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The fever pitch of climate alarmism

Alarmism / Climate sensitivity
[h=1]Another ‘worse than we thought’ study: Warming to be 15% worse than worst case scenario[/h]From the ‘scare tactical modeling’ department comes this press release today, which has been circulating to news media until the embargo lifted this morning. You’ll see all sorts of caterwauling from the usual media outlets about how global warming is even worse now, and the future looks grim. Of course, the back story is pretty…

I saw that story and had to laugh a bit.
People do not comprehend how unrealistic RCP8.5 actually is.
RCP8.5 places the year 2100 CO2 level at 936 ppm.
Let's consider for a moment what that really means.
In the last 160 years finding and burning every hydrocarbon we could,
we have raised CO2 levels by 120 ppm,
RCP8.5 would have us believe, we can find, extract and burn more than 4 times that amount
in the next 82 years, and at the same cost structure.
Reality must enter the picture at some point, we have found and extracted the cheap easy oil.
What remains is expensive and difficult to extract, think the risks of deep water horizon.
Fracking is a symptom of oil running out, not an endless supply.
In simple economic terms, if the demand is so high, the price will be high as well.
If the price is high, the possible alternatives will become economically viable, and we will not
need the oil any more.
Climate ect had a good article about the how unlikely RCP8.5 actually is.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/13/a-closer-look-at-scenario-rcp8-5/
 
Alarmism / Climate sensitivity
[h=1]Another ‘worse than we thought’ study: Warming to be 15% worse than worst case scenario[/h]From the ‘scare tactical modeling’ department comes this press release today, which has been circulating to news media until the embargo lifted this morning. You’ll see all sorts of caterwauling from the usual media outlets about how global warming is even worse now, and the future looks grim. Of course, the back story is pretty…

I like the last line, thanking God they are modeling things important. Like bridges.
 
I saw that story and had to laugh a bit.
People do not comprehend how unrealistic RCP8.5 actually is.
RCP8.5 places the year 2100 CO2 level at 936 ppm.
Let's consider for a moment what that really means.
In the last 160 years finding and burning every hydrocarbon we could,
we have raised CO2 levels by 120 ppm,
RCP8.5 would have us believe, we can find, extract and burn more than 4 times that amount
in the next 82 years, and at the same cost structure.
Reality must enter the picture at some point, we have found and extracted the cheap easy oil.
What remains is expensive and difficult to extract, think the risks of deep water horizon.
Fracking is a symptom of oil running out, not an endless supply.
In simple economic terms, if the demand is so high, the price will be high as well.
If the price is high, the possible alternatives will become economically viable, and we will not
need the oil any more.
Climate ect had a good article about the how unlikely RCP8.5 actually is.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/12/13/a-closer-look-at-scenario-rcp8-5/

What I find unrealistic about it, is similar. Not so much that the expected CO2 is increasing, but it appears they don't account for the velocity of absorption changes.

If we assume that 400 ppm is 110 ppm away from equilibrium, and the earth absorbs around 3% of this excess annually. We are emitting about 10 GtC annually and absorption is about 5 GtC. When we have a 220 ppm imbalance, the absorption rate will be ~6% annually, or around the amount we are emitting annually now. We will have a leveling off unless we start emitting more than out current annual. Absorption of the excess is linear to the imbalance. For us to see a 900+ ppm level, means a 600+ ppm imbalance of equilibrium. To achieve such a benchmark, we would have to emit something like 50GtC or more annually.

It is almost impossible for us to see such levels of CO2 accumulate in the atmosphere. I guess if you favor activism over science, you can be duped into lying about such things though...

Again... Imbalance 110 ppm when emitting 10 GtC and absorbing 5 GtC.

Double that imbalance, and the rate of absorption doubles to 10 GtC, or current emission levels.
 

New study puts the 1.5°C and 2.0°C temperature limits of the Paris Agreement into a historical climate context

The Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015 during the COP21 climate conference stipulates that the increase in the global average temperature is to be kept well below 2°C above “pre-industrial levels” and that efforts are pursued to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above “pre-industrial levels.” Closer inspection of the treaty text, however, reveals that…
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. . .
The study that was published on 12 December 2017 in the journal ‘frontiers in Earth Science’ reminds policymakers, scientists and the public that the “pre-industrial” times cited in the Paris Agreement involve a dynamic alternation of warm and cold phases which need to be viewed in context. The Little Ice Age that ended around 1850 AD does not represent a suitable reference level for the 20th and early 21stcentury warming as it fails basic scientific baseline criteria.Paper:
Lüning, S., F. Vahrenholt (2017): Paleoclimatological context and reference level of the 2°C and 1.5°C Paris Agreement long-term temperature limits. Frontiers in Earth Science, 12 December 2017, doi: 10.3389/feart.2017.00104

 
It seems that the alarmist cannot let many days past before throwing out more alarmist articles.
Study: Rising seas may put US historical landmarks under water this century | TheHill
...
To get the predicted 39 inches by 2100, would require a rate of sea level rise 4 times faster than what we have been seeing.

I thought it would be interesting to see the Source of the Hill's article.
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/4/

The CSSR report mentioned that RCP8.5 would result in ... a CO2 level of 936 ppm by year 2100,
...
How likely are we to be able to increase the level by another 530 ppm in the next 82 years?

From my file of quotes and tag lines:

Left-wing Liberal Democrats and the Main Stream media have no sense of numbers, science and reality.
That’s why they think we can power the world’s economy on wind mills, solar panels, and squirrel cages.​

It's also why they think multi-meter sea level rise is possible by 2100 or that CO2 will increase
6.5 ppm every year for the next 82 years.
 

[h=1]Study: Poor People Eating Properly would Accelerate Global Warming[/h]Guest essay by Eric Worrall A study published in PNAS recommends climate be taken into consideration when drafting national recommended diet guidelines. The study further recommends that poor people should consume vegetable protein instead of meat protein, in line with dietary recommendations for rich countries. The abstract of the study; Evaluating the environmental impacts of…
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[h=1]Editorial Narratives in Science Journalism[/h]Guest Essay by Kip Hansen Science journalism is hard to get right. There is the constant struggle to clearly explain one’s topic without over-simplifying or misrepresenting by dumbing-down the details in hopes of communicating better and on the opposite side, explaining the topic in far too great an esoteric technical detail and far above…
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[h=1]Editorial Narratives in Science Journalism[/h]Guest Essay by Kip Hansen Science journalism is hard to get right. There is the constant struggle to clearly explain one’s topic without over-simplifying or misrepresenting by dumbing-down the details in hopes of communicating better and on the opposite side, explaining the topic in far too great an esoteric technical detail and far above…
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Kip Hansen talks about Fake News and he never mentions what it really is, B.S. I was able to spell that out over at WattsUpWithThat
 
This extreme cold is just weather but all heat waves are climate change


There is a deep asymmetry in science. Don’t take it from me, take it from the former President of American Meteorological Society (AMS) and a current Director of the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Atmospheric Sciences Program. Marshall Sheppard would know, he has written over “80 peer reviewed papers” which gives him secret weather knowledge. It’s a kind of smarts that people who analyze MRI scans, design aerofoils or find minerals 3,000m underground can only aspire to.
He’s worried that people are mocking climate change, just because snap-frozen sharks are washing up on the beach, and it’s hitting minus 50C in Canada. In the last twenty years mankind has put out more than a third of all the CO2 homo sapiens has ever made since Homo Erectus lit their last fire. Despite that whole extra blanket on the planet, the last time it was this cold was, like 1917.
So to help train believers Marshall Sheppard has written a handy retort to skeptical cynics:
Step One: It’s only cold where you are:

Girls and boys, global weather is hills and valleys. You are in a valley, but the crest of the wave is coming (or something like that).
Near surface temperatures on December 28th as generated by the Climate Reanalyzer online software tool
The neat-o graph covers a whole 24 hour period. Don’t look now, but according to Sheppard that’s meaningless weather. See Step Two, or not.
The global pause, on the other hand, lasted for years. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Sheppard doesn’t seem to want to discuss that kind of climate right now. Next time there is a heatwave, lets send a graph of anomalies to Sheppard so he can tell the world why heatwaves don’t matter. . . .

 
Good intentions thwarted by bad data.

[FONT=&quot]Bad science / Weather_stations[/FONT]
[h=1]Another failure of peer review, due to corrupt temperature data from a single station[/h][FONT=&quot]This appeared in Eurekalert a couple of weeks ago. The headline, at first glance, looks like good news, right? “Global warming” is killing off tsetse flies, what’s not to like? Read on, because a photo really is worth a thousand words. Zambezi Valley may soon be too hot for tsetse flies From STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY via Eurekalert…
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[h=1]“Scientists” Predict Amazon’s HQ2 Site in Long Island City, NY to Be Flooded by Sea Level Rise by 2020 or 2030 or 2050 or 2100!!![/h][FONT=&quot]Guest basic geology by David Middleton 2020, 2030, 2050, 2100… Whatever… It will flood… Climate Central assures us it will flood. Amazon’s HQ2 site in Long Island City, Queens could be flooded in the next 30 years. Here’s what scientists predict for the headquarters. Aria Bendix Nov. 14, 2018 Scientists have long warned that New…
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[h=1]The Case for Sustainable Meat[/h][FONT=&quot]From Quilette Published on April 5, 2018 written by Keir Watson User Mohib Ebrahim notes that this article is an outstanding and thorough article that soundly and roundly dismantles the standard change-farming-to-save-the-planet alarmism, such as that cited in our recent post, here: I. Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics Meat, we are told, is bad for…
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Here in the final few days of the Bonn Climate conference, they seem to be keeping up the fever pitch.
Here is a recent story about sea level rise in Fiji.
https://www.bloomberg.com//news/art...epares-the-world-for-a-climate-refugee-crisis
The problem with stories like this are that the sea level in Fiji is not really increasing.
In the Early 90's an Austrian team was put together to monitor the sea level in the Pacific islands.
Pacific Sea Level Monitoring Project
View attachment 67224960
Quite a bit of noise, but not a lot (if any) increase.

I don't know where you got your graph from, but here is the official one from climate.gov.
jevrejeva-sea-levels-1700-1800-1900-2000-global-2.jpg
 
I don't know where you got your graph from, but here is the official one from climate.gov.
View attachment 67244525

1, What do you think it was in 1800, well before any significant industrial revolution, that caused the seas to strat to rise?

2, How in hell was the sea level measured over the entire world in 1700?
 
1, What do you think it was in 1800, well before any significant industrial revolution, that caused the seas to strat to rise?

2, How in hell was the sea level measured over the entire world in 1700?

People back in the 1800s kept records of the tides that we use to measure sea levels. Do you know how I figured that out? Google. You can use Google too. Before you begin to claim that you are smarter than the scientists because of some imagined got ya question, google it first.
 
People back in the 1800s kept records of the tides that we use to measure sea levels. Do you know how I figured that out? Google. You can use Google too. Before you begin to claim that you are smarter than the scientists because of some imagined got ya question, google it first.

Yeah, all over the world? To an accuracy of 0.1mm????

In 1800 (100 years after the start of the graph and further into the scientific revolution and with far higher standards of measurement) the harbour master was probably an ex-navy man who was alcoholic, as they all were. He measured the tide via looking out of is window and seeing where the tide was on the harbour wall. He did this with a view to inform navigation.

If it was a stormy night and going out onto the harbour wall would be dangerous and involve getting very wet, he guessed it as it was clearly high enough to sail in but nobody would be due to the storm.

Those figures are now put alongside the modern ones which are collected digitally every few minutes. Presumably from pressure sensors.

And what started the process? Still no answer.
 
Well I link my source to the official Pacific sea level monitoring project.
Where did your graph come from?

Well, your graph is only for the past 15 years, while mine is over the past 300 years. If you look at my graph, there is a little pause recently, but that is how sea level rise works. There are little pauses, and then jumps upward. The fact that we have a pause today, doesn't mean sea levels aren't rising over the longer term. Also, as you just said yourself these are only Pacific ocean levels. That is just one ocean. Also, your graph measures in meters, when sea level rise is in much small units like inches and centimeters. Having an overly large unit of measure masks changes seen in the data. Even a small trendline upward can be a good solid inch or two.

Another thing I see is that some people will look for the most radical graph they will find. For example, if I was trying to prove that temperatures have risen since 2000, I will go onto google, and look at a large variety of graphs from different sources, and fish for the one that shows the most rise. Someone who was trying to prove a pause or a decline since 2000, will go on, and find a graph that shows no change. People will look for the data that fits their perspective.

My concern is that you went onto google and looked at the one that fit your perspective the most. When I went onto google and googled "sea levels since 1990", every graph I found had more rise than the one you did. So you had to do a lot of fishing to find one that fit your narrative the best. Why do you ignore all data that shows a sea level rise for data that shows none?

And you want to see my sources. Well, instead of cherry picking a graph which appeared the best to support my narrative, I just went straight to NASA's official sea level page.

Satellite Data:
SeaLevel (1).jpg

Ground Data:
12_seaLevel_left.jpg
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
 
Well, your graph is only for the past 15 years, while mine is over the past 300 years. If you look at my graph, there is a little pause recently, but that is how sea level rise works. There are little pauses, and then jumps upward. The fact that we have a pause today, doesn't mean sea levels aren't rising over the longer term. Also, as you just said yourself these are only Pacific ocean levels. That is just one ocean. Also, your graph measures in meters, when sea level rise is in much small units like inches and centimeters. Having an overly large unit of measure masks changes seen in the data. Even a small trendline upward can be a good solid inch or two.

Another thing I see is that some people will look for the most radical graph they will find. For example, if I was trying to prove that temperatures have risen since 2000, I will go onto google, and look at a large variety of graphs from different sources, and fish for the one that shows the most rise. Someone who was trying to prove a pause or a decline since 2000, will go on, and find a graph that shows no change. People will look for the data that fits their perspective.

My concern is that you went onto google and looked at the one that fit your perspective the most. When I went onto google and googled "sea levels since 1990", every graph I found had more rise than the one you did. So you had to do a lot of fishing to find one that fit your narrative the best. Why do you ignore all data that shows a sea level rise for data that shows none?

And you want to see my sources. Well, instead of cherry picking a graph which appeared the best to support my narrative, I just went straight to NASA's official sea level page.


https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
They established the Pacific Sea Level Monitoring Project, specifically to keep track of the sea level around the Pacific Islands in question.

Cook Islands
Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)
Fiji
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Niue
Palau
Nauru
Papua New Guinea (PNG)
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
And the data is not just in graphic form but tabular.
In the case of Fiji, here is the table
Monthly sea levels for FIJI
We have theses nice graphs that claim to show global sea levels within a few mm,
yet the satellites only have an accuracy of about 30 mm,
https://www.eumetsat.int/jason/print.htm
Sea surface height accuracy is currently 3.4 centimetres, with 2.5 expected in the future.
And tide gauges are based on which ones the study decided to use.
The PSMSL is where they store the most gauge data.
https://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/map.html
Look around the world, and you will see that most sea level alarm stories use a bit of hyperbole.
 
Well, your graph is only for the past 15 years, while mine is over the past 300 years. If you look at my graph, there is a little pause recently, but that is how sea level rise works. There are little pauses, and then jumps upward. The fact that we have a pause today, doesn't mean sea levels aren't rising over the longer term. Also, as you just said yourself these are only Pacific ocean levels. That is just one ocean. Also, your graph measures in meters, when sea level rise is in much small units like inches and centimeters. Having an overly large unit of measure masks changes seen in the data. Even a small trendline upward can be a good solid inch or two.

Another thing I see is that some people will look for the most radical graph they will find. For example, if I was trying to prove that temperatures have risen since 2000, I will go onto google, and look at a large variety of graphs from different sources, and fish for the one that shows the most rise. Someone who was trying to prove a pause or a decline since 2000, will go on, and find a graph that shows no change. People will look for the data that fits their perspective.

My concern is that you went onto google and looked at the one that fit your perspective the most. When I went onto google and googled "sea levels since 1990", every graph I found had more rise than the one you did. So you had to do a lot of fishing to find one that fit your narrative the best. Why do you ignore all data that shows a sea level rise for data that shows none?

And you want to see my sources. Well, instead of cherry picking a graph which appeared the best to support my narrative, I just went straight to NASA's official sea level page.

Satellite Data:
View attachment 67244908

Ground Data:
View attachment 67244909
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

Looks like about +2mm per year. Not much changing. The top graph, a bit cherry picked, says 3.2mm or so per year.

So do you think that is any cause to panic?
 
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[h=1]‘A Form Of Violence’?[/h][FONT=&quot]Date: 23/11/18 Andrew Montford, GWPF Some climate scientists still struggle to cope with people who disagree So a few days back, Cliff Mass – a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington as well as a radio weatherman – decided to write something about the wildfires in California, and in particular, the question…
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CAGW: a ‘snarl’ word?

Posted on November 26, 2018 by curryja | 30 comments
The term ‘CAGW’ has both appropriate and inappropriate usage.
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. . . In his book climate scientist Mike Hulme describes a step change towards the catastrophic in the ways that climate change risk was expressed in the public sphere, following an international climate change conference held in Exeter UK, in 2005. And to continue Hulme’s 2006 quote (via the BBC) from section 2: “This discourse is now characterized by phrases such as ‘climate change is worse than we thought’, that we are approaching ‘irreversible tipping in the Earth’s climate’, and that we are ‘at the point of no return’. I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric. It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the (catastrophe) skeptics. How the wheel turns… …Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science’s predictions?” (bold mine). Yet in the face of continuing emotive pressure, even 12 years later a wider acknowledgement of this issue is still weak25. . . .
So ‘CAGW’ can be used as a ‘snarl word’, and is, albeit misunderstanding is likely the main cause. It is also a perfectly reasonable and meaningful term for a long-lived narrative elephant (with consequent effects) in the public domain and from top authority sources, plus a presence in some science too, and an ethic behind some social responses. Thus, when describing these phenomena, CAGW is not at all the straw-man that some of the orthodox claim. When the naming of a valid concept is avoided, discussing that concept becomes difficult, with awkward / obscure phrases and dancing around the issue. Or still more comedic, like whispering about he-who-must-not-be-named in Harry Potter. Hence despite some acquired cultural aggressiveness, which often sticks to terms within conflicted domains, the appropriate use of ‘CAGW’ is meaningful and necessary. Without it, the domain would simply need a virtually identical replacement term27 to express the valid concept it accurately covers.
 
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