Pessimistic about climate

[Jlabute]

I found it disappointing but unsurprising the CBC commentator - a parent - didn't question the narrative.

She didn't seem even remotely interested in how the objectives of this PhD, and countless other teachers, have negatively impacted the mental health of children like her own.

It IS disappointing but it appears to fit the standard CBC narrative that your mental health is but a casualty in a more important fight. The CBC acknowledges mental health is an issue and suggests individuals put an effort towards fighting climate change in order to feel better.


As for ocean acidification:

- Climate models suggest the ocean’s surface pH has dropped from pH 8.2 to 8.1 since 1750, that change was never actually measured. The pH drop is merely a modeled conjecture that is constantly repeated as fact.

- The concept of pH was first introduced in 1909.

- The pH concept was not modernized in chemistry until the 1920s.

- There are only 3,800 Argo floats that measure ocean temperature and salinity. Only 10 percent of those measure ocean carbon dioxide chemistry, and just 40 floats measure ocean pH, suggesting the researchers don’t think it is a really big problem.

- Measured trends in ocean pH only began in the 1990s, which is far too short a time to allow a robust analysis.

[foenix]

I found it disappointing but unsurprising the CBC commentator - a parent - didn't question the narrative.

She didn't seem even remotely interested in how the objectives of this PhD, and countless other teachers, have negatively impacted the mental health of children like her own.

It IS disappointing but it appears to fit the standard CBC narrative that your mental health is but a casualty in a more important fight. The CBC acknowledges mental health is an issue and suggests individuals put an effort towards fighting climate change in order to feel better.


As for ocean acidification:

- Climate models suggest the ocean’s surface pH has dropped from pH 8.2 to 8.1 since 1750, that change was never actually measured. The pH drop is merely a modeled conjecture that is constantly repeated as fact.

- The concept of pH was first introduced in 1909.

- The pH concept was not modernized in chemistry until the 1920s.

- There are only 3,800 Argo floats that measure ocean temperature and salinity. Only 10 percent of those measure ocean carbon dioxide chemistry, and just 40 floats measure ocean pH, suggesting the researchers don’t think it is a really big problem.

- Measured trends in ocean pH only began in the 1990s, which is far too short a time to allow a robust analysis.

That's why the scientists have to use proxies like coral and ice core sample to measure those things because there weren't any reliable measures for them. That doesn't mean it's not as valid.....it's true that actual measurements are better but we have to use what's available.....

These records can be extended back through time using what are known as chemical proxies to provide an indirect measurement of seawater carbonate chemistry. A proxy is a measurement from a natural archive (ice cores, corals, tree rings, marine sediments, etc.) that is used to infer past environmental conditions. For example, by analyzing the chemical composition of tiny fossil shells found in deep ocean sediments, scientists have developed ocean pH records from ancient times when there were no pH meters. Furthermore, because the ocean surface water is in approximate chemical balance, or equilibrium, with the atmosphere above it, a record of historical ocean pH can be inferred from atmospheric carbon dioxide records derived from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, which contain air bubbles from the ancient atmosphere. Such evidence indicates that current atmospheric carbon dioxideconcentrations and ocean pH levels are at unprecedented for at least the last 800,000 years.

https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/oc ... ification/

Here's a better explainaion......

How do we know what ocean pH was in the past even though the pH scale was not introduced until 1909?


When ice sheets build up into glaciers, air bubbles become trapped in the freezing ice. Scientists have analyzed the CO2 concentration of air in these bubbles and have developed a record of the atmospheric CO2 concentration in the recent past. Because large parts of the surface ocean CO2 concentration remains roughly in equilibrium with the atmospheric CO2 concentration, the ocean CO2 content can be calculated from these air bubbles, and ocean pH can also be calculated. In fact, the ice core record shows that the atmospheric CO2 concentration has never been higher than about 280 ppm during the last 800,000 years, creating conditions leading to an average preindustrial surface ocean pH of ca. 8.2. — Jelle Bijma, Biogeochemist, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany

https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/oc ... ification/

[fluffy]

The oceans are strongly alkaline, not acidic.

Yes, it's not the level as such, but the changes in that level. The balance between pH and ocean life is delicate. Excess atmospheric CO2 ends up in the oceans, forcing the pH level further toward the acidic end of the spectrum. The numbers are small, a change in recent years from from normal pH of 8.2 to its current level of 8.1 might not sound like much but because the scale is logarithmic that represents a 26% increase in relative acidity. Coral reefs are dying, shellfish shells are getting softer due to increasing carbolic acid in seawater due to absorption of excess CO2 in the atmosphere.

https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/oc ... ate-ocean/

Arctic ice has grown over the last 15 years and Antarctic ice is also growing.

Wrong, we have been losing arctic sea ice at a rate of 13% per decade.

https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/six ... s-everyone

[Jlabute]

Wrong, we have been losing arctic sea ice at a rate of 13% per decade.

Except the last decade when it has increased. The record low occurred in 2012. Summer minimum has been greater since then and 2021 exceptional. Time will tell.

Minimum arctic ice extent has grown over the last 12+ years and Antarctic ice has gradually grown for decades. The arctic sea ice has had pronounced loss of ice over a small period of time since 1980 but 1901 to 1940 it was decreasing, then 1941 to 1980 it was increasing. 1980 to 2008 it was decreasing. 1980 was considered anomalously high. There are many ocean cycles and loss of ice isn't necessarily because of CO2. We have had hotter periods with less CO2 with higher oceans and less ice. As complex as it is, only time will tell what happens.

I would expect more warm peaks to follow as they did 120,000 years back in the last interglacial. Don't worry though, if you want cooler temperatures, they will eventually occur.

A world of only 'natural drivers' does not give you a flat unchanging climate. That is biased modelling. A result of too much trust in models when the science is not understood.

The most important thing to remember about climate models which are used to project future global warming is that they were “tuned” with the assumption: that the climate system is in a natural state of energy balance, and that there is no long-term climate change unless humans cause it.

This is an arbitrary and illogical assumption. The climate system is an example of a “nonlinear dynamical system”, which means it can change all by itself. For example, slow changes in the rate of vertical overturning of the world’s oceans can cause global warming (or global cooling) with no “external forcing” of the climate system whatsoever.

Instead, the climate models are “tuned” to not produce natural climate change. If a 100-year run of the model produces change, the model is adjusted to removed the “drift”. The models do not produce global energy balance from “first physical principles”, because none of the processes controlling that balance are known to sufficient accuracy. Instead, the models are “fudged” to produce energy balance, based upon the modelers’ assumption of no natural climate change. Then, the models are used as “proof” that only increasing CO2 has caused recent warming.

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[foenix]

Minimum arctic ice extent has grown over the last 12+ years and Antarctic ice has gradually grown for decades. The arctic sea ice has had pronounced loss of ice over a small period of time since 1980 but 1901 to 1940 it was decreasing, then 1941 to 1980 it was increasing. 1980 to 2008 it was decreasing. 1980 was considered anomalously high. There are many ocean cycles and loss of ice isn't necessarily because of CO2. We have had hotter periods with less CO2 with higher oceans and less ice. As complex as it is, only time will tell what happens.

Like you wrote, pre-1980, they didn't know for sure what the ice fields were doing as there were no measurements, just eyeball estimates from whalers and scientists. If you have any data on that pre-1980, feel free to put them out. I wouldn't mind looking at them.

[foenix]

I would expect more warm peaks to follow as they did 120,000 years back in the last interglacial. Don't worry though, if you want cooler temperatures, they will eventually occur.

A world of only 'natural drivers' does not give you a flat unchanging climate. That is biased modelling. A result of too much trust in models when the science is not understood.

The most important thing to remember about climate models which are used to project future global warming is that they were “tuned” with the assumption: that the climate system is in a natural state of energy balance, and that there is no long-term climate change unless humans cause it.

This is an arbitrary and illogical assumption. The climate system is an example of a “nonlinear dynamical system”, which means it can change all by itself. For example, slow changes in the rate of vertical overturning of the world’s oceans can cause global warming (or global cooling) with no “external forcing” of the climate system whatsoever.

Instead, the climate models are “tuned” to not produce natural climate change. If a 100-year run of the model produces change, the model is adjusted to removed the “drift”. The models do not produce global energy balance from “first physical principles”, because none of the processes controlling that balance are known to sufficient accuracy. Instead, the models are “fudged” to produce energy balance, based upon the modelers’ assumption of no natural climate change. Then, the models are used as “proof” that only increasing CO2 has caused recent warming.

sealevel.PNG

How about the link where you got this info.....it's wasn't whatsupwiththat by any chance would it?

Yeah but according to the Milankovitch cycle that you guys believe in, we should be in a mini-glacier period, so what happened to that model?

[foenix]

One can look at certain regions and argue, yeah but the ice sheets are "increasing" but if one was to look at the overall pictures instead of cherry picking the data, then we get news like this......

Earth is now losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year. And it’s going to get worse.

Global ice loss has increased rapidly over the past two decades, and scientists are still underestimating just how much sea levels could rise, according to alarming new research published this month.

From the thin ice shield covering most of the Arctic Ocean to the mile-thick mantle of the polar ice sheets, ice losses have soared from about 760 billion tons per year in the 1990s to more than 1.2 trillion tons per year in the 2010s, a new study released Monday shows. That is an increase of more than 60 percent, equating to 28 trillion tons of melted ice in total — and it means that roughly 3 percent of all the extra energy trapped within Earth’s system by climate change has gone toward turning ice into water.

“That’s like more than 10,000 ‘Back to the Future’ lightning strikes per second of energy melting ice around-the-clock since 1994,” said William Colgan, an ice-sheet expert at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “That is just a bonkers amount of energy.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... -glaciers/

[foenix]

Here's more.....

So Much Ice Has Melted, That the Earth’s Crust Is Shifting in Weird, New Ways

Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets—the world’s two largest bodies of ice—are melting at an alarming rate, causing major problems for local ecosystems and coastal communities alike. Now, in yet more evidence that the climate crisis is changing everything in bizarre and profound ways, new research suggests that the meltdown is warping the Earth’s crust.

The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month, analyzes satellite data of ice melt from 2003 to 2018. The authors paired this data with a model showing how changes in ice mass affect the crust. The model showed that much of the northern hemisphere moved horizontally because of melting ice in Greenland and the Arctic.

This happens because the planet’s outermost layer has a little more slack than you might think. When ice sheets build up, their weight causes the crust underpinning them to sink in order to compensate. When the ice melts, as it’s doing at a record rate due to rising temperatures, there’s less weight for the crust to bear so it rebounds.

https://gizmodo.com/so-much-ice-has-mel ... 1847754514

Vanishing ice is warping Earth's crust

The melting of Earth's polar ice is warping the planet's crust.

This shape change is subtle, but it occurs many hundreds of miles away from the ice sheets. Researchers may be able to monitor the shift as part of research to understand how climate change will affect sea level; understanding the warping is also important, because scientists need to be able to correct for this ground motion when measuring other types of geological processes, the study authors wrote in the August issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Scientists already knew that when ice disappears, the crust underneath changes. Imagine lifting your head from a memory foam pillow: As the weight of your head is lifted, the pillow gradually fluffs back up, still moving after you've vacated the bed. Something similar happens when a glacier retreats. The crust beneath, no longer under all that weight, slowly pops back up. This is called isostatic rebound, and it's very slow indeed. In some high-latitude regions, the ground is still rebounding from the retreat of the ice sheets during the end of the last ice age.

https://www.livescience.com/melting-ice ... arth-crust

[The Green Barbarian]

It's stupid articles like this one that get me riled up. "People aren't even aware of why they should be constantly consumed by fear of the man-made climate change bogey-man". This kind of crapola should just be laughed at and disregarded as fear-mongering nonsense.

Climate Change Could Impact So Many Canadians Who Are 'Unaware' That They're At Risk

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topst ... d=msedgntp

Just pure garbage.

[rustled]

It's stupid articles like this one that get me riled up. "People aren't even aware of why they should be constantly consumed by fear of the man-made climate change bogey-man". This kind of crapola should just be laughed at and disregarded as fear-mongering nonsense.

Climate Change Could Impact So Many Canadians Who Are 'Unaware' That They're At Risk

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topst ... d=msedgntp

Just pure garbage.

What's great about this piece is the comments. Most readers are no longer buying what the author's selling. Here are a couple:

When you cover everywhere in concrete and channel rainwater efficiently into storm drains you are more likely to get flash floods when the drainage system can't cope.
That isn't climate change. That is bad urban planning.

If flooding is increasing in cities it is much more likely to be due to rapid urbanization, poor urban planning and development, increasing population, unchecked immigration, and a lack of investment in infrastructure to meet the growing demands of the rising number of people in urban environments. Blaming it on climate change is the biggest cop out ever!

[Jlabute]

It is record breaking because Peter Ridd's chart (which is the sum of the three charts) at 2020 is greater than 1986.

How can the sum be greater when the other 3 charts don't indicate "record breaking" levels? That's called sleight of hand voodoo statistics (made up).

The voodoo used is called averaging with each region weighted by its size. 2011 and 2012 were big years for cyclones.
You’re not out there planting polyps are you?

[fluffy]

FACT-CHECKED: Barrier Reef coral health claims made by Dr Peter Ridd

"When contacted by AAP FactCheck, Dr Ridd said his claim was based on the Australian Institute of Marine Science's (AIMS) annual survey of the Great Barrier Reef, which has been conducted every year since 1985.

AIMS, a Commonwealth statutory authority, claims the survey is the most comprehensive available record on the reef's condition.

Its most recent monitoring report, from a survey conducted between September 2019 and June 2020, showed hard coral cover had fluctuated markedly since records began in 1985, but overall it had declined.

Hard coral cover was "a simple and robust measure of reef health" as it was a "critical ecosystem engineer" in coral reef systems, the report said."

https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/706 ... oral-reef/

The fact that the clip posted above came from Sky News Australia, founded by Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame, should have been enough of a reason to fact check the story for anyone.

[foenix]

How can the sum be greater when the other 3 charts don't indicate "record breaking" levels? That's called sleight of hand voodoo statistics (made up).

The voodoo used is called averaging with each region weighted by its size. 2011 and 2012 were big years for cyclones.
You’re not out there planting polyps are you?

That still doesn't explain the fact, none of those 3 graphs of the areas the voodoo scientist averaged were not at "record" growth levels to begin with.... That certainly didn't stop RIdd from making his graph look historic "record" breaking tho'.

[hobbyguy]

The "argument" over "man made climate change is real" will never be resolved for some. Just as there are folks still fighting over evolution as being real. In essence it is the same type of argument that has been going on since the "enlightenment" and people like Galileo. Observable fact versus dogma.

In general such "arguments" boil down to the old 80/20 rule. There will always be 20% +/- who choose to go the wrong way - and inevitably the 20% will be very vocal, mistaking belligerence, ignorance and loudness for real discussion.

There is still an active "Flat Earth" society. There are creationist theme parks. etc. Often there are crossovers to other issues.

The simple fact is that all species affect the ecology of the earth, and in very complex ways. Dominant species even more so.

Humans are, at this evolutionary moment, the dominant species in most systems. We constantly change the ecosystems, and in both unintended and intended ways. To assume that we are not affecting the ecosystems with our large and significant exploitation of fossil fuels is just hubris.

That simple reality will not stop the self interested and myopic 20% from ignoring reality, and there is little point in strengthening their antics by giving them any credence in discussion.

The important thing is that the 80% take action, and do so while ignoring the 20%. Eventually the 20% will become the 15%, then 10%, then 5% and finally the crank 1% that will always be with us. If Charlie Crank wants to carry on driving a jacked up pick up truck and "rolling coal" - meh!. Charlie Crank will soon be part of the 1% at the fringe - the crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner party.

Part of taking action is to realize that the vested interests will continue to "do a big tobacco" and Charlie Crank and his buddies will happily go along with them.

The most important part of taking climate change action will be to provide something better, and something that suits the self interests of many. That is the essence of collective action. Transit systems are something we can do now. Transitioning away from coal fired power plants is something we can do now. Transitioning to BEVs is something we can do now that will work for about 50% of people. Developing hydrogen technologies may give us a better option just as one area of potential. Restorative agriculture has potential. Etc.

A steady drumbeat of better options, a change here, a change there. Each of them perhaps minor, but adding up to greater whole.

The 80% that want a better future can build it, individually, a step at a time, like building a savings account - the first $50 doesn't amount to much, but if you keep adding, and adding, and adding it becomes something significant.

[The Green Barbarian]

The "argument" over "man made climate change is real" will never be resolved for some. Just as there are folks still fighting over evolution as being real. In essence it is the same type of argument that has been going on since the "enlightenment" and people like Galileo. Observable fact versus dogma.

I 100% agree. There are those who can "follow the science" on evolution and understand the theories, and then there are the gullible fools who buy into science fiction like the man-made climate change myth. These people want to have warm tummies, and therefore allow politics to be their driving force for decision-making, rather than actual science. If they listened to actual science, they'd know that the man-made climate change myth is total bunk. And we'd have no stupid "carbon" taxes, and poor people wouldn't suffer because of such dumb policy. Follow the science - man made climate change is a hoax.