Any change at all?

Mithrae · Sep 20, 2016

jamesrage said:
1.Didn't they believe in global cooling in the 1970s?

Might've made some good winter headlines in New York and the UK, but that was not a dominant scientific view.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

longview · Sep 20, 2016

Mithrae said:
Might've made some good winter headlines in New York and the UK, but that was not a dominant scientific view.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
View attachment 67207488

View attachment 67207489

Is that why the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES produced the report in 1975?
https://ia801806.us.archive.org/7/items/understandingcli00unit/understandingcli00unit.pdf
From Page one of the introduction,

A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments
on a worldwide scale, because the global patterns of food production
and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate
of the present century. It is not primarily the advance of a major ice
sheet over our farms and cities that we must fear, devastating as this
would be, for such changes take thousands of years to evolve.

It is clear the type of Climate change they are talking about is cooling.
And from page 36,

A striking feature of the instrumental record is the behavior of temperature
worldwide. As shown by Mitchell (1970), the average surface
air temperature in the northern hemisphere increased from the 1880's
until about 1940 and has been decreasing thereafter (see Figure A.6,
Appendix A). Starr and Oort (1973) have reported that, during the
period 1958-1963, the hemisphere's (mass-weighted) mean temperature
decreased by about 0.6 °C. In that period the polar and subtropical
arid regions experienced the greatest cooling. The cause of this variation
is not known, although clearly this trend cannot continue indefinitely.

Mithrae · Sep 20, 2016

longview said:
Is that why the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES produced the report in 1975?
https://ia801806.us.archive.org/7/items/understandingcli00unit/understandingcli00unit.pdf
From Page one of the introduction,

It is clear the type of Climate change they are talking about is cooling.
And from page 36,

So... you're quoting bits which say it's not primarily ice sheet advances which need to be feared, and that the preceding decades' cooling trend cannot continue indefinitely... and you're saying this is proof that they feared dramatic future cooling?

Did you bother to read to page 43 (67 of the pdf) - you know, the part about Man's Impact on Climate - or even just Ctrl+F for 'carbon'?

Man's Impact on Climate
While the natural variations of climate have been larger than those that may have been induced by human activities during the past century, the rapidity with which human impacts threaten to grow in the future, and increasingly to disturb the natural course of events, is a matter of concern. These impacts include man's changes of the atmospheric composition and his direct interference with factors controlling the all-important heat balance.

Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols
The relative roles of changing carbon dioxide and particle loading as factors in climatic 'change have been assessed by Mitchell (1973a, 1973b). . . .

The corresponding changes of mean atmospheric temperature due to CO2... appear capable of accounting for only a fraction of the observed warming of the earth between 1880 and 1940. They could, however, conceivably aggregate to a further warming of about 0.5 °C between now and the end of the century. . . .

The impact of such particle loading on the mean atmospheric temperature cannot be reliably determined from present information. . . . Aerosols may also affect the structure and distribution of clouds and thereby produce effects that are more important than their direct radiative interaction (Hobbs et al., 1914; Mitchell, 1974).

Of the two forms of pollution, the carbon dioxide increase is probably the more influential at the present time in changing temperatures near the earth's surface (Mitchell, 1973a).

Clearly in 1975 (as in 2013) it was recognised that aerosols and CO2 have been the biggest areas of human climatic influence; that aerosols have a two-fold climate effect; that there's more uncertainty of aerosol influence than for CO2; but that CO2 had likely been a bigger factor.

There's obviously no dramatic cooling scare there; not even your quotes suggest one! I wonder where you found them quote-mined at, since it's so obvious that you yourself hadn't attempted even a cursory look for relevant information in the report?

longview · Sep 20, 2016

Mithrae said:
So... you're quoting bits which say it's not primarily ice sheet advances which need to be feared, and that the preceding decades' cooling trend cannot continue indefinitely... and you're saying this is proof that they feared dramatic future cooling?

Did you bother to read to page 43 (67 of the pdf) - you know, the part about Man's Impact on Climate - or even just Ctrl+F for 'carbon'?

Man's Impact on Climate
While the natural variations of climate have been larger than those that may have been induced by human activities during the past century, the rapidity with which human impacts threaten to grow in the future, and increasingly to disturb the natural course of events, is a matter of concern. These impacts include man's changes of the atmospheric composition and his direct interference with factors controlling the all-important heat balance.

Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols
The relative roles of changing carbon dioxide and particle loading as factors in climatic 'change have been assessed by Mitchell (1973a, 1973b). . . .

The corresponding changes of mean atmospheric temperature due to CO2... appear capable of accounting for only a fraction of the observed warming of the earth between 1880 and 1940. They could, however, conceivably aggregate to a further warming of about 0.5 °C between now and the end of the century. . . .

The impact of such particle loading on the mean atmospheric temperature cannot be reliably determined from present information. . . . Aerosols may also affect the structure and distribution of clouds and thereby produce effects that are more important than their direct radiative interaction (Hobbs et al., 1914; Mitchell, 1974).

Of the two forms of pollution, the carbon dioxide increase is probably the more influential at the present time in changing temperatures near the earth's surface (Mitchell, 1973a).

Clearly in 1975 (as in 2013) it was recognised that aerosols and CO2 have been the biggest areas of human climatic influence; that aerosols have a two-fold climate effect; that there's more uncertainty of aerosol influence than for CO2; but that CO2 had likely been a bigger factor.

There's obviously no dramatic cooling scare there; not even your quotes suggest one! I wonder where you found them quote-mined at, since it's so obvious that you yourself hadn't attempted even a cursory look for relevant information in the report?

I know they talk about other effects, but in 1975 the main focus was to understand the climate cycles, and that cooling was a concern.
My main point being that is was not just a few headlines discussing global cooling, but it's potential was being discussed
in mainstream science.

Tpaine · Sep 20, 2016

longview said:
You miss the point, the 1000 year event was likely from some news person, and got repeated.

I did not miss the point. News people do not know what a 1000 year storm is so they have to get it from usually a meteorologist.

Engineers design say flood control within expected limits, and then make engineering tradeoffs with the budget
to try to double or triple the highest expected.

Engineers absolutely do NOT try to double or triple the highest expected. That shows you know nothing about engineering designers. Engineers design according to codes which are usually taken by governmental entities and legislated into law to protect the public.

The problem come in, when new construction changes the hydrology of the watershed.

The problem is when new construction is designed for a 50 year storm and a 1000 year storm hits. In the US new construction has to do a study before beginning to determine the effect on the hydrology and do what is necessary to mitigate that effect.

Tpaine · Sep 20, 2016

jamesrage said:
1.Didn't they believe in global cooling in the 1970s?

More than one study has shown that in the 1970’s about 20% of the scientific papers were concerned about global cooling because of increasing aerosols in the atmosphere and the other 80% were concerned about global warming. Now skeptics use that 20% to say scientists can’t decide whether it is cooling or warming. But by the 1980’s with additional evidence all those scientists that were concerned about cooling had become convinced that CO2 was overwhelming the other climate forcings.

2.So I take that as a no you can't answer how much of our climate change in man made vs natural?

I’ve already stated it’s considered to be around 90%

Mithrae · Sep 20, 2016

longview said:
I know they talk about other effects, but in 1975 the main focus was to understand the climate cycles, and that cooling was a concern.
My main point being that is was not just a few headlines discussing global cooling, but it's potential was being discussed
in mainstream science.

Of course it was being discussed in mainstream science; the graphs I posted specifically show seven such papers. (The NAS report you cited is listed in their 'neutral' category, not clearly suggesting either future warming or cooling.) There'd been a slight cooling trend in preceding decades and the magnitude of anthropogenic aerosols' effect on climate remained quite uncertain (even in 2013, the IPCC has it at -0.9W/m^2 +/- 0.8). Along with uncertainty over which would grow most in the future, GHGs or aerosols, it's unsurprising that some scientists leaned legitimately towards the cooling side of things.

No-one says that the science was settled in the 1970s... except some 'sceptics' who promote the myth of a cooling "consensus."

longview · Sep 21, 2016

Tpaine said:
I did not miss the point. News people do not know what a 1000 year storm is so they have to get it from usually a meteorologist.

Engineers absolutely do NOT try to double or triple the highest expected. That shows you know nothing about engineering designers. Engineers design according to codes which are usually taken by governmental entities and legislated into law to protect the public.

The problem is when new construction is designed for a 50 year storm and a 1000 year storm hits. In the US new construction has to do a study before beginning to determine the effect on the hydrology and do what is necessary to mitigate that effect.

I can tell you when I design a solution, if the budget allows, I go as good as I can, If the real world never hits my boundary,
that means the solution always meets the design requirements.
The type of construction that changes the hydrology of the watershed, is usually only concerned that they are above the flood plane,
but those things add quite a bit of impermeable surface to the watershed, which stresses the older storm water systems.
Lately in my area, the solution looks like retention ponds, which add latency to large events, and somewhat compensate for
added impermeable surfaces.

longview · Sep 21, 2016

Mithrae said:
Of course it was being discussed in mainstream science; the graphs I posted specifically show seven such papers. (The NAS report you cited is listed in their 'neutral' category, not clearly suggesting either future warming or cooling.) There'd been a slight cooling trend in preceding decades and the magnitude of anthropogenic aerosols' effect on climate remained quite uncertain (even in 2013, the IPCC has it at -0.9W/m^2 +/- 0.8). Along with uncertainty over which would grow most in the future, GHGs or aerosols, it's unsurprising that some scientists leaned legitimately towards the cooling side of things.

No-one says that the science was settled in the 1970s... except some 'sceptics' who promote the myth of a cooling "consensus."

In post # 76 You cited a 2008 paper talking about the myth of the the global cooling consensus, evaluating
papers between 1965 and 1979.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
The period is wrong, because by 1979, no one was really concerned about cooling, because by 1977
we had rebounded almost all the way back to the 1944 earlier high point.

Mithrae · Sep 21, 2016

longview said:
In post # 76 You cited a 2008 paper talking about the myth of the the global cooling consensus, evaluating
papers between 1965 and 1979.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
The period is wrong, because by 1979, no one was really concerned about cooling, because by 1977
we had rebounded almost all the way back to the 1944 earlier high point.

By their count, from 1965-75 there'd been 5 cooling, 11 'neutral' and 20 warming papers in their survey (~14% cooling). In 1965-72 there'd been 4 cooling, 5 neutral and 10 warming papers (~21% cooling). This is easily visible on the graphs I posted.

What is the 'correct' period to be looking at, if 1972 still isn't early enough to discover the alleged "consensus" on cooling? Peterson et al may or may not have done a perfect job, but they obviously got the NAS report you quote-mined correct as a 'neutral' one and it's very hard to imagine that they were out by a factor of four to miss the 80+% ratio which might legitimately start to resemble a consensus on cooling.

So what point are you trying to make here? There was obviously more uncertainty in the field in the 1960s and 70s, and there had been a few decades' cooling trend, so understandably a few scientists projected ongoing global cooling. A few more (albeit probably not even a majority at that stage; those counts are only of climate papers which explicitly discuss future climate change probabilities) projected global warming. I'm sure 'global cooling' made some good winter headlines in places like the UK or New York, but from all the evidence I've seen the frequent 'sceptic' claim of a scientific consensus about it looks very much like a dishonest propaganda ploy.

longview · Sep 21, 2016

Mithrae said:
By their count, from 1965-75 there'd been 5 cooling, 11 'neutral' and 20 warming papers in their survey (~14% cooling). In 1965-72 there'd been 4 cooling, 5 neutral and 10 warming papers (~21% cooling). This is easily visible on the graphs I posted.

What is the 'correct' period to be looking at, if 1972 still isn't early enough to discover the alleged "consensus" on cooling? Peterson et al may or may not have done a perfect job, but they obviously got the NAS report you quote-mined correct as a 'neutral' one and it's very hard to imagine that they were out by a factor of four to miss the 80+% ratio which might legitimately start to resemble a consensus on cooling.

So what point are you trying to make here? There was obviously more uncertainty in the field in the 1960s and 70s, and there had been a few decades' cooling trend, so understandably a few scientists projected ongoing global cooling. A few more (albeit probably not even a majority at that stage; those counts are only of climate papers which explicitly discuss future climate change probabilities) projected global warming. I'm sure 'global cooling' made some good winter headlines in places like the UK or New York, but from all the evidence I've seen the frequent 'sceptic' claim of a scientific consensus about it looks very much like a dishonest propaganda ploy.

Fair enough, I just think people implying it was only a few headlines are not accurate ether.
In some scientific circles there was real concern that we would start to cool.

Jack Hays · Sep 21, 2016

Tpaine said:
Thanks to all of those that responded to my last question. From those responses I thought of maybe a better question. For the skeptics, or anyone really, is there anything that you would see changing in the weather that would cause you to think that climate change is becoming a problem?

No. I do not dispute data. I dispute the mechanism of causation.

Tpaine · Sep 22, 2016

longview said:
I can tell you when I design a solution, if the budget allows, I go as good as I can, If the real world never hits my boundary,
that means the solution always meets the design requirements.
The type of construction that changes the hydrology of the watershed, is usually only concerned that they are above the flood plane,
but those things add quite a bit of impermeable surface to the watershed, which stresses the older storm water systems.
Lately in my area, the solution looks like retention ponds, which add latency to large events, and somewhat compensate for
added impermeable surfaces.

Are you a designer or an engineer and what kind? If you do as good as you can and don’t meet code requirements you will be lucky if you only get sued. If you are a professional engineer and intentionally don’t meet code requirements, regardless of the budget, that is a criminal act and you can and should go to jail for not protecting the public that you have sworn to protect.

“If the real world never hits my boundary” What the heck does that mean?

Tpaine · Sep 22, 2016

Jack Hays said:
No. I do not dispute data. I dispute the mechanism of causation.

That wasn't even close to the question and you didn't answer the question.

Jack Hays · Sep 22, 2016

Tpaine said:
That wasn't even close to the question and you didn't answer the question.

You missed the point. There is no change in the weather that would change my mind because the weather is not important to my view.

Tpaine · Sep 22, 2016

Jack Hays said:
You missed the point. There is no change in the weather that would change my mind because the weather is not important to my view.

Then why didn't you say that to begin with instead of talking about something else?

I like your icon. Is that what they call it?

Jack Hays · Sep 22, 2016

Tpaine said:
Then why didn't you say that to begin with instead of talking about something else?

I like your icon. Is that what they call it?

I thought I did. Sorry I wasn't more clear.

They call it an avatar. Mine is a likeness of the real Jack Hays.

longview · Sep 23, 2016

Tpaine said:
Are you a designer or an engineer and what kind? If you do as good as you can and don’t meet code requirements you will be lucky if you only get sued. If you are a professional engineer and intentionally don’t meet code requirements, regardless of the budget, that is a criminal act and you can and should go to jail for not protecting the public that you have sworn to protect.

“If the real world never hits my boundary” What the heck does that mean?

Code is the minimum standard is most cases.
I do not do flood control, but let's say for example the code for an area calls out a need to meet a 1 Inch per hour rainfall rate for up to 12 continuous hours.
If the system were designed to handle 2 inches an hour for 12 continuous hours, it would exceed the requirements,
and hopefully would exceed actual possible extreme events.

Tpaine · Sep 23, 2016

longview said:
Code is the minimum standard is most cases.
I do not do flood control, but let's say for example the code for an area calls out a need to meet a 1 Inch per hour rainfall rate for up to 12 continuous hours.
If the system were designed to handle 2 inches an hour for 12 continuous hours, it would exceed the requirements,

So what kind of designer are you?

and hopefully would exceed actual possible extreme events.

You continue to show you don’t understand the concept. There are no maximum extreme events you can design too. No matter what you design too, it could be exceeded.

longview · Sep 23, 2016

Tpaine said:
So what kind of designer are you?

You continue to show you don’t understand the concept. There are no maximum extreme events you can design too. No matter what you design too, it could be exceeded.

While you can never tell what the maximum possible rainfall will be in a given area, you do have historical data.
Lately, I am designing high availability communications environments, but have done many other things.
If you design around double the highest amount of rainfall in the last 100 years, you stand a good chance of staying ahead
of the rain. Will it be good enough? who knows, I always allow extra capacity where possible.

Tpaine · Sep 23, 2016

longview said:
While you can never tell what the maximum possible rainfall will be in a given area, you do have historical data.
Lately, I am designing high availability communications environments, but have done many other things.
If you design around double the highest amount of rainfall in the last 100 years, you stand a good chance of staying ahead
of the rain. Will it be good enough? who knows, I always allow extra capacity where possible.

Historical data does not tell you what the maximum future rainfall will be.

If you design for the highest amount of rainfall in the last 100 years you stand a good chance of staying ahead of the rain and if you design for double that amount you stand a better chance. What you don’t seem to comprehend is that regardless of what you design for it may be exceeded.

Tim the plumber · Sep 23, 2016

Tpaine said:
Historical data does not tell you what the maximum future rainfall will be.

If you design for the highest amount of rainfall in the last 100 years you stand a good chance of staying ahead of the rain and if you design for double that amount you stand a better chance. What you don’t seem to comprehend is that regardless of what you design for it may be exceeded.

Originally Posted by longview View Post
While you can never tell what the maximum possible rainfall will be in a given area, you do have historical data.
Lately, I am designing high availability communications environments, but have done many other things.
If you design around double the highest amount of rainfall in the last 100 years, you stand a good chance of staying ahead
of the rain. Will it be good enough? who knows, I always allow extra capacity where possible.

Yes he does.

Tpaine · Sep 24, 2016

longview said:
While you can never tell what the maximum possible rainfall will be in a given area, you do have historical data.
Lately, I am designing high availability communications environments, but have done many other things.
If you design around double the highest amount of rainfall in the last 100 years, you stand a good chance of staying ahead
of the rain. Will it be good enough? who knows, I always allow extra capacity where possible.

What are "high availability communications environments"?

Any change at all?

Mithrae

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