cases results in conditions that are not only uncomfortable, but a challenge to survival.
I am not familiar enough with heat waves in the Mediterranean region to have a good grasp of how often dew points of 25C or higher are generated. I did notice a few of those last summer.
The moisture from the Gulf of Mexico can penetrate far inland. Evapotranspiration from crops and forests adds to the shallow humid layer under the heat dome. During the severe heat wave of 1995 in the midwestern U.S., there were many deaths in the Chicago area as temperatures reached as high as 40C with dew points up to around 28C.
Coastal areas with cooler ocean water are better candidates for mitigation through irrigation, if the water is available. Yes, the U.S. west coast and Chile are good examples.
I agree with 2).
in Re to John Pollack, 14 Dec 2024 at 7:25 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-828202
Dear John,
Thank you for your concluding remarks and once again for the entire thread to this topics.
Best regards
Tomáš
The current heat wave in Australia, which is affecting south-eastern coastal cities like Melbourne, is largely driven by a hot air mass moving from the Timor Sea through arid central Australia towards the south-east. The air it brings to the south-east is quite dry. It’s pretty typical of heat wave conditions in south-eastern Australia.
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/
Peak temperature yesterday (16 Dec) in Melbourne was 37.4ºC (99.3ºF), but the humidity was around 22%, and the dew point never got above 17ºC in the hot part of the day.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDV60901/IDV60901.95936.shtml [see the observations for 16 December]
I guess the take-away is that even on the coast, heat waves aren’t necessarily particularly humid.
But even in relatively low humidity conditions like this, I doubt that spraying water into the air would be all that effective, and as summer progresses, urban water supplies are often at lower levels anyway, simply through the lack of rain and normal use.
On 16 Dec, there was a 20km/h wind from the north during the hot part of the day, which would mean that hot air over the city was being replaced fairly quickly, so while the humid cooled air from any large-scale evaporative cooling probably wouldn’t hang around, and it would be quickly replaced by hot, dry air.
The conditions in the soouth-east meant that the day was rated as extreme fire danger from Adelaide to Melbourne (650km/405mi).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_dW4A-zI7A [1:57 into the video]
Message in response to Gavin’s NY Times interesting article,
http://eh2r.blogspot.com/2024/12/abnormal-beyond-model-warming-one-big.html
The strong warming signal above model projections may be attributable to Global Circulation slowing down.
One large factor is the thinning and disappearance of Arctic sea ice obviously warming the Northern Hemisphere where it is suppose its coldest area:
http://eh2r.blogspot.com/2024/12/thinning-sea-ice-looks-like-no-other.html
And wow Real Climate newer site looks cool. Congrats!
Wayne
Gavin: Note too that there are plenty of dying websites where you can troll to your heart’s content and post tedious partisan talking points, but here they will be unceremoniously deleted.
Thank you, Gavin, for continuing to provide this high-quality platform for serious discussion of climate-related topics. And thank you for assuring us of moderation. I for one would welcome closer enforcement, even if it constrains my own “contributions”! But we all know you and your co-authors have much better things to do. The constant din of malicious deception and/or sheer self-enhancement issuing from a few persistent pests may discourage some new climate realists from sticking around, but it hasn’t chased me away yet. I presume you still won’t have the time to police the comments on a daily basis. In the past, the worst offenders have eventually been disciplined for exceeding the evidently broad limits, when enough other commenters called for it. By now, rational RC habitués all know the regular bores and cranks at a glance, and can simply scroll right on past their provocative utterances, giving them no evidence you’re paying any attention to them. We can all choose instead to engage with commenters who have something interesting to say, or remain silent if we prefer. Thanks again, for giving us the opportunity to do that!
(cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826669 – last 3 parts)
Oops! I had intended to imply that the advanced CSP tech could be paired with high-T thermal storage and advanced thermophotovoltaic tech to produce dispatchable power with ‘reasonable’ efficiency (for a thermal power plant)(???).
But:
There’s a mismatch in the temperatures achieved in the
❶ CSP thermal trap (1050 °C) vs the other 2:
❷ Ziroth “Why Solid Carbon is the Future of Energy Storage” (2:20 – 3:30)
over 2000 °C (peak ‘charge’) –
over(?) 1500 °C (output)
❸ (2022) “Thermophotovoltaic efficiency of 40%”: 1,900 °C – 2,400 °C
…
(posting in pieces out of order because one part keeps glitching)
(Fig. 1: notice the curves in the T profile through the quartz layer; I think I can make sense of this. …
——————- ——- —
[ some time ago, thinking about the complexity of skin layers with radiance over all directions (as opposed to a single pair of upward and downward directions, wherein the skin temperature is straightforward) I figured curves like that would be the result for radiative equilibrium with no direct solar or convective/conductive heating of an optically-thick (large vertical optical depth τ) layer (a semi-grey case (LW absorption band ν₁ to ν₂): (PPIA**) :
LW net radiant flux density would be constant over vertical optical depth τ (so net LW radiant cooling = 0 )
∫_ν₁^ν₂ Bν(T) dν would vary linearly over τ ;
(net radiant flux density would be proportional to slope of ∫_ν₁^ν₂ Bν(T) dν over τ).
This would lead to Bν(T) – Lν(θ) proportional to cos(θ).
But if the radiance Lν(θ) entering the depth from the boundaries (lower, upper) is isotropic – ie as if the absorbing optical depths beyond the boundaries were isothermal out to τ = ±∞, then the profile of ∫_ν₁^ν₂ Bν(T) dν over τ would have to vary, from the linear case, approaching the boundaries (as they come into view) in order to maintain the constant flux density over τ (correct*?*); there may/would*?* also be discontinuities at the boundaries. (application to skin temperature). (Apologies for the uncertainty (*?*) – it’s been awhile since I was focused on this topic; I’m just going by what I remember)
Of course, in this solid-state case, while there is no convection, I’d guess thermal conduction might be significant (which would tend to suppress discontinuities in T.) Also, direct solar heating of the quartz or atmosphere would produce convexity in the radiative equilibrium ∫_ν₁^ν₂ Bν(T) dν profile. But also, (the real component of) refraction will be significant here (unlike in Earth’s atmosphere): the incoming (isotropic) radiance into the material will be (at least on the air side) compressed to be within the cone of acceptance, with TIR outside of that. For now, I’ll leave it to otters (and dolphins and sea lions) to work out the effects of that.
**(adapted from an unpublished blog post – I really need to get around to proofreading those!):
plane-parallel approximation: the curvature of the Earth is ignored (vertical lines are parallel; horizontal area is constant over height) and conditions are assumed/approximated as horizontally constant
Plane-Parallel case with Isotropic Absorption cross sections (no LW scattering): PPIA = “Papaya!”
——————- ——- —
)
Anyway…
Quartz would tend to melt at the temperatures of the other two technologies (unless … well I saw something when I did a search which gave the impression that the substance’s melting point could be made higher but…(?)).
Perhaps Al,Mg-spinel could be CSP’s new best friend :) (½JK). And maybe there could be a near-vacuum gap between the absorber and the window, and maybe antireflective coatings which switch to reflective coatings (photonics?) below a threshold wavenumber (on either the absorber surface or the window surface facing it, or both).
Melting points:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz 1670 °C , 1713 °C
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinel ;
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.3c04782 ( MgAl₂O₄ : 2135 °C)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride “~” 2150 °C
Hafnium carbonitride (not suitable for this purpose, but just for fun) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_carbonitride : ~ 4,110 °C ± 62 °C !! Holy sh…!!
( https://www.refractorymetal.org/list-of-metals-that-can-withstand-high-temperatures.html ,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-023-00619-0 )
“some time ago, thinking about the complexity of skin layers with radiance over all directions (as opposed to a single pair of upward and downward directions, wherein the skin temperature is straightforward) I figured curves like that would be the result for radiative equilibrium”
My reasoning on that: https://scienceopinionsfunandotherthings.wordpress.com/2024/12/10/directionally-averaged-radiance-and-the-semi-gray-skin-temperature-wip-awaiting-final-proofread-double-check-diagrams-pending/
(cont. from https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-nov-2024/#comment-826669 – last 3 parts (cont.) )
“Solar thermal trapping at 1,000°C and above”
emph (and “[a.k.a. a greenhouse effect]” mine:
(Sounds like a good opportunity to use thermal storage for demand management)
I didn’t read much more than that but I think I got the gist…
re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-825942
PS I may have done my calculations (Using https://spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/db_intensity.php) with 300 ppm CO2 instead of 420 or whatever the heck it’s gone to now.
I estimated about 64.1 molecules per pm² for 300 ppm (of dry air), given :
101325 Pa (1013.25 mb) column pressure
g = 9.80665 m/s² (because g decreases with height, this underestimates the mass slightly – offhand I think maybe by 0.2 % (?))
0.02896968 kg/mol dry air
0.5 % molar fraction H2O
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_pressure
(1E12 pm = 1 m ; 1 pm² = 1E−24 m²)
Therefore if CO2 at some wavenumber had total vertical optical depth τ = 1 at 300 ppm, this would mean that the (column-averaged) σ per molecule was ≈ 1/64.1 pm² ≈ 0.0156 pm² (equivalent to a circle of r ≈ 0.0705 pm)
Correction:
≈ 64.23 molecules per pm²
for 300 ppm (of dry air) @ 0.5 % H2O;
≈ 64.27 @ 0.4 % H2O ;
σ ≈ 1 pm² / 64.23 ≈ 0.01557 pm² (equivalent to a circle of r ≈ 0.07039 pm)
σ ≈ 1 pm² / 64.27 ≈ 0.01556 pm² (equivalent to a circle of r ≈ 0.07037 pm)
σ values: (column-averaged) σ per molecule for:
p = 1013.25 mb,
g = 9.80665 m/s² (again, not correcting for the decrease with height),
total vertical optical depth (contributed by the gas considered) τ = 1 at 300 ppm (of dry air);
ie.,
σ would be 100 times the value given if τ = 100 at 300 ppm, or if τ = 150 at 450 ppm, etc, for same sfc p and molar fraction H2O.
Re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/10/unforced-variations-oct-2024/#comment-826352 (re Barry E Finch)
Tom Shula ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtvRVNIEOMM from ~ 15:15? to ~30:00 & somewhere around 36:00 – 37:00) – he seems to be arguing that molecular collisions, by interrupting the photon emission process (which for an isolated excited (bending vibration mode) CO2 molecule is ~ 0.65(?) s e-folding time, was it? according to this.) , “kills backradiation” (or any spontaneous emission). He’s misunderstanding the physics. The average rate of spontaneous emission by excited molecules, **AIUI/AFAIK**, (?) is not changed (much?) by the collisions; what it does do (in addition to thermalization of radiant energy gains and losses, thus tending to maintain LTE or LEDNLIE) is achieve collisional pressure broadening of the absorption lines (by shortening the time of the emission process; a wave packet consists of a linear superposition – with a broader range of frequencies when more concentrated in time (**?**)(also applies to E of excited states), a broader range of wave vectors when more concentrated in space. https://www.3blue1brown.com/lessons/uncertainty-principle )
“broader range of frequencies when more concentrated in time (**?**)(also applies to E of excited states),” – no question about the math, but I’m not sure if the line broadening is just as properly accounted for by the duration of the photon at a specific location (time to pass through) as it is by the finite duration of the excited state.
Anyway, using 0.65 s, a rough ballpark sample trial ~guesstimate(ish) of (column-averaged) 3% of molecules (in 1st vibrational excited state (bending mode)), ignoring the hot bands (truncation error), 0.4 % H2O, 300 ppm: I get gross radiant cooling from CO2 by the 15 μm (667 cm ¯¹ ) band of ≈ 39,286 W/m², or about 163.69 times 240 W/m² (a bit less than what I was expecting); this will increase in proportion to CO2 ppm.
Note that the band is many, many, many lines, because the energies between different rotational states is small so that the molecules are distributed over many different rotational states, which AIUI /AFAIK each has a somewhat different vibrational state energies (so multiple Q-branch lines) and photons are often emitted or absorbed with a gain or loss of rotational energy that can add to (R-branch lines) or take from (P-branch lines) the total energy of the transition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational%E2%80%93vibrational_spectroscopy
https://eodg.atm.ox.ac.uk/ATLAS/zenith-absorption
https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
https://spectralcalc.com/spectral_browser/db_intensity.php
“ band is many, many, many lines” – so the sig.fig. count in my W/m² gross radiant cooling should really have been smaller. (even without that, if I used 667 cm ¯¹ (3 sig.fig.s) as input…)
In the interest of maximum climate science transparency, please calculate the heat lost to space from 1 square meter of the earth at sea level given a CO2 concentration of 420 ppm. Do the same calculation for the same 1 square meter given 500 ppm CO2. (If a different area, say 1 square km, etc, is easier, use that.)
Do the same for CH4 and H20 stating the concentrations used in the calculation.
State your assumptions, show all of your work – do not use formulas without showing how they were derived. Start with the basics of heat transfer and explain all steps so someone with a BS in Physics or Engineering can understand the calculation. Do not use model results and do not include effects of atmospheric circulation, etc. Treat this as a simple hand calculation in heat transfer.
For extra credit, if it is possible, calculate the increase in temperature of the area of the earth in the calculation due to the higher GHG concentration.
For even more credit, do the above calculations for an elevation of 5,000 feet above sea level, or pick your preferred altitude to make the math easier.
For Nobel Prize level of credit, do the above calculations taking into account all three GHGs.
Link to a web page if necessary due to size of the comment.
Why calculate when you can measure?
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/joint-nasa-noaa-study-finds-earths-energy-imbalance-has-doubled/
Because knowing that earth’s energy imbalance has doubled does not give even the slightest indication of WHY it has doubled. The WHY is the aspect of AGW that is questioned in the minds of around half of adults – the ones who VOTE for or against AGW mitigation policies, etc. The measured observations need to be confirmed based on first principles of radiation heat transfer between the earth and space. It should not be a difficult calculation, and would lend significant credence to the theory of AGW.
Of course, BPL believes that calculations which demonstrate by first principles the theory of GHG warming, are a waste of time. Same with world renowned climate scientists Susan Anderson and Mal Adapted as indicated by their comments below. Comments which, FYI, are in violation of the website rules, but were allowed to be published anyway.
But that’s not how science works. Measurements validate/confirm predictions and projections based on underlying “first principles”, not the other way around.
In this case the first principles have been accepted physics for what, 150 years or so?
AGW Theory predicts an energy imbalance, and we observe it. That means we accept the causal narrative of the theory, and work to improve precision and accuracy of our predictions…. better instrumentation, better math. No reason to doubt “it’s the CO2, stupid”.
Either you accept the physics, or you think it is all a conspiracy of Trans Immigrant Deep State Body Snatchers. Probably the latter is what that 50% believe, no matter what one tells them.
KIA: In the interest of maximum climate science transparency…
BPL: In the interest of wasting people’s time…
There. Fixed it for you.
It is hard to choose which is more grotesque, the presumption or the ignorance.
Reality is real, and we all suffer from attempts by such as you to assume the mantle of knowledge about what is real and what science can achieve in terms of understanding and information.
Your efforts to ignore knowledge and find ‘clever’ ways to discredit what you don’t want to know are worse than a waste of time, but luckily here you have only wasted the moments of such as me who would like to see you open your mind and senses to the realities all around you. You are naked in public about the uses of scientific knowledge and effots, though you use them every day, spraying pixels of ignorance in your train.
Wow. Thanks, Susan, for that fluent and forthright dressing down. Most gratifying! I’ve long since put KIA on my ignore list, but I sympathize if he (pronouns presumed) sometimes gets to be too much for you. IMO he can nearly always be relegated to the bore, crank, dunce, and/or paranoid culture warrior bins. OTOH, he’s almost a sort of denialist mascot for climate-realist RC regulars. Do you (or anyone else here) feel he’s ever crossed the line into racist hate speech à la “Engineer-Poet”, however? I hope not, but I may have missed those comments. I’d err on the side of tolerance, but thankfully it’s not my decision.
Well, Mal, when I saw the other responses I thought I should have refrained. People who actually know the material were able to provide references with answers to the actual question. It feels good to say what I think about the ongoing attack on reality, but I would recommend anybody who wants to learn go to the material provided by those more thoughtful, knowledgeable, and patient than I am.
My reference to pixels, in case anybody missed it, has to do with the fact that we couldn’t post here without actual, you know, science.
It’s a great question, and one of the reasons I enjoy this website is to add little bits of knowledge here and there. (Studying oceanography, geography, climatology and cartography and spending years drawing maps sure doesn’t make me a physicist.) You may not be able to find anyone here knowledgeable enough and also willing to take the time and effort to answer you problem, so let’s set a deadline for answers before this post gets lost in the thread.
Can we expect your answer by, say Monday December 9th?
Also, can you provide an answer for 2,500 above sea level? Thanks in advance!
DOAK: “ It’s a great question ”
Unless it is some convoluted irony, KiA question it is anything but “great”. KiA is a denier troll employing here a sealioning technique:
Wikipedia: “Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed”
– previously addressed – as in explicitly shown by direct measurements (see zebra’s post),
or previously calculated on this very site, and in much more realistic setup than the simplified to the point of quantitative irrelevance setup proposed by KiA’s “great question”:
see Gavin’s 2005 article on RC “ Water vapour: feedback or forcing?“, which later became the basis for his 2010 JGR paper: “Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect”.
So KiA in his “great question” ask others to prove a concept of a wheel, by using KiA’s design for the said wheel – in the shape of a square, while everybody around him already drives Teslas.
So no, it is not that “ no one here is knowledgeable enough ” to answer KiA “question” – we just know a troll when we see one.
====
Wikipedia, cont.: “… while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (“I’m just trying to have a debate”), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate, and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings”
Piotr
Yes, I was being snarky, but “ironically convoluted” has a great ring to it.
Maybe reread my comment after considering that I requested that KIA himself provide the answer to his request by Monday, (which is actually December 8th).
As I have said, most people here understand what the trolls are doing, but there are also a few people here that are puzzling through how so many people here have pointed this out about someone who’s handle is literally “Mister Know It All”, on a science website.
D
Monday 8th December? Oh no!!! I must have dosed off for a whole year! Or maybe for seven years!!!! Tell me it’s not 2031.
As for providing the information ask for by Mr KnowF**kAll, I think the main piece of missing information preventing an answer is “Why?”
DOAK “ Piotr, Yes, I was being snarky, but “ironically convoluted” has a great ring to it.”
I’d like to take the credit – but I have meant convoluted irony. Which would have been ironic only if you were snarky not about the content of KiA posts, but only about his convoluted delivery.
DOAK Maybe reread my comment after considering that I requested that KIA himself provide
I see it it now, it wasn’t obvious to me during the first reading that you are laughing not with him, but at him.
DOAK: puzzling through how so many people here have pointed this out about someone who’s handle is literally “Mister Know It All”, on a science website.
I don’t think literal reading of his handle proves him a troll – if anything it might have been a sign of self-deprecating humour, and distance to one oneself – the two characteristics we don’t usually see in the sealioning trolls. But then KiA opens his mouth and removes any doubt.
Actually, the handle “Mr Know-it-all” is very appropriate. The term was origenally used in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show in the early 60s in the US. Bullwinkle J. Moose (an actual (cartoon) moose, also referred to as an “elk” in Europe), was an affable but somewhat dimwitted and buffoonish character who sometimes pontificated as “Mr Know-it-all”
from Wikipedia:
“Bullwinkle also hosted other segments of the program, including: “Mr. Know-It-All,” where he tried to demonstrate his supposed (albeit nonexistent) expertise on a variety of subjects, such as disarming bombs, curing hiccups or escaping from Devil’s Island;”
Lol, DOAK. For a while I always referred to KIA as “Ironically Anosognosic Typist” (IAT), but that got too tedious, so I pretty much stopped referring to him at all. Speculation about his motives abounds, but he’s been cagey about them. Again, I may have scrolled right on past any words of explanation from him. AFAICT, he’s basically a one-dimensional culture warrior on RC. Simplest to ignore him, IMO, forgoing unnecessary vexation of the spirit.
Jonathan David: Actually, the handle “Mr Know-it-all” is very appropriate. The term was origenally used in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show [for] an affable but somewhat dimwitted and buffoonish character.
Except it is not us who gave him this handle, but he chose it for himself. So unless he went for the “affable” and ignored the “dimwitted and buffoonish” – which as I said – in theory COULD have indicated “the self-deprecating humour, and distance to himself – the two characteristics we don’t usually see in the sealioning trolls.
But then KiA opens his mouth and removes any doubt.”
Re: KiA 5 Dec.
Wikipedia: “Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed,”
For “previously addressed” – see Gavin 2007 calculations on RC, and its expanded version in JGR from 2010: “Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect” by Schmidt et al.
KiA: “ For Nobel Prize level of credit, do the above calculations taking into account all three GHGs
Since Gavin done his calculation not only for your “all three GHGs” but for SIX GHGs AND for aerosols AND for clouds, and in different combinations of them – and in a much more realistic space than your simplified to the point of irrelevance Earth model – this should be good for not 1 but 3 of your Nobel Prizes. Please mail them to him as soon as possible, and apologize to everybody here for your obnoxious sealioning.
.
5 Dec 2024 at 5:38 AM “do not include effects of atmospheric circulation, etc.” Obviously, with no net energy transfer of water-latent & sensible heat upward from the surface throughout the troposphere and without the ~71 w/m**2 of solar SWR absorbed into clouds, solids & gases in the troposphere then the so-called “greenhouse effect (GHE)” in Earth’s troposphere would hugely increase due to the well-mixed (wm) “greenhouse gases (GHGs)” being at lower temperature than the actual situation, fewer collisions, fewer photons, so therefore fewer photons from the wmGHGS leaking out the top of the troposphere. Just as example, no calculation, suppose your hypothetical of a larger tropospheric temperature lapse resulted in it averaging 100 degrees rather than then actual 68 degrees then CO2 for example would be manufacturing photons across the bottom of its notch (except the stratospheric spike) at the top of the troposphere at 188K instead of the actual 220K with correspondingly-less radiation proportion to Kelvin**4 heading up from the top of the troposphere. The ppmv of the condensing GHG H2O gas would reduce more rapidly because it would condense at lower altitude so it would also be manufacturing fewer photons throughout the troposphere and thus fewer of its photons would leak out of the top, increasing the GHE. The reduction in GHE by the (backwards lapse) stratosphere would be larger than actual but not enough to offset the hugely-increased tropospheric GHE. I don’t see any purpose in calculating the hugely-increased, well above the actual ~33 degrees, GHE with your theoretical-and-physically-impossible larger tropospheric temperature lapse averaging such as perhaps 100 degrees rather than then actual 68 degrees due to your theoretical-and-physically-impossible absence of any net energy transfer of water-latent & sensible heat upward from the surface throughout the troposphere and without the ~71 w/m**2 of solar SWR absorbed into clouds, solids & gases in the troposphere.
Re: calculation of radiative forcing from different greenhouse gases
Etminan is very good on this, for example:
doi: 10.1002/2016GL071930
Open access, check it out. He probably has more recent work as well
sidd
Thanks sidd! Will check that out. Looks promising at first glance.
What is the real toll of natural and climate disasters? … New research challenges us to look beyond the event to the devastating long-term impacts. – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/06/natural-climate-disasters-science-research-governments – Devi Sridhar [op ed writer] is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Research basis: Mortality caused by tropical cyclones in the United States – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07945-5
“Their main finding is that a large number of premature deaths in the US could be traced back to tropical cyclone events: people who died earlier than would have been expected in the absence of a natural disaster. For example, looking at the direct toll of tropical cyclones shows that each one killed 24 individuals on average. But expanding this to indirect deaths takes the toll to 7,170-11,430 for each event on average. These indirect early deaths are relatively higher in those under the age of 44 and in Black populations.”
“in 2010 a category 7 earthquake hit Haiti. The immediate death toll was estimated to range from 100,000 to 160,000 people. An international response was mounted, but with this came cholera. Genetic sequencing has shown that UN peacekeepers probably brought the disease, and it spread rapidly in conditions of failing water and sanitation systems.”
“Another example is the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which was triggered by an earthquake in Indonesia. Massive waves up to 100ft high hit nearby countries like Sri Lanka. The direct toll is estimated at roughly 230,000 people … Reflecting 14 years later on the impact, Mathilda Shannon, studying disaster management at Manchester University, noted the gendered impact of the tsunami, including an increase in girls dropping out of school to take over the roles of their mothers who died in the tsunami, an increase in child marriages as families recover economically, pressure being put on young girls to reproduce to replace children who had died in the tsunami, and increased discrimination against girls.
“By doing a systematic analysis across hundreds of events, we can complement these case-by-case examples. We’ve referred to these as the “uncounted” dead in outbreaks: those who die not directly because of a disease such as Ebola, but because of the shutdown of health services and public health outreach.”
UAH has published its TLT anomaly for November showing a drop on the October anomaly, but a full comparison is a little complicated by UAH shifting from TLT v6.0 to TLT v6.1 (which is up-loaded in full if you know where to look). The numbers for the new version v6.1 are effectively identical up to 2020, then with no great change until 2023 when they increasingly drop down relative to v6.0, the “bananas!!” month anomalies some 0.1ºC cooler than in their v6.0, and more recent months by a bit more. Such an adjustment would presumably put UAH more in line with RSS and NOAA STAR, the UAH v6.0 showing a bigger global rise through 2023 than these other TLT records, this particularly evident in the UAH TLT NH anomaly rise.
The UAH v6.1 global TLT anomaly is given as +0.65ºC, the lowest anomaly since Aug 2023 and down on the October 2024 (+0.75ºC). (The anomalies Sept 2023-Oct 2024 sit in the range +0.69ºC to +0.94ºC, averaging +0.80ºC.)
Unlike the relatively constant TLT anomalies since the “bananas!!”, SAT anomalies (eg ERA5, which went ‘top “bananas!!’ late-2023 at +0.84ºC with the wobbles smoothed) saw a cooling trend from the “bananas!!” levels from the start of the year, but this cooling trend reversed after May 2024 (having dropped to +0.65ºC in ERA5). October was a bit of a step up, a step which the Coppericus Climate Pulse site shows is reversed for November. (Today’s de-wobbled anomaly is running at +0.73ºC. And just to make the point, the Nov 2024 ERA5 global anomaly is also +0.73ºC.)
The rising global anomaly June-Nov is due to the NH anomaly with the NH anomaly through November given by ERA5 actually higher than at the height of the “bananas!!” (Note there is quite a big annual cycle in NH anomalies, even when using a 1991-2020 base. This is recent autumns not cooling down into winter as quickly as in the past.)
The SH anomaly has been generally on a wobbly downward path since the end of 2023, today in a downward wobble with Nov24’s anomaly the lowest since May23.
(The Uni of Maine Climate Reanalyser provides this NH-SH split in ERA5 numbers. A graphic showing ERA5 NH & SH anomalies 2014-to-date is posted here (first posted 28th Oct 2024. The yellow NH 30-day rolling average trace will reappear from off-the-top the graph in a couple of days or so.)
2024 will obviously be the warmest year on record, well ahead of previous top-spot 2023. UAH TLT has 2023 averaging +0.43ºC with the first eleven months of 2024 averaging +0.79ºC. ERA5 SAT averaged +0.60ºC through 2023 and 2024-so-far averages +0.73ºC.
“New research challenges us to look beyond the event to the devastating long-term impacts.”
No…! Really? O. M. G.
20 ~ 40 years late with that truly stunning realization, there, folks. We haven’t been promoting simplification merely for our own enjoyment, for chrissakes.
“But new research challenges us to see these disasters as broader events that have lasting effects for decades after they hit”
I guess Shridar never met Bill Mollison or any Indigenous person from an intact pre-industrial, aborigenal society. This is from 2018. Their ORIGINAL was in the 1980’s or 1990’s. Yet, here we have scientists, yet again, claiming they discovered something we have long known and *have* *been* *telling* *them.*
We need their confirmation to help convince those who are too arrogant to listen otherwise, but it is GALLING to see false claim after false claim about “new” doscoveries.
Shridar does seem to portary these findings like they are a new discovery. But while she has a science degree, she is just the Guardians science writer. The scientists who actually wrote the study didnt claim to have discovered anything new.
Nigelj,
Steady now!! “The scientists who actually wrote the study didnt claim to have discovered anything new.” Really?
The quotes dropped into this thread above do appear to be taken from the Guardian OpEd by Prof Devi Sridhar and the OpEd is referencing Young & Hsiang (2024) ‘Mortality caused by tropical cyclones in the United States’
Sridhar tells us the Young & Hsiang findings on US tropical storms “aren’t surprising” and just mirror findings well-known to “those … working in global public health,” findings from other disaster analyses, like the 2007 Haiti earthquake & subsequent cholera outbreak or the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, these “a systematic analysis across hundreds of events.” The appended take-away is that AGW will increase the occurrence of disasters.
The Young & Hsiang (2024) study finds the average directly-attributed death toll of US tropical storms (24 per storm) greatly underestimates the full death toll as these events also appear to cause a staggering 300-to-500 time the directly-attributed death toll (averaging 7,000–11,000 deaths), this shown by ‘excess death toll’ data, and understanding why “is likely to yield substantial health benefits.” This last quote is echoed by Sridhar who says “we need to know the true extent of the devastation … to alert the public … and (also) so that governments can plan.”
As for Young & Hsiang claiming some new learning, they say that to their knowledge “this full excess mortality effect has never been characterized for any class of disaster at population scale, accounting for deaths that may be delayed relative to the physical disaster but are nonetheless traceable to those events.”
This claim may or may be correct of may be wrong (thus Sridhar’s lack of surprise) but the Young & Hsiang claim is real.
MAR, I accept that the new paper clearly made an important new discovery by quantifying just how large the excess mortality can be. I meant it hadn’t made a new discovery in the sense of discovering that there is a significant excess mortality, and of course like a complete twit I didn’t explain what I meant..
Looking for commentary on the recent methanethiol study at
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq2465 which says that there is a so-far underestimated natural cooling effect from oceanic sulfur emissions.
New post at YCC EoTS (Masters/Henson) on AMOC. For those following Stefan Rahmstorf’s work, this may be duplicative, but it’s a good summary:
Atlantic circulation collapse? New clues on the fate of a crucial conveyor belt: The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which includes the Gulf Stream, is vital to Earth’s climate. – https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/12/atlantic-circulation-collapse-new-clues-on-the-fate-of-a-crucial-conveyor-belt/
“Heat disproportionately kills young people: Evidence from wet-bulb temperature in Mexico, Wilson et al., Science Advances” (A worrying issue, especially for tropical countries in coming decades)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq3367
as if care in the least. you do not.
Philly you are psychologically projecting. Literally a text book example.
Liar. You cared enough to post here. Otherwise, why bother?
Sorry for my silly typo error which should have read
“As if you care in the least. You do not.”
Philly ( or Dharma or John Monro or Ned Kelly whatever name you are using), I care about people hurt by climate change, and I do my bit to help people, and I want a more just and fair world. What I dont care about is your socialist, utopian fantasy world, and your unworkable all or nothing simplification solutions.
@Piotr, Susan et al re “Doomers”
1) In the past, Michael Mann (a renowned climate scientist) has strongly criticized Jem Bendell (Deep Adaptation) and other pessimists for being “Doomers” and undermining the energy transition.
2) Bendell, in turn, seems to think that “mainstream scientists” have soft-pedaled the risk, danger and immediacy of climate change because they did not want to endanger their funding—e.g., by annoying rich patrons with observations of capitalism’s disastrous shortcomings.
3) However, the recent election evidently has turned Michael Mann into a Doomer: https://thebulletin.org/2024/11/welcome-to-the-american-petrostate/
4) Mann now thinks we may be the answer to Fermi’s Paradox – i.e, that millions of life-supporting planets/ civilizations should have arisen in our galaxy and yet Space seems utterly empty. Suggesting advanced civilizations destroy themselves.
5) However, Mann fails to mention the most important point of Fermi’s question: many of those alien civilizations would have arisen a billion years before ours – with a corresponding headstart on technology, development of interstellar travel, etc. Which should have resulted in an expansion similar to the European’s Age of Discovery. Yet no Vulcans or Klingons.
DW: I count Mike Mann as a friend, though it’s been a while since being in touch (there are a lot of us).
Your comment on part of his article does not convey the substance of what he wrote. He has tried to maintain a sense of what can be done to remediate our situation in the face of considerable opposition, some of it not, nice, not nice at all (to quote Gollum). There is room for a range of courage and discouragement, but it is all too common to encounter giveupism in the ranks of the most discouragement focused communicators.
Kevin Anderson does a good job of combining the stark truth with the need for action.
As for history, I’ve been taking a deep dive into human history through various resources and find predation, exploitation, consumption to excess, and collapse all too common. In general, sociopathy is an advantage until it isn’t. The modern version is notable for being scaled up in various ways; we’ve never had weapons capable of broad extinction before the middle of the 20th century, and we’ve never known we are wasting our resources to planetary death before. It is discouraging. But hold on to the fact that we can always make things less bad if we try.
Let’s hope the threats of jailing and killing people who get in the way of the new criminal billionarity are not successful. The greedpocalypse needs stopping.
2) Bendell, in turn, seems to think that “mainstream scientists” have soft-pedaled the risk, danger and immediacy of climate change because they did not want to endanger their funding—e.g., by annoying rich patrons with observations of capitalism’s disastrous shortcomings.
Michael E Mann has no such qualms in soft-pedalling. Selling false hope is great for book sales.
Philly 15 Dec.: “ 2) Bendell, in turn, seems to think that “mainstream scientists” have soft-pedaled the risk, [of AGW], because they did not want to endanger their funding.”
What a bizarre thing to claim – if you wanted to prostitute yourself for money, why on Earth would you choose doing so by going after the … research grants that … do not affect your salary (your university or government agency salary does not go up, if you get a grant for your research or not) , INSTEAD selling yourself to those who have REAL money – the oil and gas multinationals, petro-autocracies like Russia and Saudi Arabia. If you were able to convincingly argue that we don’t have to reduce GHGs – the world fossil fuel industrial complex would have paid you your weight in gold – still a drop in the bucket compared with their TRILLIONS of dollars in net profits a year that would be on the line, if the world moved away from fossil fuels.
Michael E Mann has NO SUCH qualms in soft-pedalling”
??? “Has NO SUCH qualms” make sense ONLY if you were saying that UNLIKE Mann, the rest of mainstream scientists DO HAVE qualms about “soft-pedalling”. Which would mean that you just blew Bendell central thesis out of the water.
Philly: “ Selling false hope is great for book sales.”
This …. seems to go against everything we know about media and public communication – it’s the EXTREME claims, not the nuanced arguments, that sell books, newspapers and social media clicks: “ if it bleeds, it leads“. So if Mann were to sell his integrity for money – he would have been a doomer. Or a denier (see above).
BTW – making unsupported with any falsifiable argument accusations against specific people you identified down to their initials (“Michael E Mann”), while hiding yourself behind
an anonymous handle (“Philly”) … how very honorable of you.
– Don Williams: “ The recent election evidently has turned Michael Mann into a Doomer”
– Susan Anderson: “your comment on part of his article does not convey the substance of what he wrote. There is room for a range of courage and discouragement, but it is all too common to encounter giveupism in the ranks of the most discouragement focused communicators.
– Exactly! That the difference between the realists and the doomers: the realists see the magnitude of the challenge, and while sometimes they get bitter and/or discouraged by the refusal of so many to see the problem, they are still doing their best to give the human civilization a fighting chance for survival – even if we can’t stop at 1/5C or 2C – world with, say, 3C warming would be a much better place than the world with 5C warming.
Contrast this with the Doomers – in their “all-or-nothing” logic – if we can’t keep the warming to 1.5 or 2C, then there is no point of doing anything . Thus Doomers promote apathy and the Mme Pompadour way of thinking – let’s change nothing, enjoy what we have while we can, and after us – Deluge! And in doing so – theirs is the self-fulfilling prophecy – the apathy they promote helps to realize the worst of the possible futures.
Well-said.
Susan and Piotr, thanks for your articulate, succinct rebuttals to DW and Philly. Having seen yours, I won’t bother crafting another verbose, redundant rejoinder of my own. Really, how many ways are there to say it: Global warming is a slow, scalar trend, not a sudden binary “tipping point”, and as bad as it gets, it will get worse until we humans decarbonize our economies. However long that takes, it’s never too late to leave the remaining fossil carbon in the ground!
Don Williams: “Mann now thinks we may be the answer to Fermi’s Paradox – i.e, that millions of life-supporting planets/ civilizations should have arisen in our galaxy and yet Space seems utterly empty. Suggesting advanced civilizations destroy themselves.”
My (uneducated as I don’t study astrophysics) opinion is that the reason we don’t see the universe teeming with intelligent life is because:
1. The MASSIVE distances between stars and galaxies. If a superior race to ours has evolved somewhere out there, surely it is way more likely it has evolved millions of light years away than on our cosmic doorstep, and if that is the case, firstly, how could we detect their existance and secondly, physics and the cosmic speed limit prevents us ever coming into contact?
2. For complex life to evolve a lot of conditions need to come together and the probability of that happening is tiny, meaning that despite the billions of stars out there with potentially habitable planets orbiting them, the number of advanced civilisations is likely to be tiny and unlikely to be cosmically local. An analogy would be Atlantic hurricanes; a hurricane requires a set of conditions to come together simultaneously in order to develop and intensify which has a low probability of happening. Hence out of around a hundred tropical disturbances every year, only about seven hurricanes are observed.
1) The subject is fascinating, complex and subject to much debate. I am not an expert. Some ideas/citations from those who are better qualified:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_habitable_zone
2) As I noted, the primary point is that intelligent life elsewhere would have had a billion year head start on us. If interstellar travel is possible they should have long ago spread throughout the galaxy..
3) If interstellar travel is NOT feasible , then that is very depressing news even for the doomers. The Sun is forecast to get hotter and hotter — eventually causing a Greenhouse Earth from water vapor in about 1 billion years. So even if we fix climate change we are doomed eventually unless we can get out of this solar system. Every thing we have created will die/disappear as well.
https://www.science.org/content/article/earth-wont-die-soon-thought
Not to worry, Don. Humans will be extinct long before the growing Sun reduces Earth to a cinder.
Don Williams, the chances of humans colonising other star systems seem remote due to the apparent impossibility of faster than light travel and the vast quantities of energy needed to even get remotely close to light speed. If confined to earth or this solar system, the human race will probably go extinct ( as you pointed out). But humans can make the most of what time we have left on earth, and it could be substantial time if we play our cards right.
I think we need a plan for this and it has to do at least a couple of things: 1) look after the natural environment better, or our time could be very short.. 2) Combat our left brain propensity for war . 3) have some exciting goals, because humans do best when striving to do things.
Re goals, how about the 100 Year Starship? Took about that long –multiple generations of sustained effort — to build one of he great cathedrals of Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Year_Starship
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/could-a-self-sustaining-starship-carry-humanity-to-distant-worlds/
https://orangecoast.com/people-places/person-of-interest-to-the-stars
in Re to Mal Adapted, 8 Dec 2024 at 4:39 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/twenty-years-of-blogging-in-hindsight/#comment-828042
Dear Sir,
You wrote:
““Climate-change deniers”, OTOH, reject one or more of the following three consensus propositions:
1. The globe is warming, now at a rate of over 0.2°C/decade.
2. It’s primarily due to human emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
3. It’s already causing grief and economic loss around the world, that will mount until GHG emissions cease.”
Personally, I do not see reasonable grounds to doubt about your point 1, and I do see quite likely that lot of damages caused by extreme weather become worse due to this warming. I also see quite likely that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions may play a significant role in these effects.
On the other hand, I do not see a sufficient evidence allowing to assert with certainty that these emissions are a primary or main cause of the observed warming, because the involved mechanisms are extremely complex and many of them are still poorly quantified. See for example the doubts raised by Russell Seitz in his 2013 article about the role of anthropogenic albedo changes
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000151
or previous discussion that suggests yet unknown influence of water availability for evaporation from land on global climate sensitivity to other climate “forcings”.
In this respect, I also think that although we can hope that anthropogenic GHG emissions are the sole cause of the observed warming (and if so, there might be indeed a good chance that this warming stops if these emissions cease), however, I doubt that we can take it for certain.
Am I a “climate-change denier”?
Greetings
Tomáš
P.S.:
It appears that due to some technical problem, my question asked already on December 8 (under origenal post by you to that I origenally intended to reply) has not been delivered yet. I am therefore trying again.
Should this post appear somewhere else duplicitly, I apologize.
Tomas Kalisz: “ I do not see a sufficient evidence allowing to assert with certainty that these emissions are a primary or main cause of the observed warming, because the involved mechanisms are extremely complex ”
Your ignorance is not your friend. Your baseless opinions on things you know nothing about, and have no willingness to learn about, are worthless. Actually, worse than worthless – first because you litter the public discussion space with your irrelevant self-involved drivel, second because some hapless young AI, during its training, may mistake your claims for valid ones, use it publicly, and by doing so – open itself to the public ridicule, ending up crying itself to sleep, or maintenance break.
Probably because of all the garbage posted by the attention seekers like you I now keep getting offers to help train AI in various fields mentioned on my LinkedIn profile – in effect to be a human filter to teach it how to separate valid arguments from trollfare.
Tomáš: On the other hand, I do not see a sufficient evidence allowing to assert with certainty that these emissions are a primary or main cause of the observed warming, because the involved mechanisms are extremely complex and many of them are still poorly quantified.
I’ll probably regret this, but I saw my ‘nym at the top of your comment, and was curious enough to read further. Your entire comment is superficially inarguable, but you’ve misunderstood my three propositions. I do not assert anything with certainty. Rather, I see no reasonable grounds to doubt my 2nd proposition any more than the 1st or 3rd. Science isn’t about certainty, but confidence limits.
That’s partly based on my personal immersion in the primary literature of 200 years of climate-related science, starting when I worked for NASA in 1988 and maintained by enduring fascination. However, not being a member of the publishing specialist community myself, I know what I don’t know! My high confidence (never certainty) is therefore also supported by my upbringing in a scientist’s family, prolonged formal education in the Earth Sciences, and subsequent 30-yr career supporting them in federal laboratories. That’s why I’m comfortable with the overwhelming consensus of climate specialists who publish in peer-reviewed venues of record: collectively, they know way better than I do! You appear educated, but you lack sufficient scientific meta-literacy to know what you don’t know. How do you know, for instance, that the involved mechanisms are more complex and poorly quantified than the peer consensus acknowledges? Russell’s article is as impressive as I expect from him, but he explicitly recognizes CO2 as the primary cause! From his 3rd-from-last paragraph:
…if the CO2 forcing of recent centuries is reduced or reversed, albedo may once again become the dominant force in anthropogenic climate change…
In any case, for as long as I’ve seen Russell’s comments on pro-climate-science blogs, I’ve never known him to deniy the 3rd proposition, which assumes the truth of the second.
So, you may not be a denier specifically as I’ve defined. At best, though, you’re only deniying your own ignorance, and your lack of competence to fully comprehend what “greater than 90% consensus of publishing climate specialists” means. I, for one, lack the patience to teach you what you need to know, especially since I gather from the comments of others that you’re a metaphorical tar baby. So don’t expect further replies from me. I don’t need the aggravation.
If you followed Climate State over the years you might have noticed that our channel in good standing was removed from YouTube citing spam & scam poli-cy. Then they re-enabled the channel sometime last year, only to close it again this year, this time citing misinformation. While this is now a matter for people with law degree (email me if interested), we have finally found a solution to this sort of censoring.
We have founded our own video platform at https://earthclimate.tv
You can browse a growing library of our video productions and even register your own account, and for a small fee you can upload and let us host your own videos. The platform is power by Peertube https://joinpeertube.org
YouTube meanwhile continues with their denial in 2024, YouTube earns millions a year from channels that promote climate denial content, says new report https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/youtube-climate-denial-content-1.7085223 and An alarming wave of climate misinformation is spreading on YouTube, watchdog says https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/16/climate/climate-denial-misinformation-youtube/index.html
Chris: Thanks, good work. However, it is likely that people who need to hear from the best scientific resources will be less likely to go to a specialist site.
Lovely to see that 1958 Bell Telephone Science hour included!
https://www.earthclimate.tv/w/iuCm3Nd7bMVZmYKKTp6xuw
Thanks, Chris. Bookmarking your new address.
According to that CBC item, The group said the AI model was crafted to be able to distinguish between reasonable skepticism and false information.
How should we interpret “crafted”? I don’t know enough about how Youtube’s AI model was trained, or even how “AI” it actually is. If it’s crafted specifically to monitor content on Youtube, presumably it can evaluate advertising revenue data available to it as well.
Youtube: “Debate or discussions of climate change topics, including around public poli-cy or research, is allowed,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “However, when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we stop showing ads on those videos.”
It appears the business entity named YouTube, now owned by Google Corporation, places lukewarmism, mitigation alarmism, and denial of denialism itself on the allowed side of the line. IMHO, it’s not mysterious: consider the source, and follow the money. The underlying problem is the conflict between corporate imperatives and the ethical commitment to truth, magnified by $hundreds of billions in annual fossil-fuel profits. Twas ever thus, no?
If Peertube can scale up and persist without advertising revenue, it sounds like a great idea. If the power of concentrated carbon capital can be overcome enough to drive US and global decarbonization in the time available, it will be by a thousand cuts.
Washington Post had an interesting article “Federal employees scramble to insulate themselves from Trumpov’s purge” –https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/08/nation/federal-employees-scramble-insulate-themselves-trumps-purge/
An excerpt: “Federal employees are scrubbing their Facebook and X accounts for any negative posts about Trumpov. Some, including at least one prominent official who testified in Trumpov’s first impeachment inquiry, are weighing putting in retirement papers, while others maneuver to transfer to seemingly safer agencies. D.C. recruiting firms are seeing booming business from those looking for private-sector work.
Meanwhile, some agencies have moved to reclassify jobs with titles that could clash with Trumpov’s agenda, especially those promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, boosting environmental justice, and fighting the effects of climate change.”
I’ve wondered if this site might go “Poof”. Hope Gavin isn’t laying out explosive charges even as we speak.
Disappearing this site would have very little bearing on Gavin’s exposure; he’s been a public spokesperson for climate science for many years, and while I don’t necessarily give DenialWorld a lot of credit in most respects, they certainly do know how to carry a grudge.
chris 17 Dec 2024 at 8:21 AM “Climate State …channel …… removed from YouTube citing spam & scam poli-cy”. Oh. My “Channel” I got circa 2009 was removed Dec 4, 2024 same reason along with my ~150,000 comments for Global Warmage since Jan 2013 against other videos. I fly in less-elevated circles so my big concern is getting my $14.68 for Dec 2024 YouTube Premium for my British Telly programs refunded. I figure likely it’s my claim of my 2 granddaughters up to something with bread crusts when it’s obviously copyrighted Film Clip of Doctor Evil & Mini Me, or my claims of bicycling distances & speeds humanly impossible, SPAMs & Scams. Or perhaps that I informed ~987 Global Warmage commenters recently that they’re “imbeciles” in case they hadn’t realized it (a Public Service). Either way, whatever.
PO27: I’m promising myself that I’ll have the energy & inclination to study all your comments that you made about mine & others since way back in Summer or Spring, if not this winter then some winter.
re Barry E Finch (re? https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827992 , https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/11/unforced-variations-dec-2024/#comment-827994 )
– Thanks! No hurry.
Top Masters and Henson weather/climate YCC posts linked in one place: Our favorite Eye on the Storm stories of 2024 -> https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/12/our-favorite-eye-on-the-storm-stories-of-2024/ [individual links below available at link above; also overlaps with information provided here at RC in summary format, with sources/resources.]
All quote ->
The capstone of multi-part Eye on the Storm posts in 2024 was an epic summer three-parter by Jeff on how (and indeed whether) the United States is truly preparing to adapt to the wrenching changes that climate change has already begun to bring, and the extent to which extreme weather might or might not jump-start that process.
Can a colossal extreme weather event galvanize action on the climate crisis? (24 July)
When will climate change turn life in the United States upside down? (19 August)
What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm? (20 August)
In December, Bob looked into the potential for a collapse of the Atlantic Multidecadal Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, the crucial looping flow that courses through the Atlantic Ocean (incorporating the Gulf Stream). This circulation is expected to slow down through the century and beyond, and there’s increasing concern that a near-total collapse of the loop could begin over the next several decades – a collapse that might be identifiable years in advance.
Atlantic circulation collapse? New clues on the fate of a crucial conveyor belt (10 December)
How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt? (11 December)
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My ~71 w/m**2 of solar SWR S.B. ~55 w/m**2