World's climate warming faster than feared, scientists say

[lynnvinc]

This is an altogether typical response. When assertions are made with which one disagrees - but apparently cannot refute - it is not the arguments that are challenged, it is the integrity and abilities of the person who made them that are attacked. This is the same approach taken to dismiss the observations of Christopher Monckton, the Homeland Institute, Anthony Watts, Fox News, and pretty much every other source of resistance to AGW.

Here’s the problem: given that Morano is not a climate scientist and who’s “only education appears to be in political science” it should be a simply matter to refute his assertions. After all, he’s not a scientist so how much could he know? On the other hand, if the assertions of non-scientists cannot be refuted then how valid can the theory be?

Such skeptic arguments have been very well refuted by actual climate scientists. Not one of Moreno’s claims holds water as proof against climate change, including the “18 year pause,” which has not been a pause if deeper ocean warming is also taken into account, and even if it were a true pause would not in the least refute global warming. Note that the global warming line is an up-down saw tooth line that is slanted upward. No climate scientist, knowing all the factors involved in climate, has ever said it would be a strictly increasing line, but they have said one needs 30 years or more worth of data to find a trend. IOW, the 18 year “pause” is a STRAWMAN created by the skeptic machine so as to deceive laypersons into not doing anything to mitigate, but keep the profits flowing into the fossil fuel companies.

The actual problem is that lay skeptics refuse to read or accept what real climate scientists are saying about climate change and about the fallacious arguments that the AGW skeptic industry is making.

 

[Ender]

Yes, since Morano is not a climate scientist, then his arguments would be easy to refute - if one happens to be a working climate scientist in possession of all the facts that working scientists have. But when the rest of us are presented with a claim that we have no way of directly verifying from our own personal or professional knowledge, we must necessarily look to arguments from evaluation of authority.

This is quite a reasonable position to take: if you don’t know anything about a subject then you should generally believe those who you would expect to be well informed. In the age of the internet, however, we all have access to an enormous wealth of information and it really isn’t all that difficult to read about these controversies and come to reasoned conclusions.

I know that I have long argued for people looking into things themselves and not trusting any authority. But my appeals have fallen on deaf ears. Or maybe I am just wrong and arguments from authority are the only option for us regular folks. But at some point one gets tired of researching errors in every non-expert claim and it is understandable to look first to the qualifications and motivations of the claimant before treating a claim as a true scientific claim. Morano fails on both counts (qualifications and motivations).

The problem here is that unless you do your own homework you expose yourself to manipulation. If you say “I believe even numbered sources but not odd numbered ones” then you are completely at the mercy of your sources. I happen to think RealClimate and the IPCC (not to mention the NY Times, HuffPo, etc) are all untrustworthy and deceitful, but I have never rejected an allegation simply because of its source. I’m not concerned about what they may say, unlike those who are unwilling to engage in the debate by ignoring the objections raised by “odd numbered” sources.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Such skeptic arguments have been very well refuted by actual climate scientists. Not one of Moreno’s claims holds water as proof against climate change, including the “18 year pause,” which has not been a pause if deeper ocean warming is also taken into account…

First, there has been an 18 year pause in surface temperature warming. There is simply no debate about that. We should also recognize that surface temperature warming is absolutely required by AGW caused by CO2 emissions.
Second, the assertions that the oceans ate the warming is speculation on two counts: that some mechanism exists whereby the atmosphere could in fact warm the oceans without itself growing warmer, and that we can reasonably claim to know the temperature of the ocean (especially at depth) before the completion of the Argo system in 2007.

… and even if it were a true pause would not in the least refute global warming.

It might not refute it but it does present the theory with significant - and as yet completely unanswered - questions. Not least of the problems which this presents is the fact that every climate change model (the ones used by the IPCC to predict the future) also predicted that such a hiatus was not a reasonable possibility.

Note that the global warming line is an up-down saw tooth line that is slanted upward. No climate scientist, knowing all the factors involved in climate, has ever said it would be a strictly increasing line, but they have said one needs 30 years or more worth of data to find a trend.

Again, you’re making this stuff up and it is wrong on two counts. One, as I just mentioned above, is with the models and their insistence that such a pause would not happen. The second, as has been pointed out before, is that 17 years was the period of time identified as necessary to be able to separate man made climate effects from just such natural variations. That is, contra your opinion, the scientists have said that a pause of the length we have experienced is indeed significant.

IOW, the 18 year “pause” is a STRAWMAN created by the skeptic machine so as to deceive laypersons into not doing anything to mitigate, but keep the profits flowing into the fossil fuel companies.

When logic supports your position, stress logic. When the facts support your position, stress the facts. When neither logic nor the facts support your position, wave your hands and raise your voice (and blame your evil opponents.)

The actual problem is that lay skeptics refuse to read or accept what real climate scientists are saying about climate change and about the fallacious arguments that the AGW skeptic industry is making.

Prove it. Cite some “real climate scientist” to support any of your assertions and let’s see where the science leads us.

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

This is quite a reasonable position to take: if you don’t know anything about a subject then you should generally believe those who you would expect to be well informed. In the age of the internet, however, we all have access to an enormous wealth of information and it really isn’t all that difficult to read about these controversies and come to reasoned conclusions.

It is true that the Internet makes a tremendous amount of information available to every. And it also makes tremendous amount of disinformation available too. This applies not only to conclusions, but even to primary data. That is why it is more important than ever to develop means of vetting sources before treating their content as information or disinformation.

That said, I do sometimes like to play scientist and look at anti-AGW sources to see if they make sense to me. Sometimes I can spot errors based on my own personal knowledge, but most often not. If I were constructing a website of disinformation I would certainly try my best to ensure that my content was internally consistent and contained no obvious scientific errors. And to be fair I do not give the pro-AGW sources a free pass either. Even the most sincere can make a mistake.

The problem here is that unless you do your own homework you expose yourself to manipulation. If you say “I believe even numbered sources but not odd numbered ones” then you are completely at the mercy of your sources. I happen to think RealClimate and the IPCC (not to mention the NY Times, HuffPo, etc) are all untrustworthy and deceitful, but I have never rejected an allegation simply because of its source.

Are you sure? If you have never done this, the allegations you have rejected were rejected on the basis of an internal inconsistency that you found, or else an inconsistency with some fact that you had from personal knowledge. With the issue of global warming it is doubtful that any regular citizen is in possession of personal knowledge that is extensive enough to figure in, since global warming at present is not detectable with just a few local measurements. Eventually it may become obvious enough to affect every locality in a locally-measurable way, but right now it is not. And if the author of the content did his job properly, there will be no internal inconsistencies.

As to the specific sources you mentioned, RealClimate, NY Times, HuffPo, and other magazines, are not to be trusted as original sources, and I would never believe anything just because it appeared in one of these. But if one of these sources reference another source that I can trust, I don’t mind using these less-trustworthy sources as just a means of locating the better source. I put IPCC in a separate category, though, because it seems to be closer to the actual research scientists than the popular press.

 

[styrgwillidar]

forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/08/07/global-warming-pause-puts-crisis-in-perspective/

An opinion piece, but it does do a good job of explaining the significance of the pause (as well as the importance of where you start the graph to claim the amount/warming/cooling trend)

“If we choose a starting point of mid-1998, the planet has cooled during the past 16 years. If we choose a starting point of late 1997 or early 1999, temperatures have been flat during the past 15 and 17 years. Examining the totality of the 35-year temperature record, we see approximately 1/3 of 1 degree Celsius warming during the period. Accordingly, global warming has occurred at a pace of approximately 1 degree Celsius per century over the duration of the satellite record.”

Note, folks look at the 1979 as the start because the satellite data is one relatively unaltered/adjusted/massaged record.

“IPCC adherents claim short-term variance is masking longer-term climate trends. According to this line of reasoning, the 35 years since 1979 are simply not long enough to form meaningful conclusions about the longer-term pace of global warming. This line of argument is unpersuasive for two important reasons: First, the admittedly less reliable ground-based mercury temperature readings from the mid-1940s through the late 1970s reported global cooling during the three decades immediately prior to the satellite era. Accordingly, the time period for which real-world temperatures are not rising nearly as rapidly as IPCC predictions is now not just 35 years, but approximately 70 years. Second, and even ignoring the 1940s-1970s global cooling, for global temperatures to meet IPCC’s predicted 2.4 degree rise by late this century, global temperatures must immediately – and that means immediately – begin rising at a sustained 0.30 degrees Celsius per decade. That has never come close to occurring during our modern warm period, and the ongoing global warming pause suggests that is unlikely to begin happening any time in the foreseeable future, either.”

Starting the graph in '79 has the problem of initating the trend at a known low point vice an attempt to identify some meaningful mean temperature. The adherents to the MMGW concept are overstating the extant/rate of warming in addition to attributing it to being caused by human sources. Despite the real-world data not matching the predictions of the models based on that theory of human actions as the mechanism. So, if models based on a given mechanism are wrong, they’re wrong about the mechanism. Either as the cause, or the degree to which it contributes to warming.

"Pulling this all together, we can reach the following conclusions:

•The global warming pause is real.
•The global warming pause is significant.
•The global warming pause is not likely to be permanent.
•A future resumption of global warming at pre-pause rates – or even modestly accelerated rates – would not validate IPCC global warming predictions, and would instead continue to undermine the IPCC’s predictions of very rapid 21st century global warming.
•The most meaningful aspect of the global warming pause isn’t that temperatures have flattened for 17 years, but rather that the global warming pause extends and solidifies the longer-term record of smaller-than-predicted global temperature rise."

 

[lynnvinc]

…Second, and even ignoring the 1940s-1970s global cooling, for global temperatures to meet IPCC’s predicted 2.4 degree rise by late this century, global temperatures must immediately – and that means immediately – begin rising at a sustained 0.30 degrees Celsius per decade. That has never come close to occurring during our modern warm period…

Unfortunately this is quite possible. There is a long lag time between GHGs entering the atmosphere and warming. Some scientists have estimated as much as 2.4C warming just from what’s up there right now, even if we halt all emissions today. See:
Ramanathan, V., and Y. Feng. 2008. “On Avoiding Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference with the Climate System: Formidable Challenges Ahead.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105.38: 14245-14250. pnas.org/content/105/38/14245.full.pdf+html

Furthermore, if the climate does reach 2C warming, and certainly 3C, then that will trigger GHG emissions from nature from melting permafrost and ocean hydrates – and this is already happening to some extent. That would then cause the warming to spiral out of control and go up to 6C or greater warming.

We are dealing with a non-linear system. We are “poking a sleeping dragon.”

 

[Ender]

Are you sure? If you have never done this, the allegations you have rejected were rejected on the basis of an internal inconsistency that you found, or else an inconsistency with some fact that you had from personal knowledge.

I don’t claim any particularly extensive personal knowledge of anything (well, one thing but it’s not relevant here). What I have become good at, however, is evaluating arguments and distinguishing good ones from bad ones. That skill is applicable to all topics even where one is completely uninformed. For example, it is confidently alleged that global warming continues, only now it is the oceans that are warming instead of the atmosphere. When you read articles on how this could be accomplished, however, what you will find are not theories explaining this but conjectures - hypotheses at best - suggesting how this might be happening. Given that, any claim that atmospheric CO2 ***is ***warming the oceans is scientifically unsupportable. That’s an example of a bad argument.

As to the specific sources you mentioned, RealClimate, NY Times, HuffPo, and other magazines, are not to be trusted as original sources, and I would never believe anything just because it appeared in one of these. But if one of these sources reference another source that I can trust, I don’t mind using these less-trustworthy sources as just a means of locating the better source.

Ah but this is just what is done by those sources that are regularly rejected. Christopher Monckton’s graph of 17 years of no global warming is based on official RSS data, yet many reject it out of hand simply because Monckton graphed it.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I put IPCC in a separate category, though, because it seems to be closer to the actual research scientists than the popular press.

You shouldn’t. Their documents are as politicized as any.

Ender

 

[Ridgerunner]

Such skeptic arguments have been very well refuted by actual climate scientists.

The actual problem is that lay skeptics refuse to read or accept what real climate scientists are saying about climate change and about the fallacious arguments that the AGW skeptic industry is making.

The problem is, of course, that there’s really no such thing as a “climate scientist”. There are scientists in other fields who write about global warming from their perspective or just conglomerate others’ findings and declare conclusions, but they’re not “climate scientists”. Look up universities offering a PhD in “climate science”. The closest thing you’ll find are “combined degree” programs in which the degree is hypenated, like “climate science-sociology”. One university does offer that one. If you look at the credentials of the MMGW supporting scientists, you’ll find that not one has a degree in “climate science”. That’s because it isn’t really a science, but an ideological point of view.

The closest thing to a real “climate scientist” is a meteorologist. Among them, the majority either don’t believe MMGW is real at all or believe it’s real but not a serious threat.

Yes, I know, MMGW proponents call them “just weathermen” because they know meteorologists don’t support their doomsday scenarios. But look up the course content of a degree in meteorology. It’s real science, and a lot of it.

 

[estesbob]

The problem is, of course, that there’s really no such thing as a “climate scientist”. There are scientists in other fields who write about global warming from their perspective or just conglomerate others’ findings and declare conclusions, but they’re not “climate scientists”. Look up universities offering a PhD in “climate science”. The closest thing you’ll find are “combined degree” programs in which the degree is hypenated, like “climate science-sociology”. One university does offer that one. If you look at the credentials of the MMGW supporting scientists, you’ll find that not one has a degree in “climate science”. That’s because it isn’t really a science, but an ideological point of view.

The closest thing to a real “climate scientist” is a meteorologist. Among them, the majority either don’t believe MMGW is real at all or believe it’s real but not a serious threat.

Yes, I know, MMGW proponents call them “just weathermen” because they know meteorologists don’t support their doomsday scenarios. But look up the course content of a degree in meteorology. It’s real science, and a lot of it.

A climate scientist is any scientist that believes in man made global warming

 

[DoGodsBidding]

A climate scientist is any scientist that believes in man made global warming

Yep. And after 73 pages of comments no new converts either.

DGB

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The problem is, of course, that there’s really no such thing as a “climate scientist”. There are scientists in other fields who write about global warming from their perspective or just conglomerate others’ findings and declare conclusions, but they’re not “climate scientists”. Look up universities offering a PhD in “climate science”. The closest thing you’ll find are “combined degree” programs in which the degree is hypenated, like “climate science-sociology”. One university does offer that one. If you look at the credentials of the MMGW supporting scientists, you’ll find that not one has a degree in “climate science”. That’s because it isn’t really a science, but an ideological point of view.

The closest thing to a real “climate scientist” is a meteorologist. Among them, the majority either don’t believe MMGW is real at all or believe it’s real but not a serious threat.

Yes, I know, MMGW proponents call them “just weathermen” because they know meteorologists don’t support their doomsday scenarios. But look up the course content of a degree in meteorology. It’s real science, and a lot of it.

You made that false claim before on July 21st and I refuted it in this posting. If you look at the content of the courses rather than just the name I think you will see it is more than just being a weatherman or a ideology.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You made that false claim before on July 21st and I refuted it in this posting. If you look at the content of the courses rather than just the name I think you will see it is more than just being a weatherman or a ideology.

No. You argued it, you didn’t refute it.

Your prior list, which you cited here, didn’t refute what I said.
-McQairie University. Australia. Not much information in this site.
-Leeds University. Britain. Not much information.

The American schools you referenced were:
-Columbia U. Combined degree “Climate and Society”, the latter being soft sciences like sociology.
-Ohio State. Department of Geography. Its “climate studies” program does seem to have some solid stuff, including meteorology, from which much of its course content (unfortunately not all) is borrowed. Also, of course, political stuff. You would have to believe in MMGW going in or you couldn’t stand being there.
-Yale. A course of study called “Climate Science Adaptation and Mitigation” shows a political bias, as do the listed courses. Courses appear derivative in content. If ultimately MMGW ideology is abandoned, these graduates have no profession at all.

So, no, there really isn’t any such thing as “climate science” as a scientific study all its own. The best that can be said for it is that it’s a study of secondary sources, sometimes combined with some, but not all, the building blocks of a degree in meteorology.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yep. And after 73 pages of comments no new converts either.

DGB

True in this thread, but not true, as to me, entirely.

I will say the innumerable threads on this subject (which never get anywhere, really) did lead me to sites dealing with global warming, including one on MMGW that really did persuade me. It was a site on manmade desertification caused by improper agricultural methods, which have caused atmospheric warming.

I did find that persuasive, and tried out some of the methodologies to reverse it, and found that they work. It is troubling, though, that in the face of inceasing desertification, the world is not warming and has not for, what is it, 17 years or so. If there has been no atmospheric warming, then one wonders what it would have been like had there been no desertification. Brrrrrr!

I’m not speaking in favor of desertification. I hate it. But one does have to wonder about the fact that we might be in a cooling trend that’s partially masked by atmospheric heating due to desertification.

 

[DoGodsBidding]

True in this thread, but not true, as to me, entirely.

I will say the innumerable threads on this subject (which never get anywhere, really) did lead me to sites dealing with global warming, including one on MMGW that really did persuade me. It was a site on manmade desertification caused by improper agricultural methods, which have caused atmospheric warming.

I did find that persuasive, and tried out some of the methodologies to reverse it, and found that they work. It is troubling, though, that in the face of inceasing desertification, the world is not warming and has not for, what is it, 17 years or so. If there has been no atmospheric warming, then one wonders what it would have been like had there been no desertification. Brrrrrr!

I’m not speaking in favor of desertification. I hate it. But one does have to wonder about the fact that we might be in a cooling trend that’s partially masked by atmospheric heating due to desertification.

This is the most interesting comment I have read in this long thread. Thanks for sharing your experience in this.

DGB

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is the most interesting comment I have read in this long thread. Thanks for sharing your experience in this.

DGB

I see that you’re in SE Texas. That covers a lot of varied territory. But I’ll share with you an observation I made some years ago. I took two of my kids to St. John Paul II’s visit to San Antonio. It was beyond hot. So, after the Pope left, we decided to take a side trip to Corpus Christi (south of it a little, actually) to go to the Gulf.

I’m sure you are aware how desolate a lot of that country is. Bare earth interspersed with mesquite and prickly pear thickets here and there. Just devastated country. All of a sudden, on one side of the highway, someone had managed to convert it to a sea of beautiful green grass. Some tolerant species, I imagine; possibly what had been there originally. I wondered what all it took to get that done; root plowing at a minimum, no doubt. Likely years of work. No irrigation. That went on for maybe a mile or so, on one side of the highway only, and abruptly ended.

I was put to wonder then if some of the things one reads about in old books about all of that being grass prairie once upon a time was literally true. Can you imagine Comanche forays through those mesquite/cactus thickets? They wouldn’t have gotten a mile, let alone hundreds of miles. And cattle or the buffalo the Comanches hunted? Nothing to eat in most of that country except maybe for feral hogs. But then there was that expanse of green, billowing grass, and I could picture what it was surely like 150 years ago or so.

Why was the rest of that country so devastated? Overgrazing, undoubtedly. Maybe some cotton planting here and there. Maybe attempts at other row crops. All in country that couldn’t take that kind of treatment, but could flourish under other circumstances.

 

[Bill1940]

Ridgerunner reminds me of something I read awhile ago concerning Furtwängler Glacier is located near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. I think Al Gore, or someone else claiming the diminution of the glacier was due to MMGW but others say it is due to clearing of forests for agricultural purposes having an effect on local weather patterns. I am exponentially more concerned about ISIS launching a genocidal jihad in the Middle East than listening to Chicken Little climate alarmism. Let us pray.

 

[lynnvinc]

A climate scientist is any scientist that believes in man made global warming

That’s being facetious.

I would define a climate scientist as one who has a degree or extensive background in the physical sciences and is doing research on climate. There are plenty of scientists who believe AGW is happening who are not climate scientists.

I would further add to that requirement, a climate scientist who is getting his/her studies and research published in top peer-reviewed science journals, for my satisfaction that the person really knows what he/she is talking about.

By that standard all climate scientists either accept AGW is happening, or they might not, but are not publishing in top peer-reviewed science journals on the topic of whether or not global warming happening (I say “global” bec they may have found the temperatures of the local area around Podunk have remained the same or decreased over the past 50 years). There are very few climate scientists who say AGW is not happening that may get their articles on some side issue (to AGW) published.

There are exceedingly rare exceptions to this – a climate scientist claiming that AGW is not happening who get his/her work directly on AGW published in peer-reviewed reputable science journals, since, say 2005. Maybe one in 100 or 1000 science articles directly on AGW. An example might be Legate’s (a climate scientist) “Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the ‘ultimate’ survival control factor?” ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/HudsonBay.pdf But then again they are really only making claims about the local area of Churchill, Manitoba, that appears to have little or no warming, not global temperatures.

As with all areas of science there are some outlier scientists who think they can prove differently – and perhaps as time passes their ideas will pan out, or not.

As of now the science supporting AGW has become quite robust from many different angles. Maybe if the “pause” (which is not a pause due to deep ocean uptake of part of the warming) lasts another 10 years or so they may have to reconsider, find some heretofore unknown cooling factor. That’s because the natural GH effect is not at all in dispute – nor is the fact that the atmosphere and IR radiation do NOT distinguish between human-caused GHG emissions and natural emissions.

 

[lynnvinc]

The problem is, of course, that there’s really no such thing as a “climate scientist”…

I should have added to my above post (and I think I’ve made this point elsewhere) that when there is a relatively new field, that new field would have a lot of scientists with degrees from other related fields or fields that involve skills helpful to a new field, scientists who would have put forth much effort to learn this new field and contribute to it. Of course, even older, well-established fields could include some scientists with background in other fields who have made it a point to learn that field.

I’m thinking of my field, anthropology, which was founded by persons with degrees in physics, biology, etc. And criminology and criminal justice, which is even newer and still hires plenty of people with PhDs in sociology, political science, psychology, anthropology, etc., esp since there is a shortage of PhDs in criminology/criminal justice for the positions open.

I have my PhD in anthropology, but am also teaching in criminal justice, which does require 18 semester hours of courses relating to CJ to teach at the grad level, but does not require that to do research in CJ. After my PhD I had decided go back and get an MA in sociology, focusing on criminology and victimology (which helped give me those 18 SH to teach at the grad level).

At the time I went for the MA in sociology, my husband was against it and pointed out that it was unnecessary for me to get another degree, since by the time a person has obtained a PhD, they would have very well “learned how to learn” and could learn that related field on their own.

As LeafByNiggle pointed out there are many climate scientist with degrees in climate science proper (tho the names of those degree may differ). However, in the same way to CJ there are many in climate science who have the PhDs in other related fields, such as physics, geology, meteorology, oceanography, statistics, biology, etc. Some have even focused on climate science while doing their PhDs in these other fields. What makes those without climate science degrees “climate scientists” is that they do climate science research and get published on the topic in science journals. They have obviously learned the field well and have brought their expertise, background, intellect and skills to it.

I think it unkind and unwise to dismiss climate scientists and question their integrity just because we don’t like what they are finding – sort of like shooting the messenger bec we don’t like the message. At the very least we should read their articles before we raise questions about their findings.

I personally have found nothing that smacks of dishonesty or deception in their works on the main points of climate science, but instead reticence in making claims and appropriate caveats (which don’t make the nightly news). Their science in science journals appears a lot cooler and distant than anything hot-headed or perverse, as some are imaging and falsely accusing.

 

[lynnvinc]

I will say the innumerable threads on this subject (which never get anywhere, really) did lead me to sites dealing with global warming, including one on MMGW that really did persuade me. It was a site on manmade desertification caused by improper agricultural methods, which have caused atmospheric warming.

Climate scientists have been claiming for quite some time that “land usage” change (which would include desertification) it a factor in global warming; they would claim, however, that it is not the only factor. So there is nothing wrong with what you found, unless they insist desertification is the only factor contributing to climate change.

I did find that persuasive, and tried out some of the methodologies to reverse it, and found that they work. It is troubling, though, that in the face of inceasing desertification, the world is not warming and has not for, what is it, 17 years or so. If there has been no atmospheric warming, then one wonders what it would have been like had there been no desertification. Brrrrrr!

I’m not speaking in favor of desertification. I hate it. But one does have to wonder about the fact that we might be in a cooling trend that’s partially masked by atmospheric heating due to desertification.

I don’t accept that GW has permanently stalled, if at all it has stalled, but goes up and down like a saw blade, with the saw blade angled upward. I guess we’ll see who’s right in 10 or 20 years. Considering that there may be more “pauses” (or increased deep ocean uptake of some of the warming) in the future as there has been in the past, I think it would take some 10 to 20 years for reasonable skeptics to be convinced AGW is happening.

However, you may be right that without desertification (and urban sprawl, which is sort of like desertification if people are replacing trees and plants with concrete) there may have been less warming, since desertification is a known factor.

However, since there are other warming factors, the warming probably would have still continued, only at a lesser amount.

That would be an interesting Q to put to climate scientists who are experts in that area – How much less would the warming have been without desertification? Or, what % of the warming can be attributed to desertification?

Many people do suggest that we do just what you suggested, plant more plants and trees to fight against AGW. In fact I have that in a pamphlet on GW I made some 20 years ago that includes planting trees, in addition to becoming energy/resource efficient/conservative and going on alt energy when feasible. We get a bunch of saplings and other plants from the local arboretum and nature parks and hand them out during Earth Day.

 

[lynnvinc]

I am exponentially more concerned about ISIS launching a genocidal jihad in the Middle East than listening to Chicken Little climate alarmism. Let us pray.

Of course, we need to address all issues that are a threat to life. Addressing one, does not preclude addressing others. And I quite agree, possibilities like a nuclear bomb explosion, and such, are much more attention grabbing than, say, the glacial pace as which glaciers melt