The Climate Change Thread

[Hovannes]

Near as I can tell,
Science can't be determined by popular vote.

[FredS]

Near as I can tell,
Science can't be determined by popular vote.

Del would disagree. The one who controls the purse strings controls the science.

[arank87]

Now it’s getting serious.

https://weather.com/science/environment ... ate-change

First chocolate and now beer? Hmmmm... this is getting serious.

More scare mongering. They show their hand right at the beginning:

As if last week's major study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describing the potentially devastating impacts of climate change without an unprecedented global effort didn't hit home with you, maybe this will: Climate change is coming for our beer, and hard.

"Since you ignorant, anti-science rubes don't take our Intergovernmental Panel seriously, well I guess we're going to have to get a rise out of you somehow...This week beer is going to be hit hard. Next week it'll be your sex life."

As if all the draconic regulations these dolts have wet dreams about wouldn't raise the cost of virtually everything including beer.

[Goose55]

I have said this before but I think it bears repeating. There has never before in the history of this world been 8,600,000,000 people all wanting to burn fossil fuels. That being said, of course the earth's atmosphere can not repair itself and the greenhouse effect continues to rapidly get worse with each passing day.

Science confuses people. Common sense does not. Or at least it shouldn't.

[tuttle]

I have said this before but I think it bears repeating. There has never before in the history of this world been 8,600,000,000 people all wanting to burn fossil fuels. That being said, of course the earth's atmosphere can not repair itself and the greenhouse effect continues to rapidly get worse with each passing day.

Science confuses people. Common sense does not. Or at least it shouldn't.

But wouldn't the sane answer, from experts or not, be that we ought to reduce the burning of fossil fuels rather than reduce the people who burn them?

Why do the experts always wind up concluding that the solution is less people? Why do they never take their own advice?

[Jester]

I have said this before but I think it bears repeating. There has never before in the history of this world been 8,600,000,000 people all wanting to burn fossil fuels. That being said, of course the earth's atmosphere can not repair itself and the greenhouse effect continues to rapidly get worse with each passing day.

Science confuses people. Common sense does not. Or at least it shouldn't.

Saved you the trouble of wading through the river. You can just bow down to them here if you like.

Now where did they leave that alter to Molech?

[GaryInVA]

What is the perfect temperature supposed to be? Who decides?

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

► Show Spoiler

Tuttleview: Brazil: Amazon land defender killed by illegal loggers

[tuttle]

+JMJ+
Tuttleview: Brazil: Amazon land defender killed by illegal loggers

Illegal logging and murder = reducing the world population

It's just more on the nose than "legal and safe reproductive health care".

[tuttle]

The Environmental Impact Of Your Thanksgiving Dinner

In case you need some reading material for the road to hell.

[JimVH]

The Environmental Impact Of Your Thanksgiving Dinner

In case you need some reading material for the road to hell.

<bad and inappropriate words>

[durangopipe]

What is the perfect temperature supposed to be? Who decides?

Q: What, not who.

A: The physical constraints of the natural world. The interconnected ecological systems - consisting of organisms and situational contexts - that have spent millennia adapting together to optimize existence within existing long-term climate patterns.

This isn't the first time change has happened, it isn't even the first time rapid change and large scale species extinctions have happened, but this is the first time it's happened primarily through a mechanism that is anthropogenic and therefore addressable by humans.

It's only a catastrophe if you like the world as it is/was and human existence as it is/was. Change is inevitable. But the current rate of climate change is outstripping organisms', ecological systems', social structures', economies', infrastructures', etc. ability to successfully adapt.

As far as connecting this to faith, as we all know this is hotly debated.

Some argue that God won't let that happen to we created in His image. Others argue (figuratively) that God is shaking his head in disappointment that given free will, and minds, we have chosen to do what we have done with the magnificent creation He so graciously gave to us.

In case you're wondering - I'm in the second camp.

[durangopipe]

Something that climatologists conveniently ignore is solar radiation. Namely, the kind that varies in 11, 88, and 200-year cycles. When you line up the global temperatures with the larger solar cycles, you see that there is an incredibly clear link between the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period and a solar maximum, etc. The ENSO, PDO, and AMO systems (that are responsible for oceanic-driven weather patterns including El Nino/La Nina) are primarily driven by solar energy. An increase in energy basically results in less powerful trade winds (as the energy pumps the airstream up away from the earth and then back down at 30 degrees + and -), which results in the water in the Pacific stagnating and being allowed to accumulate more thermal energy than "usual", which then changes the ranges of the polar and tropical effects on the jetstream.

So basically warm or crazy weather = sun farts. And wouldn't you know, NASA and friends were saying about 15 years ago that we were in an 88 year solar cycle that was the highest it has been in "over 8,000 years" (which we've just come out of end of last year).

Expect things to cool back down, especially as we've entered a new "minimum" cycle, just like the Maunder Minimum that just so *happened* to coincide with the Mini Ice Age.

I was sorry to see Josh leave.

He was bringing up a point often raised in discussions about climate change, and I rather hoped he’d bring up a few more so we could explore the research.

I posted a reply to his comment about earth warming and solar cycles nearly a year ago - but the assertion still pops up in this conversation. While trying to keep up with the research, I just stumbled across this chart on the NASA website that I thought might be informative regarding earth temperatures and solar cycles:



Any ham who was alive and operating in the 50s will tell you that solar activity has waned significantly in the 11 year cycles that have followed, but temperatures have kept rising. Shortwave propagation is hugely dependent on solar activity, and hams follow it closely.

An article in the NY Times today asked why scientists got global warming forecasts so wrong - not that they were initially unnecessarily alarmist, but that they so underestimated what has turned out to be a far more rapid rate of change with many significant effects that they did not foresee.

[wosbald]

+JMJ+

Something that climatologists conveniently ignore is solar radiation. Namely, the kind that varies in 11, 88, and 200-year cycles. When you line up the global temperatures with the larger solar cycles, you see that there is an incredibly clear link between the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period and a solar maximum, etc. The ENSO, PDO, and AMO systems (that are responsible for oceanic-driven weather patterns including El Nino/La Nina) are primarily driven by solar energy. An increase in energy basically results in less powerful trade winds (as the energy pumps the airstream up away from the earth and then back down at 30 degrees + and -), which results in the water in the Pacific stagnating and being allowed to accumulate more thermal energy than "usual", which then changes the ranges of the polar and tropical effects on the jetstream.

So basically warm or crazy weather = sun farts. And wouldn't you know, NASA and friends were saying about 15 years ago that we were in an 88 year solar cycle that was the highest it has been in "over 8,000 years" (which we've just come out of end of last year).

Expect things to cool back down, especially as we've entered a new "minimum" cycle, just like the Maunder Minimum that just so *happened* to coincide with the Mini Ice Age.

I was sorry to see Josh leave.

[…]

I didn't even see him go.

I just looked around and he's gone.

[Kerdy]

I think it was last week where I read scientists are now (again) saying we are about to enter into another ice age period. I remember this from the 70's (although, people now deny it was ever said back then) and it never happened. I don't trust any of them.

[durangopipe]

I think it was last week where I read scientists are now (again) saying we are about to enter into another ice age period. I remember this from the 70's (although, people now deny it was ever said back then) and it never happened. I don't trust any of them.

There has been a lot of discussion about this, since, Kerdy. I don’t think they’re trying to deny it as much as they are trying to put it into context.

The Scientific American story title pretty much sums it up:

How the "Global Cooling" Story Came to Be; Nine paragraphs written for Newsweek in 1975 continue to trump 40 years of climate science. It is a record that has its author amazed.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ame-to-be/


A couple of others:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06 ... g-ice-age/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... the-1970s/


An article that traces the spread of recent fraudulent reports of a coming mini ice age through social and other media:

https://climatefeedback.org/false-claim ... -accounts/

[gaining_age]

I think it was last week where I read scientists are now (again) saying we are about to enter into another ice age period. I remember this from the 70's (although, people now deny it was ever said back then) and it never happened. I don't trust any of them.

There has been a lot of discussion about this, since, Kerdy. I don’t think they’re trying to deny it as much as they are trying to put it into context.

The Scientific American story title pretty much sums it up:

How the "Global Cooling" Story Came to Be; Nine paragraphs written for Newsweek in 1975 continue to trump 40 years of climate science. It is a record that has its author amazed.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ame-to-be/


A couple of others:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06 ... g-ice-age/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... the-1970s/


An article that traces the spread of recent fraudulent reports of a coming mini ice age through social and other media:

https://climatefeedback.org/false-claim ... -accounts/

Curious on the "fraudulent reports".

Only item that had caught my attention was that there was a potential link between sunspot activity and that we're headed toward "The forecast for the next solar cycle says it will be the weakest of the last 200 years" where the cycle is 11 year cycle. And this is from NASA:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/solar ... xploration


Whether some sites or social media are using hyperbole to indicate mini ice age... I do not know.

My perspective is to wait and see over the next 11 years what things look like. Predictions are predictions on such things until we have data. The challenge is that the computer models are not based upon "basic principles" so that they vary greatly and gaining reputation on accuracy is perplexing--- and forecasting out 100 years becomes troubling (when granular control on parameters nor human behavior/involvement isn't accounted for).


G.

[durangopipe]

Well, here we are, again.
For the umpteenth time in the past 40 years.

[gaining_age]

Well, here we are, again.
For the umpteenth time in the past 40 years.

Nah. Read my post carefully. There is something shifting in the solar activity cycle(s) (see NASA article) -- which a cycle we're entering is the next 11 years. If (notice the conditional) there is a strong correlation between solar activity behavior and climate then (second part of a conditional) we should observe that correlation.

There's not umpteenth time about the post.

Also note that I am not giving credence to social media uproar. The only thing I had seen was information that had mentioned a change in the solar activity which I shared here.

As a scientist, I'm interested in observing correlation (or lack there-of). It will take a few years to get into the cycle.

Did my response as a scientist cause the tears? Or the fact that I am looking for evidence which could be misunderstood (similar, as far as being misunderstood, to NASA reporting in the article) the reason?

I apologize for stimulating an emotional response.

[durangopipe]

Well, here we are, again.
For the umpteenth time in the past 40 years.

Nah. Read my post carefully. There is something shifting in the solar activity cycle(s) (see NASA article) -- which a cycle we're entering is the next 11 years. If (notice the conditional) there is a strong correlation between solar activity behavior and climate then (second part of a conditional) we should observe that correlation.

There's not umpteenth time about the post.

Also note that I am not giving credence to social media uproar. The only thing I had seen was information that had mentioned a change in the solar activity which I shared here.

As a scientist, I'm interested in observing correlation (or lack there-of). It will take a few years to get into the cycle.

Did my response as a scientist cause the tears? Or the fact that I am looking for evidence which could be misunderstood (similar, as far as being misunderstood, to NASA reporting in the article) the reason?

I apologize for stimulating an emotional response.

No need for an apology, ga.

It’s a serious matter, with serious consequences and you’re thoughts are far more considered and reasoned than many - but still, for me, kind of frustrating.

If you have read (notice the conditional “if” - your response suggests that you either didn’t read the linked articles, or you prejudged them) the linked articles (selected from many, many more like them not from suspect but from reliable sources) you saw that any connection between solar cycle variation and the current measured rise and multi-year rising trend in global temperatures has been very thoroughly researched: there is no significant contribution from solar cycle variation, for several reasons (discussed in the articles).

Likewise, the spread of disinformation about solar cycles and a coming mini ice age spread in media (that you say you “do not know about” - meaning, I believe, “I don’t think so”) is clearly established.

I am well aware that current solar forecasts are suggesting that we may be entering an era of protracted, weak solar cycles. I’m a ham. It’s why I’m looking for another linear amplifier and hoping to convince my wife that a tower and some Yagis won’t look all that bad.

The decades long, repeatedly expressed, desire to wait for more data after 40 years of research specifically directed toward discerning the impacts of anthropogenic forcing on climate, after greater and greater clarity regarding the mechanisms and the consequences has been achieved, is the “here we go again” I was referring to. Nothing in science is certain. But the level of certainty now achieved is far beyond the degree that suggests a significant response.

The level of agreement about this among researchers in the field is almost unprecedented.
The degree of public denial, likewise, unprecedented.

I can only guess at why. My guess has much to do with human nature - denial (the psychological mechanism) for many understandable reasons.

My lament regarding “here we go again” is founded in the decades long observation that we have had many, many years to come to an understanding and to address the situation. And still (while most of the world’s population has come to accept this reality), too many in the U.S. feel the need for even more data, more certainty.

Let me add this, although I wasn’t going to - because it smacks of name dropping. Please forgive this. I did not know how else to give credibility to the following assertion about the integrity of the science.

One criticism of the science is that it has been corrupted by “agendas.”

The recent, former acting director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Dr. Richard Armstrong, was for years a very close friend and back country skiing buddy. When we were both in Silverton (he was then the director of a snow physics research project the Univ. of Washington had established in the San Juans) we spent hours together on snow and in conversation socially.

I contributed to two of his papers, one on the economic impact of avalanches in the San Juans, and an atlas of avalanches effecting US Hwy 550 between Silverton and Ouray and along the road from Ouray to the Camp Bird Mine. I know how thorough and careful he was.

Since, he has been associated with INSTAAR (the institute for Alpine and Arctic Research), NOAA, and he was responsible for coordinating, gathering together the research, and presenting the summary of international research on the state of science regarding climate change to the public.

His current work regards remote sensing of snow and ice water content in central Asia in order to predict the impact of current trends on water supplies for a large percentage of the people living on earth.

I know him and others like him I’ve met to be hugely capable scientists of extraordinary integrity only interested in the growth of our understanding of these phenomena. If they have an agenda, it might be summed up in one word: truth.