Pope Francis' upcoming climate change encyclical 'Laudato Sii' (Praised Be)

[crai7]

The Catholic Church loves the media spotlight these days!

 

[Theo520]

lynn,
Do you have no understanding about the actual science being disputed? The dissenting views are not questioning radiative forcing, they question the alarmist models that have been proven failures by actual measurement.

Test for Lynn: please explain why,

1. The IPCC models project overwarming and failed to forecast the measured slowdown in warming?
2. The IPCC ballpark projection for climate sensitivity was somewhere between 1.5C to 4.5C 25yrs ago. Now after 25yrs and billions in research they have made ZERO improvement in tightening their ‘side of barn’ projection. It’s still somewhere between 1.5-4.5C for CO2 doubling.

Regarding your characterization of dissenters as flat earth zombies, please stop playing with strawmen. You’re an adult

Those dissenting views are zombie arguments that keep rising from their graves, even tho they are quite dead.

I understand there are still some people who say the earth is flat and that the sun goes around the earth. I’m not sure if it was a joke, but some 15 years ago I caught the tail end of a radio talk about how the last member of the “flat earth society” had died… But I’m sure someone will resurrect that zombie.

 

[lynnvinc]

lynn,
Do you have no understanding about the actual science being disputed? The dissenting views are not questioning radiative forcing, they question the alarmist models that have been proven failures by actual measurement.

The person who was not invited to the Vatican discussions was claiming it was the sun that was causing the warming. As you point out, that is not even a very good argument against AGW.

please explain why,

1. The IPCC models project overwarming and failed to forecast the measured slowdown in warming?

You may have noticed that over the past century the global temps over time is very jagged, sometime up and sometimes down, even with a 5- year running average smoothed.

http://csas.ei.columbia.edu/files/2015/01/Global-surface-temperatures-relative-to-1951-1980.png

That is bec there are several variables impacting global average temp – some they can predict fairly well, others not so exactly predictable. For instance, volcanoes (which have a cooling effect short-run). Hansen, knowing these do occur, put one in his model and several actually did occur but not in the exact year he predicted.

So think of it as a jagged saw, but since around 1970 or 80 that saw blade is tilted upward. It is expected that some stretch of years the models may over-project and some stretch of years the models may under-project. I think the main thrust of the Pope’s Encyclical is that we should not wait for another 5, 10, 15 years to see if climate matches the models or the models may have even perhaps underestimated the situation. (Actually the models grossly underestimate global warming long-term, bec they do not take into account the methane & CO2 being released from melting permafrost and ocean hydrates, which within a couple of centuries could really shoot the warming up high; this positive and dangerous feed back they would refer to as an “unknown known” – they can’t really quantify it well enough for computer models.)

Aside from the enhanced greenhouse effect, there are several other internal factors, such as the ocean. Housewives will at least understand that a watched (big) pot never boils. Oceans are large reservoirs for the heat and if something caused the heat to be subducted lower, then that will impact surface temps. Also “sloshings” such as el ninos, etc. Externally there is the sun’s 10 to 15 year radiation cycles between minimum and maximum, the last minimum being somewhat longer and deeper.

For those interested in climate science, I would suggest reading David Archer’s Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast or The Climate Change Papers. Or, you can email David directly at U of Chicago with your questions.

This video may help people understand that it is the multi-decadal not yearly trends that are the stuff of climate change; they need at least 30 yrs of data to say AGW is happening, which is why it took them so long up until 1995 to be able to make that claim:

youtube.com/watch?v=e0vj-0imOLw

Another way to look at it is I have an atlas from the 1970s with climate maps, and they are still pretty accurate, even though the warm belts in the N. Hemisphere have moved a bit northward, and the USDA has come out with new planting maps reflecting the impact of climate change.

 

[Ender]

So think of it as a jagged saw, but since around 1970 or 80 that saw blade is tilted upward. It is expected that some stretch of years the models may over-project and some stretch of years the models may under-project. I think the main thrust of the Pope’s Encyclical is that we should not wait for another 5, 10, 15 years to see if climate matches the models or the models may have even perhaps underestimated the situation.

This explanation has no connection to reality; the position of the scientists involved is entirely different. They, at least, recognize the significance of the discrepancy between what their models have predicted and what has actually happened. It may be an irrelevancy to you but it is of great concern to them.*“If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models,” Storch told Der Spiegel. “A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.” *(Interview of Hans von Storch in Der Spiegel, 2013)
If one of the leading scientists on the AGW side accepts the possibility that there could be a fundamental flaw in their models - meaning there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the physical processes involved - what is the basis for doubting it ourselves?

Ender

 

[Theo520]

The person who was not invited to the Vatican discussions was claiming it was the sun that was causing the warming. As you point out, that is not even a very good argument against AGW.

Throughout the history of the earth, the sun has driven our climate change. I don’t know the person you reference but it’s still inexcusable not to include any dissenting voices.

You may have noticed that over the past century the global temps over time is very jagged, sometime up and sometimes down, even with a 5- year running average smoothed.

Why did you post this image??? Who here is claiming the climate has not changed or that we are not in a warming trend coming out of the little ice age?? Your image provides no knowledge on man’s contribution to climate change.

That is bec there are several variables impacting global average temp – some they can predict fairly well, others not so exactly predictable. For instance, volcanoes (which have a cooling effect short-run). Hansen, knowing these do occur, put one in his model and several actually did occur but not in the exact year he predicted.

Even when Hansen’s model was adjusted for volcano eruptions, he completely failed, his models were not validated by measurement.

So think of it as a jagged saw, but since around 1970 or 80 that saw blade is tilted upward. It is expected that some stretch of years the models may over-project and some stretch of years the models may under-project. I think the main thrust of the Pope’s Encyclical is that we should not wait for another 5, 10, 15 years to see if climate matches the models or the models may have even perhaps underestimated the situation. (Actually the models grossly underestimate global warming long-term, bec they do not take into account the methane & CO2 being released from melting permafrost and ocean hydrates, which within a couple of centuries could really shoot the warming up high; this positive and dangerous feed back they would refer to as an “unknown known” – they can’t really quantify it well enough for computer models.)

If the models excluded permarfost melting, why are they still projecting overwarming? They must have made serious errors in their assumptions for that to happen.

Aside from the enhanced greenhouse effect, there are several other internal factors, such as the ocean. Housewives will at least understand that a watched (big) pot never boils. Oceans are large reservoirs for the heat and if something caused the heat to be subducted lower, then that will impact surface temps. Also “sloshings” such as el ninos, etc. Externally there is the sun’s 10 to 15 year radiation cycles between minimum and maximum, the last minimum being somewhat longer and deeper.

Your folkisms are not a substitute for actual science. The models predicted warming that has not occurred. Perhaps the pilot light is out?

For those interested in climate science, I would suggest reading David Archer’s Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast or The Climate Change Papers. Or, you can email David directly at U of Chicago with your questions.

People should really use more than one source to understand the debate. The Vatican should have also reached out.

This video may help people understand that it is the multi-decadal not yearly trends that are the stuff of climate change; they need at least 30 yrs of data to say AGW is happening, which is why it took them so long up until 1995 to be able to make that claim:

There you go with your strawmen again. NOBODY IS SAYING AGW is not real. Skeptics claim the models predict overwarming.

Another way to look at it is I have an atlas from the 1970s with climate maps, and they are still pretty accurate, even though the warm belts in the N. Hemisphere have moved a bit northward, and the USDA has come out with new planting maps reflecting the impact of climate change.

This is a ridiculous way to validate the climate models.

Net, you’ve provided nothing to validate the crisis predicted by CAGW models.

 

[Theo520]

bump
Lynn, please respond to my two specific questions

Test for Lynn: please explain why,

1. The IPCC models project overwarming and failed to forecast the measured slowdown in warming?
2. The IPCC ballpark projection for climate sensitivity was somewhere between 1.5C to 4.5C 25yrs ago. Now after 25yrs and billions in research they have made ZERO improvement in tightening their ‘side of barn’ projection. It’s still somewhere between 1.5-4.5C for CO2 doubling.

Regarding your characterization of dissenters as flat earth zombies, please stop playing with strawmen. You’re an adult

 

[lynnvinc]

This explanation has no connection to reality; the position of the scientists involved is entirely different. They, at least, recognize the significance of the discrepancy between what their models have predicted and what has actually happened. It may be an irrelevancy to you but it is of great concern to them.“If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models,” Storch told Der Spiegel. “A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.” (Interview of Hans von Storch in Der Spiegel, 2013)
If one of the leading scientists on the AGW side accepts the possibility that there could be a fundamental flaw in their models - meaning there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the physical processes involved - what is the basis for doubting it ourselves?

Ender

As of 2014 & 2015 (years after that quote) the warming has continued, as expected, so the issue is resolved now, as the warming has continued and has NOT gone back down to the pre-1980s level – which one would expect if the warming had stopped and gone to a “normal” pattern.

Here is a discussion of a 1988 computer projection (that’s 27 years ago, and models have improved since then, but nevertheless, it is a very good projection for the time): tamino.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/hansens-1988-predictions/

RE models, they are not supposed to exactly predict, but are considered to have skill if they come close. As other factors and evidence comes to light over the years, they tweak the models to fit those altered situations.

I think y’all are obsessing over the models too much. As mentioned, they are grossly under-predicting the warming bec they do NOT include positive feedbacks from CH4 & CO2 releases as permafrost and ocean hydrates melt due to the warming (I know, bec I asked the climate scientists that very question – and you can also query them about your questions). They cannot include these dangerous positive feedbacks in the models bec they don’t have some formula to fit in. They don’t exactly know how much and how fast these will melt, given not only the warming and Arctic amplification from reducing albedo (whiteness, causing faster warming), but also Rossby waves making the Arctic warmer, and various sea currents, etc.

Y’all are expecting miracles from the models.

Be patient, the warming will trend continue. Meanwhile heed the Encyclical and reduce environmental harms as much as feasible within your means.

 

[lynnvinc]

…2. The IPCC ballpark projection for climate sensitivity was somewhere between 1.5C to 4.5C 25yrs ago. Now after 25yrs and billions in research they have made ZERO improvement in tightening their ‘side of barn’ projection. It’s still somewhere between 1.5-4.5C for CO2 doubling.

It’s sort of weird but when you think about how much money has been spent on science and Pi is still 3.14159, and the universal gravitational constant is still 6.67384 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2

If you look at what the scientists are actually saying, they have a bell-shaped curve, with 3 being the most likely and 1.5 and 4.5 being on the very less likely tails. However they do point out the positive tail is somewhat long and fat…

There are several sources, including paleoclimatology, for their calculations. I do know it is a log relationship…the sensitivity decreasing with much greater CO2 levels.

Also note, that is just the sensitivity, and not how much it will warm within a century…which also has to do with GHG levels, which as I mentioned could start coming in massive amounts from melting permafrost and ocean hydrates, if not this century, then perhaps the next. This is already increasing…and it’s like we’re a bunch of silly school kids poking a sleeping dragon.

Hope that helps clarify it for you. If not, then I would suggest reading some books on climate change and contacting some scientists about it (and not fossil-fuel-funded hacks or “blog science”).

You know some people have lives and cannot be on CAF all the time and answer all questions – esp over and over and over and over and over again. My husband, a very good Catholic, even considers it is sin to waste time on blogs…

 

[estesbob]

I have yet to get an answer to this question and it is important as I’m going to be going to confession soon- is beng skeptical about AGW a mortal or a venial sin?

 

[Michael_Mayo]

I have yet to get an answer to this question and it is important as I’m going to be going to confession soon- is being skeptical about AGW a mortal or a venial sin?

Of course not. But scoffing the Pope I would think, is at least venial.

 

[estesbob]

Of course not. But scoffing the Pope I would think, is at least venial.

Can I lessen the degree of sin I am committing by driving a smaller truck or buying carbon credits ?

 

[lynnvinc]

I have yet to get an answer to this question and it is important as I’m going to be going to confession soon- is beng skeptical about AGW a mortal or a venial sin?

It’s what people do that counts. If you are mitigating AGW in whatever ways feasible for you, doing your best, then it probably doesn’t matter if you have some doubts about AGW, unless, of course, you are dissuading others from accepting AGW, from accepting and following the Pope’s recent encyclical, and from mitigating AGW. I’m thinking that would be much more serious than simply having doubts.

 

[lynnvinc]

Can I lessen the degree of sin I am committing by driving a smaller truck or buying carbon credits ?

Protestants are not going to like that, buying carbon credits. They’ll say it smacks of buying and selling indulgences Sort of like paying someone to be faithful to his/her spouse so one can be unfaithful with impunity to one’s own spouse. No, I’d think the main thing is simply to reduce one’s own GHG emissions and other concomitant pollution & harms.

However, if would be nice to give “carbon gifts.” We donated some WakaWaka solar lights to villages in Africa, offsetting their use of kerosene (not at all counting it as “carbon credits”). Something like that would be a nice gesture.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Can I lessen the degree of sin I am committing by driving a smaller truck or buying carbon credits ?

It sounds like you are trying to be a spiritual minimalist. “What is the least I can do and still be ok?”

 

[Ender]

As of 2014 & 2015 (years after that quote) the warming has continued, as expected, so the issue is resolved now, as the warming has continued and has NOT gone back down to the pre-1980s level – which one would expect if the warming had stopped and gone to a “normal” pattern.

This is what AGW has descended to: assertions with no relation to reality. Warming has not continued and as of this May the length of time since global temperatures stopped rising is 18 years, six months. Nor is the fact that the Earth has not cooled relevant to anything. AGW flatly states that temperatures will continue to rise.

I think y’all are obsessing over the models too much.

Given that AGW is based on models it would seem to be hard to overestimate their importance. The models represent our understanding of the physical processes involved. If the models do not reflect reality it means our understanding of the processes is deficient as well.

As mentioned, they are grossly under-predicting the warming bec they do NOT include positive feedbacks from CH4 & CO2 releases as permafrost and ocean hydrates melt due to the warming…

Only a true believer could claim that the models have underestimated the “true” warming even as they have significantly overestimated the warming that is actually measurable.

Ender

 

[Theo520]

Can I lessen the degree of sin I am committing by driving a smaller truck or buying carbon credits ?

Is the Church selling carbon credits??
If not, then buy from Al Gore and not the Greeks (too risky).
The Greeks bet big on carbon credits.

 

[lynnvinc]

Is the Church selling carbon credits??..

No, but some 10 or 15 yrs ago they bought some carbon credits in their bit to become “carbon neutral,” but they turned out to be somewhat bogus (or not what had been claimed…I think some forest in Romania or something).

Anyway the Vatican has continued to reduce their carbon footprint, with solar panels, etc.

 

[lynnvinc]

This is what AGW has descended to: assertions with no relation to reality. Warming has not continued and as of this May the length of time since global temperatures stopped rising is 18 years, six months. Nor is the fact that the Earth has not cooled relevant to anything. AGW flatly states that temperatures will continue to rise.
Given that AGW is based on models it would seem to be hard to overestimate their importance. The models represent our understanding of the physical processes involved. If the models do not reflect reality it means our understanding of the processes is deficient as well.
Only a true believer could claim that the models have underestimated the “true” warming even as they have significantly overestimated the warming that is actually measurable.

Ender

AGW is NOT based on models, it’s based on the laws of physics and actual rising global average temps – which do not increase in a strictly increasing way, and no climate scientist has EVER claimed that would be the case, due to the other factors that impact the global climate. It is a matter of a long term trend, which is why it took decades before they claimed at 95% confidence in 1995 that AGW was indeed happening.

The models are helpful for a very complex, multi-variable situation involving several of earth’s systems, mainly to give us some heads up re what to expect.

Not sure where you got your data, but AGW has continued as the last deep & longer solar minimum is over, and other factors. There is now a uptick in warming over the past couple of years. One problem for reg people is that it takes decades to discern patterns. We tend to think in very short time-frames…like next week, next month, or next year, or for women, they might think of 20 years & their kids’ future, etc…but not more than 20 years. IOW, AGW is happening on a time-scale we don’t really live in or perceive…

Why not ask some climate scientists about the issue and doubts, if the Pope’s encyclical has not clarified it enough.

I’ve had no problem over the past 30 years in accepting that AGW is real and has tremendous threats to life on earth (perhaps due to my excellent science education in HS, and books I read back in the 50s that explained the GH effect).

I don’t like seeing people playing “Russian roulette” with the lives of others on into the future. It greatly saddens me.

 

[Theo520]

At a grand 109 acres, the Vatican is smaller than probably every University campus in the US. Their real carbon impact occurs off campus.

No, but some 10 or 15 yrs ago they bought some carbon credits in their bit to become “carbon neutral,” but they turned out to be somewhat bogus (or not what had been claimed…I think some forest in Romania or something).

Anyway the Vatican has continued to reduce their carbon footprint, with solar panels, etc.

 

[Ridgerunner]

AGW is NOT based on models, it’s based on the laws of physics and actual rising global average temps – which do not increase in a strictly increasing way, and no climate scientist has EVER claimed that would be the case, due to the other factors that impact the global climate. It is a matter of a long term trend, which is why it took decades before they claimed at 95% confidence in 1995 that AGW was indeed happening.

The models are helpful for a very complex, multi-variable situation involving several of earth’s systems, mainly to give us some heads up re what to expect.

Not sure where you got your data, but AGW has continued as the last deep & longer solar minimum is over, and other factors. There is now a uptick in warming over the past couple of years. One problem for reg people is that it takes decades to discern patterns. We tend to think in very short time-frames…like next week, next month, or next year, or for women, they might think of 20 years & their kids’ future, etc…but not more than 20 years. IOW, AGW is happening on a time-scale we don’t really live in or perceive…

Why not ask some climate scientists about the issue and doubts, if the Pope’s encyclical has not clarified it enough.

I’ve had no problem over the past 30 years in accepting that AGW is real and has tremendous threats to life on earth (perhaps due to my excellent science education in HS, and books I read back in the 50s that explained the GH effect).

I don’t like seeing people playing “Russian roulette” with the lives of others on into the future. It greatly saddens me.

It really is interesting how MMGW proponents come up with expanations as to how the globe is warming despite the fact that it isn’t.