Climate Change Mega Thread

[Jflem1983]

How did the ice age end. Did it end all at once. Or did it warm slowly over millions of years.

What about the start of the ice age. Did it come on all at once . Or was it gradual.


What oil company would you liberals suggest be held responsible for the ice ages. We all know only man can change the weather. Its not like it just happens. Astroids moon cycles. Sun bursts. Supernovas ,volcanos and forest fires are all man made. Every liberal knows this .

Seeing as how we know climate is created by man. What is man gonna do to fix the weather. How can we tax some more .

[Ka-El]

As observed by the British philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill,
"Although it is not true all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative".

[Jlabute]

Our current day position in the interglacial chart is the tail end of a warm period. No amount of CO2 is going to save a few billion people from the approaching freeze. This particular chart shows that CO2 lags temperature. Temperature would increase, and CO2 would follow.

As we leave an ice age, the fastest rate of sea level rise is about 3cm/year over a 500 year period. Mostly the seas dip and rise in a range of about 120 meters or more.

[Omnitheo]

#8 @11:50

[Jlabute]

Must Read Lecture: Top Physics Prof Nails the ‘Global Warming’ Myth

9 Oct 2018

In its latest hysterical bulletin, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has urged that we need to spend $2.4 trillion a year between now and 2035 to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of ‘climate change.’

But the truth is that ‘climate change’ - at least as perceived by the IPCC - is bunk and all that expenditure (which, added up, amounts to a sum greater than the entirety of global GDP) would be a complete waste of money.

Or, as Professor Richard Lindzen, arguably the world’s greatest expert on the subject rather more elegantly put it in a lecture in London last night:

An implausible conjecture backed by false evidence and repeated incessantly has become politically correct ‘knowledge,’ and is used to promote the overturn of industrial civilization.

Lindzen, who for 30 years was Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is probably the scientist most loathed and feared by the climate alarmist establishment. That’s because he knows the subject rather better than they do and has never been bested in argument.

He is withering in his contempt for man-made global warming theory, as he demonstrated in some scientific detail at the annual lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, hosted by its president (Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer) Lord Lawson.

You can read the full text here.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2018/10/Lindzen-2018-GWPF-Lecture.pdf

The global warming scare has little to do with science, Lindzen began by noting, but is rather the product of ignorance of science.

Hence his lecture title: Global Warming for the Two Cultures.

This was a reference to the influential lecture given in the Fifties by the novelist and physical chemist CP Snow in which he decried the scientific ignorance among the supposedly educated elite.

Little has changed since, said Lindzen:

While some might maintain that ignorance of physics does not impact political ability, it most certainly impacts the ability of non-scientific politicians to deal with nominally science-based issues. The gap in understanding is also an invitation to malicious exploitation. Given the democratic necessity for non-scientists to take positions on scientific problems, belief and faith inevitably replace understanding, though trivially oversimplified false narratives serve to reassure the non-scientists that they are not totally without scientific ‘understanding.’ The issue of global warming offers numerous examples of all of this.

Later he singled out former Secretary of State John Kerry for especial scorn.

Former senator and Secretary of State John F. Kerry is typical when he stated, with reference to greenhouse warming, ‘I know sometimes I can remember from when I was in high school and college, some aspects of chemistry or physics can be tough. But this is not tough. This is simple. Kids at the earliest age can understand this’. As you have seen, the greenhouse effect is not all that simple. Only remarkably brilliant kids would understand it. Given Kerry’s subsequent description of climate and its underlying physics, it was clear that he was not up to the task.

Lindzen’s scientific case against the man-made global warming scare is essentially this: the world’s climate is a chaotic system whose workings, even after decades of intense study and billions of dollars of research funding, scientists have but barely begun to comprehend. Yet here they are deciding on the basis of no convincing evidence to pin the blame on just one of the many contributory elements to climate - carbon dioxide - and trying to persuade us that this trace gas is somehow the master control knob.

This notion is so ridiculous, he said, it is close to “magical thinking”.

Now here is the currently popular narrative concerning this system. The climate, a complex multifactor system, can be summarized in just one variable, the globally averaged temperature change, and is primarily controlled by the 1-2% perturbation in the energy budget due to a single variable - carbon dioxide - among many variables of comparable importance. This is an extraordinary pair of claims based on reasoning that borders on magical thinking. It is, however, the narrative that has been widely accepted, even among many skeptics.

Until the late 80s, not even climate scientists subscribed to this theory. It only took off for political reasons and because there was so much money to be made from it.

When, in 1988, the NASA scientist James Hansen told the US Senate that the summer’s warmth reflected increased carbon dioxide levels, even Science magazine reported that the climatologists were skeptical. The establishment of this extreme position as dogma during the present period is due to political actors and others seeking to exploit the opportunities that abound in the multi-trillion dollar energy sector.

Elites are much more susceptible to this nonsense than ordinary people.

As Lindzen explained, elites are less interested in truth than in what is convenient.

1. They have been educated in a system where success has been predicated on their ability to please their professors. In other words, they have been conditioned to rationalize anything.

2. While they are vulnerable to false narratives, they are far less economically vulnerable than are ordinary people. They believe themselves wealthy enough to withstand the economic pain of the proposed policies, and they are clever enough to often benefit from them.

3. The narrative is trivial enough for the elite to finally think that they ‘understand’ science.

4. For many (especially on the right), the need to be regarded as intelligent causes them to fear that opposing anything claimed to be ‘scientific’ might lead to their being regarded as ignorant, and this fear overwhelms any ideological commitment to liberty that they might have.

None of these factors apply to ‘ordinary’ people. This may well be the strongest argument for popular democracy and against the leadership of those ‘who know best.’

The scientists, meanwhile, don’t know nearly as much as they pretend they know. And in any case, many of them have been corrupted by money or their left-wing politics.

1. Scientists are specialists. Few are expert in climate. This includes many supposed ‘climate scientists’ who became involved in the area in response to the huge increases in funding that have accompanied global warming hysteria.

2. Scientists are people with their own political positions, and many have been enthusiastic about using their status as scientists to promote their political positions (not unlike celebrities whose status some scientists often aspire to). As examples, consider the movements against nuclear weapons, against the Strategic Defense Initiative, against the Vietnam War, and so on.

Scientists are also acutely and cynically aware of the ignorance of non-scientists and the fear that this engenders.

But what about all the scary “proof” that global warming is happening? Lindzen has no truck with any of it.

What about the disappearing Arctic ice, the rising sea level, the weather extremes, starving polar bears, the Syrian Civil War, and all the rest of it? The vast variety of the claims makes it impossible to point to any particular fault that applies to all of them. Of course, citing the existence of changes - even if these observations are correct (although surprisingly often they are not) - would not implicate greenhouse warming per se. Nor would it point to danger. Note that most of the so-called evidence refers to matters of which you have no personal experience. Some of the claims, such as those relating to weather extremes, contradict what both physical theory and empirical data show. The purpose of these claims is obviously to frighten and befuddle the public, and to make it seem like there is evidence where, in fact, there is none.

Just to repeat that last important point: Lindzen believes that there is no real-world evidence that supports man-made global warming theory. None.

Lindzen concluded:

What we will be leaving our grandchildren is not a planet damaged by industrial progress, but a record of unfathomable silliness as well as a landscape degraded by rusting wind farms and decaying solar panel arrays. False claims about 97% agreement will not spare us, but the willingness of scientists to keep mum is likely to much reduce trust in and support for science. Perhaps this won’t be such a bad thing after all - certainly as concerns ‘official’ science.

There is at least one positive aspect to the present situation. None of the proposed policies will have much impact on greenhouse gases. Thus we will continue to benefit from the one thing that can be clearly attributed to elevated carbon dioxide: namely, its effective role as a plant fertilizer, and reducer of the drought vulnerability of plants. Meanwhile, the IPCC is claiming that we need to prevent another 0.5C of warming, although the 1C that has occurred so far has been accompanied by the greatest increase in human welfare in history. As we used to say in my childhood home of the Bronx: ‘Go figure’.

---------
NOTE:

To abide by the IPCC report recommendations for taxing carbon production, to fill up your gas tank (12 gallons) in 2030 (just 11 years away), it would cost you over $600 each time you went to the gas station.



http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/must_read_lecture_top_physics_prof_nails_the_global_warming_myth/

[Verum]

Be careful who you put up on such a pedestal:
https://skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Lindzen.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
If he had adequate and appropriate research to discredit the accepted understanding of anthropogenic climate change, Lindzen would have done so and won multiple awards, most likely including a Nobel prize. Simply put, the evidence is against him and his claims.
Interestingly, he doesn't deny that anthropogenic climate change is real, just that we have adequate understanding to make such claims, and particularly that we can be sure that CO2 is a massive and man made contributor. His claim is simply wrong as there are too many experiments to back up our current understanding. We may not be in a position to say with absolute certainty that the scientifically predicted outcomes will come to pass, but that's true of basically everything. Science doesn't deal in absolute certainties, it deals in probabilities. We can't prove that smoking causes cancer, but we can show it is extremely likely that it does. Some in the past used to use our relatively small degree of uncertainty as an excuse for inaction, or to deny the link between smoking and cancer, but such thinking is short sighted and dangerous. Interestingly, Lindzen has also been known to question the link between smoking and cancer too.

[Jlabute]

Be careful who you put up on such a pedestal:
https://skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Lindzen.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
If he had adequate and appropriate research to discredit the accepted understanding of anthropogenic climate change, Lindzen would have done so and won multiple awards, most likely including a Nobel prize. Simply put, the evidence is against him and his claims.
Interestingly, he doesn't deny that anthropogenic climate change is real, just that we have adequate understanding to make such claims, and particularly that we can be sure that CO2 is a massive and man made contributor. His claim is simply wrong as there are too many experiments to back up our current understanding. We may not be in a position to say with absolute certainty that the scientifically predicted outcomes will come to pass, but that's true of basically everything. Science doesn't deal in absolute certainties, it deals in probabilities. We can't prove that smoking causes cancer, but we can show it is extremely likely that it does. Some in the past used to use our relatively small degree of uncertainty as an excuse for inaction, or to deny the link between smoking and cancer, but such thinking is short sighted and dangerous. Interestingly, Lindzen has also been known to question the link between smoking and cancer too.

There is almost no evidence, beyond knowing CO2 is increasing. So the lack of evidence is for him. Unfortunately we are in a world where Al Gore and Obama win the Nobel prizes in a politically biased system where climate change means revenue for the UN and governments. Al Gore has no understanding of climate change and has made a fortune selling fear. He has been put on a pedestal. One must wonder about IPCC models which run much hotter than observations, and can't predict the past. The IPCC is now claiming 2030 is the point of no return and 1.5c. The day before this annoucement it was 2c and 2100. Obviously there couldn't have been any accuracy or understanding in the previous egregious over-reach, and now it is beyond believable. Are you relying on outcome of predictions? How many IPCC predictions (made by the nebulous 97%) have been wrong? Way too many to even believe their 'scientific' predictions. If the IPCC and the 97% are dealing with probabilities, and ALL their predictions are wrong, then you're not dealing with any certainty at all, more like complete uncertainty and lack of understanding. What are the climate experiments you refer to? How can you even do an experiment on a global chaotic system that prove climate change will kill us all before 2030? The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I would say that if one prediction is wrong you should go back to the drawing board before asking the world for 2.4 trillion dollars/year with no statement of what it will be used for or what it will accomplish.

For all we know, a small temperature rise can be beneficial. Mankind in his scientific endevours will create new energy sources in the near future. Electric cars are mandated, and problem solved without having to beat our chests and waste hundreds of trillions on renewables. This is a non-problem that will solve itself.

[Omnitheo]

You keep making this claim about changes to climate models, yet you have failed to provide sources for any yet. What models are you sourcing this from?

[Verum]

...
There is almost no evidence, beyond knowing CO2 is increasing.

No, that's just not true. There is massive evidence that increasing CO2 increases the greenhouse effect:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

So the lack of evidence is for him. Unfortunately we are in a world where Al Gore and Obama win the Nobel prizes in a politically biased system where climate change means revenue for the UN and governments.

Science isn't about political opinions or even those of pundits. Al Gore isn't a scientist and clearly doesn't have the level of understanding needed, but that doesn't mean that the basic ideas he discussed are entirely wrong. Ultimately one or even a few wrong pundits doesn't mean that the science is wrong or hugely inaccurate.

Al Gore has no understanding of climate change and has made a fortune selling fear. He has been put on a pedestal.

Yes, that doesn't make it right to put individual scientists who disagree with the evidence of anthropogenic climate change on one either.

One must wonder about IPCC models which run much hotter than observations, and can't predict the past. The IPCC is now claiming 2030 is the point of no return and 1.5c. The day before this annoucement it was 2c and 2100. Obviously there couldn't have been any accuracy or understanding in the previous egregious over-reach, and now it is beyond believable. Are you relying on outcome of predictions? How many IPCC predictions (made by the nebulous 97%) have been wrong? Way too many to even believe their 'scientific' predictions. If the IPCC and the 97% are dealing with probabilities, and ALL their predictions are wrong, then you're not dealing with any certainty at all, more like complete uncertainty and lack of understanding. What are the climate experiments you refer to? How can you even do an experiment on a global chaotic system that prove climate change will kill us all before 2030?

Nobody is claiming that the climate will kill us all before 2030 and no experiment can ever prove something, not scientifically. Asking for absurd evidence is of no benefit to anyone. What the IPCC actually claimed, and this is really easy to find out if you want to, is that if we are to keep the temperature rise to 1.5C or less that we need to slash emissions by about 45% by 2030. I'm not as familiar with their methodology as I might like to be, but their report and how you represented it are so completely different as to beg the question of whether you read it or not.

The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I would say that if one prediction is wrong you should go back to the drawing board before asking the world for 2.4 trillion dollars/year with no statement of what it will be used for or what it will accomplish.

They're not asking for 2.4 trillion. Again, did you read the report or even a somewhat accurate summary of the report?

For all we know, a small temperature rise can be beneficial.

How small is small and for whom? The people whose houses will be under water? The people who won't have anywhere to live? The people who will find traditional crops just won't grow and who can't get food because traditional farmland is no longer viable? You might be right, but the risks are mighty high.

Mankind in his scientific endevours will create new energy sources in the near future. Electric cars are mandated, and problem solved without having to beat our chests and waste hundreds of trillions on renewables. This is a non-problem that will solve itself.

This is one area I actually agree, somewhat. We actually have much of the technology today, in the form of fission, wind, hydro, and solar power. Of course, hopefully we'll have fusion soon, though there isn't nearly enough investment in it. Energy is only one source of greenhouse gases though, and how we grow crops, build homes, etc. might also need to be addressed with technological solutions. The thing is that we should be encouraging research of these technologies, encouraging others to develop their own abilities to contribute to technological advancements, simply we should be using much more of our brainpower, collectively, globally, to actually find better ways to satisfy our requirements and desires. I suspect that if we did so, we would spend far less than the trillions that IPCC conservatively suggests because they don't assume massive changes in technology.

[rustled]

Cook initially created skeptical science for political purposes, to ensure people got behind public policy to fight climate change.

Perhaps you should take your own advice about pedestals?

[nepal]

Apparently Arctic is melting and Antarctic is freezing over.

[Glacier]

Apparently Arctic is melting and Antarctic is freezing over.

Given the fact that Antarctic sea ice is at its 3rd lowest point ever for this date, I'd say your definition of freezing over is a bit strange.

Arctic is at its 2nd lowest point ever for this date.

[Jflem1983]

Apparently Arctic is melting and Antarctic is freezing over.

Given the fact that Antarctic sea ice is at its 3rd lowest point ever for this date, I'd say your definition of freezing over is a bit strange.

Arctic is at its 2nd lowest point ever for this date.

antarctic_sea_ice_extent_zoomed_2018_day_296_1981-2010.png

arctic_sea_ice_extent_zoomed_2018_day_296_1981-2010.png

Pure bs. What about the dinosaurs. Its been warmer before. It will be again.

[JLives]

Pure bs. What about the dinosaurs. Its been warmer before. It will be again.

It's been explained to you and others multiple times that it's the rate of change that's the larger issue, not simply that the climate is changing.

[Jflem1983]

Pure bs. What about the dinosaurs. Its been warmer before. It will be again.

It's been explained to you and others multiple times that it's the rate of change that's the larger issue, not simply that the climate is changing.

So u were alive in the time of dinosaurs. Or you just claim to know.