Is Manmade Global Warming Real?

[lynnvinc]

Well you don’t get a free pass…

They say the same because they are DIRECT QUOTES from Chapter 4

THATS why I put them in little quote boxes

SEE the " marks around them"

It works that way when you directly quote from a source.

ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/

AND THIS IS WHERE I D/L THIS MASSIVE
ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf

So much for your scientific research

In charity, I’ll accept your apology.

Okay, you win. I have a day job and was not able to read the entire report (that I had only seen a couple of minutes before posting here), but only a few snippets of the Summary report and watch the 5 minute video.

However, I like you have friends out there in the blogosphere, so I have put those quotes to them, and let’s see if they can come up with some explanations of why the report seems to refute its own claims–like it’s shooting itself in the foot.

I know scientists LOVE caveats…so as to cover their backs. But we’ll see what the overall gist of the report is…and I doubt it is saying that we should totally ignore AGW and its various projected impacts and follow a BAU path, happily skipping rope down the lane into oblivion. That’s not what I read in the few lines I had time to read in the summary.

As with all the IPCC reports (which I have always critiqued as being ulta-conservative and reticent), it is probably just erring way over on the side of avoiding the false positive and giving us a pablum iffy projection, when in actuality much worse could likely be happening, if we look directly at the mid- and high-end projections at somewhat lower levels than 95% confidence.

Or maybe the army of dedicated attack-dog skeptics scared the IPCC people so much, they’ve become spineless jello and are afraid to make any claims at all, and are just saying – well it’s possible what the scientists are saying about terrible impacts might not happen or might not be due to AGW, but just in case they do happen (and we all know hurricanes and flooding and droughts can happen anyway even without GW or AGW), let’s be prepared; it’s just boyscoutish to be prepared.

Sort of like me saying, even if AGW is not happening (and I accept that it is), the measures to mitigate it also mitigate a host of other problems and save us money, so let’s just mitigate it and at the least reduce those other problems (even though Heartland may also be saying there’s no such thing as local or regional pollution or finite resources being used up, or that conflicts could possibly occur over resources).

 

[lynnvinc]

Meanwhile, a bit of bad news for one of the biggest denialist machines (and good news for academic freedom at my U, since GM is one of our funders – one denialist Co comes clean, 4 more to go, but I’m not holding my breath for xxx and xxx):

General Motors pulls funding from climate sceptic thinktank Heartland
Car giant breaks off 20-year relationship with Heartland Institute in ongoing row over its role in questioning global warming

“GM’s chief executive Dan Akerson in a speech he made in San Francisco earlier this month. He told Climate One that he believed that global warming was real, said that he had only just learnt of the funding to Heartland by the GM Foundation and promised to ‘take another look at it when I get back to Detroit’.”

guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/30/climate-change-general-motors-heartland-institute

 

[TheRealJuliane]

You are part of the evil carbon fuel conglomerate!!!



I could say “hypocrite” right now…You are getting profits off an industry you are screaming about…

 

[lynnvinc]

Well you don’t get a free pass…

They say the same because they are DIRECT QUOTES from Chapter 4

THATS why I put them in little quote boxes

Quote:<<<<< SEE THIS WORD
Quote::
Quote::

SEE the " marks around them"

It works that way when you directly quote from a source.

ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/

AND THIS IS WHERE I D/L THIS MASSIVE
ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf

So much for your scientific research

In charity, I’ll accept your apology.

Here’s some initial look-see into those infamous quotes that seem to contradict the very purpose of the IPCC’s recent disaster management report:

QUOTES 1 & 2: “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change” & “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados” [the next sentence after this 2nd quote being: **“Most studies related increases found in normalized hurricane losses in the United States since the 1970s (Miller et al., 2008; Schmidt et al., 2009; Nordhaus, 2010) to the natural variability observed since that time (Miller et al., 2008; Pielke Jr. et al., 2008). Bouwer and Botzen (2011) demonstrated that other normalized records of total economic and insured losses for the same series of hurricanes exhibit no significant trends in losses since 1900.”]]

QUOTE 3 (in that same page range): “The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses” is followed by the conveniently omitted phrase “although some studies did find recent increases in flood losses related in part to changes in intense rainfall events (Fengqing et al., 2005; Chang et al., 2009).”

From reading these quotes in context within pp. 268-270+, it seems to me this is more about economic losses due to hurricanes & floods (human/human-structure exposure and vulnerability), and not about overall possible changing patterns in such extreme events. I can well understand the findings indicating such increases in losses are more due to more structures and more expensive structures being in harm’s way over the past many years or decades, and also that is very difficult to atttribute such losses, even when normalized, to GW.

It’s hard enough to attribute increased flooding or hurricanes in the past to GW, since these are not everyday events as temperature is (there have been some studies that have attempted such attribution re hurricanes and floods, & I’ll see if I can dig them up). Trying to attribute economic losses from hurricanes and floods to GW (even if they are normalized) – which means those relative rare events would have to actually hit some economically valuable structures (a still rarer event) – would be like trying to claim a needle is somewhere in a haystack. In other words, the already meager dataset would have to exclude all those hurricanes that go out to sea never hitting land, and those that hit land, but not where the economically valuable property is. People who know stats understand the smaller the numbers the harder to establish trend or cause and effect.

Nevertheless, reinsurance companies, like Munich Re, are very concerned about the impacts of global warming, and I don’t think you can even buy hurricane insurance in some parts of Florida anymore. Also my dean, an expert in disaster studies, is quite concerned about AGW and its projected impact on increasing various disaster events.
So what do we do, wait until the wolf of GW huffs and puffs and blows down (and floods) enough houses so that we can finally attribute this worsening situation of normalized economic losses to GW in, say, 2029, then start to mitigating GW and take some adaptation strategies.

Now I know adaptation would be very expensive, like building stronger buildings and higher & stronger levees, so I’d suggest starting with mitigation, which saves lots of money, then plowing in some of that money into adaptation measures. The only problem is adapation for a 4C warmer world may not be adequate for a 5C warmer world – which we (or our progeny) could be seeing by the end of this century in a BAU (or greater than business-as-usual…which is closer to reality) scenario.

And I would suggest reading the summary report and the whole report before taking a few sentences out of context and a phrase out of its full sentence (from some questionable denialist blog sites).

 

[kimmielittle]

Here’s some initial look-see into those infamous quotes that seem to contradict the very purpose of the IPCC’s recent disaster management report:

Would it help to enroll in a reading comprehension course?

Those quotes do not contradict a DISASTER MANAGEMENT REPORT. NOT in the slightest.

Until, I forced you to actually READ what YOU ORIGINALLY linked to, by quoting from it, you thought it supported your AGW - CAGW Alarmist hyperbole claims…it does not!

It CLEARLY states it does NOT assign ATTRIBUTION to AGW - CAGW claims.

They don’t even ** ATTRIBUTE** any INCREASES to NATURAL CLIMATIC CHANGES.

QUOTES 1 & 2: “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change” & “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”[the next sentence after this 2nd quote being: “Most studies related increases found in normalized hurricane losses in the United States since the 1970s (Miller et al., 2008; Schmidt et al., 2009; Nordhaus, 2010) to the natural variability observed since that time (Miller et al., 2008; Pielke Jr. et al., 2008). Bouwer and Botzen (2011) demonstrated that other normalized records of total economic and insured losses for the same series of hurricanes exhibit no significant trends in losses since 1900.”

My bold.

QUOTE 3 (in that same page range): ]“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”

is followed by the conveniently omitted phrase **“although some studies did find recent increases in flood losses related in part to changes in intense rainfall events (Fengqing et al., 2005; Chang et al., 2009).”**Go on reading the report BEFORE you claim I conveniently omitted…because when you go back to my original post #234…YOU WILL plainly see.

My post #234

Quote:

“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”

That IS THE KICKER about the rain…anything following is added information to authored papers.

BUT This QUOTE in My Post #234

It The report ] even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature…

AND then I go on to quote the report again:
Quote:

“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”

MY bold now added.

NO empirical research supports AGW - CAGW Alarmist claims.

YOU SAID:

and also that is very difficult to atttribute such losses, even when normalized, to GW.

Follow the pea…They don’t attribute losses to Natural OR Anthropogenic causes - NO MATTER how you try to spin it,

YOU SAID:

In other words, the already meager dataset would have to exclude all those hurricanes that go out to sea never hitting land, and those that hit land, but not where the economically valuable property is. People who know stats understand the smaller the numbers the harder to establish trend or cause and effect.

Hhhhhhmmmm…IPCC has a vast reservoir of STATS. You made mention of them when you quoted this report.

I don’t think you can even buy hurricane insurance in some parts of Florida anymore.

Evidence? Wind Damage is covered - Flood damage you can get through FEMA fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=35817
hurricaneinsurance.com/blog/the-basics-of-buying-cheap-hurricane-insurance-in-florida/

Also my dean, an expert in disaster studies, is quite concerned about AGW and its projected impact on increasing various disaster events.

Appeal to Authority?
In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.”

Sorry, your Dean has NO Observational Empirical Evidence as it pertains to Correlation - Causation of CAGW Alarmist Claims.

YOU SAID:

So what do we do,

Take 1/4 of the monies funding Climate Science and Models…AND Give that money to ENGINEER PROGRAMS and ENGINEERING ADAPTATION… Which means ACTUALLY doing something constructive for our future.

YOU SAID:

then start to mitigating GW

Divergence from the AGW hypothesis shows us clearly, CO2 is not the main driver of temperatures…UP OR DOWN.

YOU SAID:

And I would suggest reading the summary report and the whole report before taking a few sentences out of context and a phrase out of its full sentence

Provide your evidence that I quoted out of Context…Ya starting to sound like Mr. Mann.

YOU SAID:

(from some questionable denialist blog sites).

My bold.

I was educated to believe…when your debate is reduced to name calling - you’ve completely lost the debate.

Let’s see if that holds true:
I got the report from IPCC
I downloaded the report from IPCC
I read the report from IPCC
I quoted the report from IPCC

BUT you call them “Questionable” - “Denialist” …Processed Cheeses Ma’am…I guess according to your statement above ]…I can’t trust the IPCC or it’s report…THE VERY PEOPLE / REPORT YOU ORIGINALLY LINKED.

Yeppers! “I was educated to believe…when your debate is reduced to name calling - you’ve completely lost the debate” HAS MERIT…

 

[kimmielittle]

Meanwhile, a bit of bad news for one of the biggest denialist machines

(and good news for academic freedom at my U,

I can imagine the academic cloistered sociologist / social- engineers would fear a Free Market Think Tank with a full budget of 6.5 million dollars and consider them a threat to THEIR SENSE of academic freedom

**Academic freedom exist when you teach kids HOW to think - NOT what to think **.

Teach them that, and you have no fear from ANY think tank. Suzuki - Soros etc…included. Nor the likes of Greenpeace who spends over $300 million on its efforts of AGW; the Sierra clubs shells out $100 million a year on AGW; and the Natural Resources Defense Council has an annual budget of $95 million on AGW. Not to count WWF…

Makes one wonder just how well private contributions are used when 6.5 million…is credited by GREENS - AGW’ers as Railroading their Green Policies…BUT HEY! We all need a scape-goat.

Actually, I think it’s a good idea that GM Government Motors ] pulls it’s funding…What’s it doing spending money on grants while it still owes about $25 billion to the Taxpayers -
And Stock holders who lost everything…BUT still shells out $3.5 MILLION for each 30-second SuperBowl spot…AND Political Donations to both sides Why? Aren’t they owned by the Government? ]

maggiesnotebook.com/2012/01/barack-obama-state-of-the-union-general-motors-deception-political-donations/

Yeah!!! I think “RENT_SEEKERS” gave Free Market Think Tanks a bad name.

 

[lynnvinc]

RE the IPCC’s disaster management report, there is a lively (and intelligent) discussion of it over at RealClimate (see realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/the-ipcc-srex-the-report-is-finally-out ), so I’d suggest going there for better discussion of the whole report, not just the above passages taken out of context. I especially liked comment #18:

Aaron Lewis says: 30 Mar 2012 at 12:11 PM
The composition of the atmosphere affects the weather. All of the weather, all the time.

We have changed the composition of the atmosphere. We are affecting the weather, all of the weather, all the time. And, this goes back as far as people have been significantly affecting the atmosphere. By 1970, there was a clear signature of anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere. That means some fraction of the energy for the 1974 Super Outbreak of Tornadoes came from AGW.

Honestly, would that outbreak have occurred if the atmospheric concentration had been at preindustrial levels for the decade 1964 to 1973? If the atmospheric carbon had been at preindustrial levels, there would have been less energy available to generate and drive those storms. Without the energy collected by anthropogenic CO2, the storms would have been different.
This has been my position for a long time. It should be the layperson’s position…making the alternative hypothesis (that AGW is happening) into the null hypothesis. I know science does things backwards from our common sense – I always have the hardest time explaining this to my research methods and stats students. But from a non-scientist, layperson, policy-making perspective, we should understand that we have been living in a globally warmed world at least since the 1960s or 70s, even though it took until 1995 before scientists were able to detect it (find the signal out of the extreme noise, so to speak). ((Of course, if it was difficult for scientists to detect signal from noise on increasing global average temps, it is all the more difficult for them to detect signal from noise on increasing storm/flood intensity, and nearly impossible for them to detect increase in normalized economic losses from increased storm/flood intensity.))

However, since increased warming impacts individal weather events in many (sometimes countervailing) ways (and there are many factors complicating impact of the GH effect, including solar activity, wobble, orbit, sloshings (el ninos/la ninas, AOs, etc), we can nevertheless intuit that all weather has been impacted by the anthropogenic enhanced GH effect at least since the 60s or 70s – maybe sometimes thru complex causal chains suppressing particular storms/floods that would have occurred without the warming/atmospheric GHG changes, maybe thru other causal chains enhancing other particular storms/floods…with the net effect being to increase the intensity of these events, even if scientists are having a hard time detecting signal from noise.

Back in the 60s & 70s this effect of the atmospheric change would have been very tiny, and now only somewhat greater, with the effect in the future projected to be much greater with much greater warming. Heat energy <–> kinetic energy.

This for me presents a clearer layperson’s picture. I’ve always objected to the use of a moving baseline that some scientists or weathermen use – like these past year compared to the past 30 years. It should be these past 10, 20, or 30 years compared to 1900-1960 or 1900-1970 baseline of pre-AGW. Of course skeptics are extremely into the coolest year of the past decade compared to the MWP centuries ago (inflating that so it looks higher than that coolest recent year), or into the somewhat flattening in GW over the past 10 years (when there has been a solar minima of less irradiance), without comparing this to the 1900-1970 baseline.

Under the circumstance of potentially great harm from AGW, taking a layperson’s stance (as I’ve described – focused on avoiding the false negative) makes more sense to me than finagling with stats so as to come to an opposite conclusions of the scientists – who themselves are ultra-conservative, demanding 95% confidence before making a claim – and turn a real problem into a non-problem.

I don’t know of any TV weatherman who tells his audience that there’s a whopping 20% chance it will not rain, so don’t take your umbrella. Or there’s a whopping 15% chance the Cat 5 hurricane is not coming your way, so no need to secure your home or evacuate. Or a doctor telling that there’s a whopping 8% chance the lump is not cancerous (and only a 92% chance it is cancerous), so come back in a few years to see if it can’t get down to 5% on the null (or 95% confidence that it is cancerous) so they can operate.

 

[lynnvinc]

the Sierra clubs shells out $100 million a year on AGW

I’m thinking of joining the Sierra Club.

Well, I’m from California and have long admired the Sierra Mts, and we lived at the base of the Muirlands…John Muir being the founder of the Sierra Club.

Maybe I ought to get back to nature a bit, instead of cramped up here with the computer.

My husband wants an outing to a park or something…

 

[kimmielittle]

RE the IPCC’s disaster management report, there is a lively (and intelligent) discussion of it over at RealClimate

Lively and intelligent?

Aaron Lewis says: 30 Mar 2012 at 12:11 PM
​

Dear Aaron…Using The Global Campaign for Climate Action “Spin Sheet” ?

The composition of the atmosphere affects the weather. All of the weather, all the time.

We have changed the composition of the atmosphere. We are affecting the weather, all of the weather, all the time. And, this goes back as far as people have been significantly affecting the atmosphere. By 1970, there was a clear signature of anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere. That means some fraction of the energy for the 1974 Super Outbreak of Tornadoes came from AGW.

SPIN SHEET:

“Generally, all weather events are now connected to climate change, because we have altered the fundamental condition of the climate, that is, the background environment that gives rise to all weather,” the action plan said.

theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/global-campaign-for-climate-action-pushing-spin/story-fn59niix-1226314986334

HERE’S THE FACTS: ACCORDING TO THE IPCC

Quote:“There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”

Quote:

“The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”

Quote:

“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”

It The report ] even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature…
Quote:

“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”

THE SPIN SHEET:

GCCA told its member organisations to “use the precautionary principle to argue that we must take potential risks seriously even if the science doesn’t offer high confidence”.

My bold.

YOU SAID

This has been my position for a long time. It should be the layperson’s position…making the alternative hypothesis (that AGW is happening) into the null hypothesis. I know science does things backwards from our common sense

Then you can’t claim Normal Science backs your AGW - CAGW Alarmist claims. Cancel the null hypothesis from Normal Science…YOU are now practicing political-science Post-normal science ].

You can argue from one Normal Science ] or the other Post-normal science ]…BUT not intermixed. Why ? Normal Science demands TRUTH…

Post-normal Science demands perceptions., consensus, political energies…AND these traits are all momentary fleeting whims.

YOU SAID;

Under the circumstance of potentially great harm from AGW,

This is Post-normal science reasoning.

YOU SAID;

taking a layperson’s stance

Actually no, you have not taken a “laypersons stance”…You have taken a social-engineering stance, as has the IPCC…BOTH of you are political-social-engineering… activists. AND you attempt to tie your “cause” on an unproven hypothesis.

YOU SAID

(as I’ve described – focused on avoiding the false negative) makes more sense to me

For every false negative - there is a false positive. As I have pointed out to you numerously…WE can actually see the false positives at work. Carbon schemes have displaced 10’s of thousands - killed many others, created energy poverty…based on false positives assumed. THESE ARE REAL…Your false Negatives are hypothetical.

YOU SAID;

– who themselves are ultra-conservative,

Ultra-conservatives don’t adjust data sets to sell their premise.

YOU SAID:

demanding 95% confidence before making a claim

One thing to make a claim - another to scientifically prove a claim.

They IPCC ] will NOT be able to Scientifically prove a claim AT ANY CONFIDENCE level until it stops being a political body and has OPEN… Accountability and transparency…NOTHING LESS.

Here’s my challenge to IPCC - CRU Provide Observational Empirical Repeatable Evidence no divergences from the basic AGW hypothesis ] that your hypothesis is proven… CO2 is the main driver of rising temperatures. This means as CO2 goes up - it ALWAYS drives temperatures up -

YOU SAID

Or a doctor telling that there’s a whopping 8% chance the lump is not cancerous (and only a 92% chance it is cancerous), so come back in a few years to see if it can’t get down to 5% on the null (or 95% confidence that it is cancerous) so they can operate.

IS CO2 cancerous - pollutant…? YOU see what is wrong with your logic here?

People WISH us to believe, because it’s a social-engineering tool, that we have CO2 Cancer…AND they won’t do the basic exams proving the unproven hypothesis ] …or a biopsy even…IPCC just wants to cut.

IPCC - CRU etc needs to stop trying to fit results models ] to their hypothesis - prove the hypothesis.​

 

[kimmielittle]

I’m thinking of joining the Sierra Club.

Well, I’m from California and have long admired the Sierra Mts, and we lived at the base of the Muirlands…John Muir being the founder of the Sierra Club.

Maybe I ought to get back to nature a bit, instead of cramped up here with the computer.

My husband wants an outing to a park or something…

I’m sure it will be enjoyable.

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

This thread is now closed. Thanks to all who participated in the discussion.