[Al_U_Card]

CO2 climate sensitivity (how many degrees C a doubling of CO2 will cause) and attribution (to our contribution) are the key. They depend on theory, observation and prediction (projection in Climate Science).
The theory says some (about 1.2 C) the observation seems to be less (and swamped by natural variation) and the projections of the climate models appear to be much more and not coincident with observation.

Look to Ben Santer and the IPCC report of 1995 for the first declaration of a human influence. The science said "Not evident." but the SPM got changed to "A definite indication.".

Mann, Santer and Houghton. Names that will go down in history along with McCarthy and Lysenko.

[nige1]

Sorry. Duplicate

[nige1]

 Winstonm, on 2016-January-01, 13:59, said:

The tale of denial of scientific findings and organized obfuscation of facts is a sordid story that most likely had its beginnings with leaded (Ethyl) gasoline, weaves its way through acid rain, the ozone layer, cigarette smoke, and now, finally, climate change.

Those are instructive examples and most experts now seem to agree with Winston. But not always and there are other historical controversies where the expert majority was equally adamant but spectacularly wrong

 Winstonm, on 2016-January-01, 13:59, said:

Better to debate the underlying reasons for denial than give a thread a cover story by calling it something it is not.

Petitio principii. IMO, climate change is a complex subject but so important that we should at least try to examine the evidence/argument. ourselves, as it unfolds.

Richard Feynman said:

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

[Al_U_Card]

Lead removal from paint and gas were obstructed? Not a consensus as much as corroborated findings that led to a logical conclusion. For sure smokes were a case of conspiracy and obfuscation as an industry tried to delay its inevitable demise (when is anybody's guess...) As for the ozone hole and other agendized consensuses (diet, ulcers to name a few) CAGW is a concerted effort to scare and influence the electorate into accepting all manner of follies both economic and scientific.

[Winstonm]

 nige1, on 2016-January-03, 07:16, said:

Richard Feynman said

He also said this:

Quote

“Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools-guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus-THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!”

[Al_U_Card]

But his quote that applies most to CAGW:

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

[nige1]

IMO, we should try to keep an open mind. In science, there are no final truths.

There remain uncertainties about climate change. Not least, the question raised in the OP: If we might be under immediate threat, should we allow for that contingency by changing our behaviour? What remedies are likely to be effective. For example

• Are solar and nuclear power a better bet than wind-farms? and,
• Should we urgently curb aviation and private transport?

[Al_U_Card]

Naomi Oreskes (Merchants of Doubt) recently excoriated CAGW luminaries for daring to suggest that nuclear might be the (only) way to go. Cheap and available energy for everyone should not be in the cards if it is not as green as the money spent on their subsidies...
Since total eradication of the species would (by IPCC figures) result in a reduction of something less than half a degree C of global average temperature, perhaps doing something about climate change involves doing something else instead?

[Winstonm]

 nige1, on 2016-January-03, 18:26, said:

IMO, we should try to keep an open mind. In science, there are no final truths.

The fact that science may keep an open mind about a closed subject if new genuine facts about that subject arise does not mean it is likely or even very possible that new data will come to light.

[nige1]

 Winstonm, on 2016-January-04, 10:42, said:

The fact that science may keep an open mind about a closed subject if new genuine facts about that subject arise does not mean it is likely or even very possible that new data will come to light.

Einstein re-interpreted existing data to good effect. Anyway, each day brings more climate data. For example, in the UK we're experiencing unusually high rainfall.

The OP addresses the causes of climate-change and what we should do about it. As Winstonm regards the subject closed, perhaps he would share his views on practical remedies. For example, the UK government is currently deciding at which London airport, we should build a new runway. Should we instead be ploughing up existing runways? and should most rational people agree broadly on the way to proceed?

[Al_U_Card]

Sounds familiar...

The Practice of Personal Attacking Global Warming Skeptics – Rather than Responding to Their Scientific Criticisms
By Bill Gray

While visiting the Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Poona, India in August 1966 I met and interacted with a young (~21) and promising Indian meteorologist named Jagdish Shukla. I have not been surprised to see his later scientific rise and very successful meteorological career in the US.

At an evening social event in Poona (August 1966) a number of us (including Shukla) were discussing the then recent China-India War (1962) over China’s infringement on India’s northern border and the political tensions which had continued up to that time. China was then in its isolated cultural–revolution period and was belligerent to most outside nations. China’s strong intervention in Korea (1950-53) was still relatively fresh in people’s minds. The US was in the early stages of the Vietnam War and there was worry about China’s possible intervention on the side of the North Vietnamese as they had done in Korea. China was also rapidly advancing in its effort to develop a nuclear bomb. Some people (at the time) were advocating the bombing of China’s nuclear facility before it had developed the bomb (as Israelis did to the Iraq nuclear development facility a number of years later). We discussed the desirability of the US and its allies taking such action. As best I can remember, I did not advocate taking such action and I’m glad that no such action was ever taken.

Fast forward 35 years later to a NOAA Climate meeting Shukla and I attended in Washington around 2001. I was trying to obtain NOAA funding for my CSU project hurricane research which was partly involved with seasonal prediction. My talk at this meeting was directed to the complicated nature of the earth’s climate system and the lack of confidence we should have in the then current numerical climate prediction models of rising CO2 amounts causing large global warming. I specifically criticized the unrealistic positive water-vapor feedback in the climate models, the inability of the models to resolve individual convective units, the lack of proper inclusion of deep ocean circulation processes in the models, and other factors. This was not what the government officials and most of the meeting attendees wanted to hear (and I didn’t get the funding I was seeking). I now see that I was naïve in thinking that the global warming question was not totally dominated by governmental and environmental politics unrelated to the science behind the warming issue.

I expected and was prepared for negative comments about the meteorological problems I had pointed out in my talk. The first response came from Shukla. But he didn’t question anything I had just presented. He went directly after me personally – by announcing I was the type of fellow who had earlier advised the bombing of China’s nuclear development facility. He implied by this that I was the type of person too far out of the mainstream to be trusted on any of the serious questions concerning the AGW topic. Shukla was not at all hesitant about bringing up and twisting what he thought I had said 35 years earlier. I was 36 at the time I was then in Poona and about 70 when I gave my later NOAA talk.

These types of personal attacks on us AGW skeptics (unrelated to the physics or science of the topic) are not so unusual. I have heard a number of similar stories about the aggressive isolation and criticisms of skeptics who do not follow the global warming party-line. Most skeptics, as a result, are not able to obtain federal grant support. They pay a high price for trying to tell the truth.

The attempt of the warming crowd to discredit us skeptics can take many forms other than the merits or demerits of the scientific questions we ask. Warming proponents will typically not discuss or defend the physics behind the AGW hypothesis or how their climate models produce the large global warming results they do. They tend to have a ‘take-it’ or ‘leave-it’ mentality or they refuse to discuss the warming mechanisms of their models on the grounds that the scientific questions have already been settled.

The warmers usual response to criticism seems to be to try to dig up whatever negative personal information they can uncover about the skeptic and then from this manufactured degraded outlook to imply that the science behind the skeptics criticisms must be similarly flawed.

Why are the warmers so afraid to have open and honest discussion about the basic nitty-gritty assumptions of their AGW hypothesis? I think it is because they well know (but will not admit) that the science behind the AGW hypothesis is ripe with conceptual errors and might (or likely), in the long run, be proven to be wrong.

I am but one of many AGW skeptics who have been subjected to the warmer’s attempts to isolate, ignore, and personally marginalize us, in order to deflect attention away from the basic scientific problems confronting the AGW hypothesis and its model output representations. I doubt that the global warming crowd would so act if they were really confident of the reality of their science. The warmers are now on a downward slide (which I believe they know but won’t admit) and cannot or will not face-up to the fact that they have picked the wrong horse to bet their future scientific reputations upon. The older warmers are now too far down the AGW road to be able to gracefully extricate themselves. Other warmers may feel that their prestige-enhancements and the governmental funding rewards they have gotten have been worth it – even if their warming alarms are later proven wrong.

[Zelandakh]

 Al_U_Card, on 2016-January-05, 10:21, said:

Sounds familiar...

The Practice of Personal Attacking Global Warming Skeptics – Rather than Responding to Their Scientific Criticisms
By Bill Gray

Surprised you didn't link to this here.

[y66]

 nige1, on 2016-January-04, 13:49, said:

Einstein re-interpreted existing data to good effect. Anyway, each day brings more climate data. For example, in the UK we're experiencing unusually high rainfall.

The OP addresses the causes of climate-change and what we should do about it. As Winstonm regards the subject closed, perhaps he would share his views on practical remedies. For example, the UK government is currently deciding at which London airport, we should build a new runway. Should we instead be ploughing up existing runways? and should most rational people agree broadly on the way to proceed?

LOL at the suggestion that the runway decision will be made by rational people. It will be made by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin and MPs claiming that the new runway will increase airport capacity by 50 percent and usher in a new golden era of jobs, trade, travel and prosperity.

Prosperity for whom Mr. McLoughglin?

It's normal to exploit the commons at the expense of others and claim it is for the best but this is hardly rational.

Most rational people I know would say if you want a new runway, fine, provided the people who benefit are covering all of the costs, including environmental costs, and not shifting them onto others.

[Al_U_Card]

 Zelandakh, on 2016-January-05, 18:26, said:

Surprised you didn't link to this here.

He is welcome to take on John Stuart Mill...as for his "analysis" of what "denialism" is and its motivations, it doesnt seem to apply, at least in my case. Still, it is good to know just how the other side thinks and believes.

Not addressing the scientific questions is a greater issue than motivation, although that is usually important in understanding the position held and defended, on both sides.

[nige1]

 y66, on 2016-January-06, 09:56, said:

Most rational people I know would say if you want a new runway, fine, provided the people who benefit are covering all of the costs, including environmental costs, and not shifting them onto others.

A massive tax on aviation-fuel might begin to cover the environmental costs of air-travel. Just as banning private-transport from urban areas might be a tentative start to reducing car-pollution. And so on... But are those who've made their mind up about the climate-change issue (on either side of the debate) prepared to live with the logical consequences of their beliefs? I fear that our selfish greed and amazing ability to rationalize might prevent us from doing anything sensible

Far easier for both sides to go on falsifying and ignoring data or attempting to export problems.

[Al_U_Card]

There is also economics viz

"In Nevada there is a lot of sunlight and a lot of solar panels, but they generate electricity at a cost of 25 – 30c per kWhr. With subsidies and tax benefits, the cost “falls” to 15c. (In this context, the word “falls” means “is dropped on other people”.) But the retail rate for electricity is 12.5c. So having solar panels doesn’t help you much unless you can sell that excess electricity, which the state of Nevada was buying at 12.5c. That price sounds fine and dandy til we find out that they could have bought the same electricity at wholesale rate of around two cents.

So Nevada has decided that’s what the state will pay… 2c, not 12.5c. The latest decision is to apply normal free market rules. Nevada will now pay wholesale rates for electricity."

Obama promised skyrocketing electricity prices....now instead of nuking other countries/ideologies/faiths, perhaps nuking the energy sector with reactors might solve several issues at the same time?

[y66]

 nige1, on 2016-January-07, 14:08, said:

A massive tax on aviation-fuel might begin to cover the environmental costs of air-travel. Just as banning private-transport from urban areas might be a tentative start to reducing car-pollution. And so on... But are those who've made their mind up about the climate-change issue (on either side of the debate) prepared to live with the logical consequences of their beliefs? I fear that our selfish greed and amazing ability to rationalize might prevent us from doing anything sensible

Far easier for both sides to go on falsifying and ignoring data or attempting to export problems.

+1 x 2 for distinguishing rational from rationalize and for mentioning banning private-transport from urban areas.

-1 for "might prevent".

[Daniel1960]

 nige1, on 2016-January-03, 18:26, said:

IMO, we should try to keep an open mind. In science, there are no final truths.

There remain uncertainties about climate change. Not least, the question raised in the OP: If we're under immediate threat, should we allow for that contingency by changing our behaviour? What remedies are likely to be effective. For example

• Are solar and nuclear power a better bet than wind-farms? and,
• Should we urgently curb aviation and private transport?

The other issue with climate change is whether the changes are more harmful or beneficial. There is no optimal climate for the planet, as some species will almost benefit preferentially over others as changes occur. That said, life tends to prosper during the warmer, wetter periods compared to the colder, drier ones. The real question, is at what point is too hot? This has not been adequately answered, although some scientists have stated that after a 1.8C temperature rise, the detriments begin to outweigh the benefits. There is little argument that life has benefitted from the recent temperature rise; plants have flourished, the growing season has expanded, and animals have not perished during bitter winters. I doubt that many humans wish to return to the colder periods either, except for some winter enthusiasts. Perhaps we should focus on maintaining the most reasonable climate for all.

[Al_U_Card]

Reverting to the varve thing, I have seen others that show a MCA in the southern hemisphere but I will allow that sediments have issues as climate proxies. (Tiljander comes to mind and ClimateAudit has some good stuff on other studies that are used in the same analysis but with different interpretations as to how the width relates to conditions...)

As for the benefit/risk calcs, I am still on the "Is there a problem?". While the absence of the upper tropospheric hotspot is a model issue, I saw this recently concerning stratospheric cooling.



Aside from the effects of El Chichon and Mt. Pinatubo, that looks like a fairly steady-state climate system to me.

[1eyedjack]

Quote

Heat is work and work's a curse
And all the heat in the Universe
Is gonna cooool down 'cos it can't increase
Then there'll be no more work and there'll be perfect peace
Yeah - that's entropy, man!