WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

[SuperLuigi]

Sheesh! Now the WSJ folks are the new climate experts. What’s next?

:ehh:

And everyone who is a climate alarmist or who “believes” (interesting word for science, huh?") in global warming is?

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Unfortunately, as one meteorologist noted in a interview some years ago “Many of the people talking about ‘global warming’ are not scientists”.

I would further add that some of the actual scientists may not be qualified to make such assessments, and only do so for their own personal gain or that of relative or close friend.

This concept is now, I’m sorry to say, a part of our culture is really just a lot of excuse-making.

A common and unfortunate tactic of AGW deniers has always been to attack the scientists rather than the science itself.

 

[vz71]

Sheesh! Now the WSJ folks are the new climate experts. What’s next?

Did you bother reading the article?

 

[lynnvinc]

(continuation from last post) … There are also the factors that would mask AGW of being in a much longer and deeper solar minimum and China and India spewing out much more aerosols in their coal and wood burning, which have a cooling effect. The climate scientists 20 or 30 years ago did not predict these either. And even if they had known these could happen, they really could not quantify them or put them in a predictive formula back then. It’s just ludicrous that y’all should expect science and scientists to be gods and know everything well before they happen.

The things to watch out for now are China and India cleaning up their acts re aerosols and other local pollution (right now they are severely polluting and harming their people and food crops). Since aerosols only last in the atmosphere a few weeks, compared to CO2 molecules which can last there for 1000s of years, and CH4 which lasts about 10 yrs before degrading into CO2, as developing nations reduce their pollution that has a cooling effect, AGW may take off much stronger.

Also, as we climb out of the solar minimum and this unusually small solar maximum (hardly a blip of one), and perhaps go into a more common higher solar maximum, there could be an stronger impact on the warming. And hopefully the deeper oceans will not continue to take up the heat (and melt the methane clathrates)…

Considering all that, the models are fairly good…sometimes underestimating the warming just a bit (as Hansen’s 1981 model did and part of his 1988 model did), sometimes overestimating it just a bit.

And we really should now push on beyond the debate re whether AGW is happening, since it is well est that it is, and onto other findings that have implicates for AGW and its impacts.

A couple of days ago I read this about another positive feedback that will spiral GW higher: “Carbon stored in world’s soils more vulnerable to climate change than expected” at sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903133313.htm

"…This key idea was tested using soils collected from a thermal gradient from the Arctic to the Amazon rainforest. The results, published in Nature, show that, contrary to expectations, microbial community responses resulted in an overall increase, rather than a decrease, in the effects of temperature on rates of carbon dioxide release from soils.
Dr Kristiina Karhu of the University of Helsinki, and lead author of the paper, said: “Because soils store more than twice as much carbon than the atmosphere, changes in rates of decomposition and carbon dioxide release from soil could be very important. Our findings suggest that warming will increase the activity of soil microbes to a greater
extent than was previously expected, which could have implications for future rates of climate change.”

Y’all really should be reading the science not the WSJ or bogus blogs for your information. They don’t know squat what they are talking about. You wouldn’t go to the butcher to get brain surgery (maybe in the distant past, but not now).

 

[Theo520]

This is not surprising in the least, and proves nothing, either for or against GW theory. The gravitational constant can be determined by a very short experiment under controlled conditions. Climate sensitivity to the doubling of CO2 requires experiments that are neither fast nor under controlled conditions. So naturally the confidence band for the value of this parameter is going to be many times wider than for the gravitational constant. Nevertheless useful conclusions can be drawn from this distribution by taking the stated confidence band into consideration when drawing the conclusions.

Yes, we can learn from the models that failed, and make improved models that pass the scientific method. HOWEVER, until we pass the scientific method, please stop accepting the failed models as valid/proven.

A common and unfortunate tactic of AGW deniers has always been to attack the scientists rather than the science itself.

What I’m seeing is Napoleon still plays with strawmen, please grow up.

(continuation from last post) … There are also the factors that would mask AGW … It’s just ludicrous that y’all should expect science and scientists to be gods and know everything well before they happen.
Please stop giving the IPCC a pass on the Scientific Method.

The things to watch out for now are China and India cleaning up their acts re aerosols and other local pollution (right now they are severely polluting and harming their people and food crops). Since aerosols only last in the atmosphere a few weeks, compared to CO2 molecules which can last there for 1000s of years, and CH4 which lasts about 10 yrs before degrading into CO2, as developing nations reduce their pollution that has a cooling effect, AGW may take off much stronger.
This is offtopic, but I also hope China starts to deal with their polution.
Are you arguing that the UN should force them to change? You closet fascist!
Please stop implying CO2 is a pollutant

Also, as we climb out of the solar minimum and this unusually small solar maximum (hardly a blip of one), and perhaps go into a more common higher solar maximum, there could be an stronger impact on the warming. And hopefully the deeper oceans will not continue to take up the heat (and melt the methane clathrates)…
**Why are you now talking about natural variation in the climate? **

Considering all that, the models are fairly good…sometimes underestimating the warming just a bit (as Hansen’s 1981 model did and part of his 1988 model did), sometimes overestimating it just a bit.
Again, look up scientific method. It’s not about eyeballing.

And we really should now push on beyond the debate re whether AGW is happening, since it is well est that it is, and onto other findings that have implicates for AGW and its impacts.
Stop pretending C02 sensitivity doesn’t matter. The response to 1.5 is very different than if it’s 9.

A couple of days ago I read this about another positive feedback that will spiral GW higher: “Carbon stored in world’s soils more vulnerable to climate change than expected” at sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903133313.htm
More fear mongering. You must be a paid shrill

Y’all really should be reading the science not the WSJ or bogus blogs for your information. They don’t know squat what they are talking about. You wouldn’t go to the butcher to get brain surgery (maybe in the distant past, but not now).

Please stop attacking the source with AD HOMINEM, focus on content or don’t post.

 

[vz71]

(continuation from last post) … There are also the factors that would mask AGW of being in a much longer and deeper solar minimum and China and India spewing out much more aerosols in their coal and wood burning, which have a cooling effect.

Wait a second here.
I can’t remember which one of these global warming threads it was, but just a few days ago you were describing China as having their act cleaned up and doing better then the US.

Now they are ‘spewing’??

Which of you do I believe? Then one on this thread or the one on the other?

 

[vz71]

A common and unfortunate tactic of AGW deniers has always been to attack the scientists rather than the science itself.

Indeed.
But from my perspective it does not appear to be any particular side guilty of this.
Observe…

Sheesh! Now the WSJ folks are the new climate experts. What’s next?

Of course, this is not an attack against the scientists, it is just an attack on the WSJ reporter that was doing the story on the scientists work.

Ad Hominem nonetheless.

 

[weller2]

Wait a second here.
I can’t remember which one of these global warming threads it was, but just a few days ago you were describing China as having their act cleaned up and doing better then the US.

Now they are ‘spewing’??

Which of you do I believe? Then one on this thread or the one on the other?

China did a spectacular flip this year after the smog in Shanghai got so bad that you couldn’t see the sun. The previous ambitious policy of building a lot of coal-fired power plants just got replaced by a new ambitious policy to shut down a lot of coal-fired power plants.

theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/03/china-pledges-limit-carbon-emissions

This is being sold as an AGW mitigation effort, but the actual reason probably is that externalities from burning coal (= cancer rates) are becoming too expensive (cancer cost = lost productivity + treatment cost). Of course they cannot say that openly because that would mean that for the last 40 years they were trading the lives and health of their citizens for economic growth… Which they of course did.

China being a centrally planned economy, there is little doubt that the new 5-year plan will be executed and the CO2/aerosol reduction goals will be met.

 

[weller2]

However, there is no scientific consensus on how much it impacts our climate system.
Since the estimates in play are between 1.5 to at least 9 for CO2 sensitivity, we have no scientific consensus on AWG where it really matters.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/RoeBaker.jpg

That’s disingenious.

One information which is immediately obvious from this graph is that median value is 3.

This is probably very close to true value, as, assuming that the underlying physics is understood correctly, errors in different studies should average out (due to law of large numbers and all that).

Also, the distribution is heavy-tailed which means that one should rather err on the side of caution (more strict CO2 controls), as there is significant probability of high CO2 sensitivity being underestimated.

 

[Theo520]

China did a spectacular flip this year after the smog in Shanghai got so bad that you couldn’t see the sun. The previous ambitious policy of building a lot of coal-fired power plants just got replaced by a new ambitious policy to shut down a lot of coal-fired power plants.

theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/03/china-pledges-limit-carbon-emissions

This is being sold as an AGW mitigation effort, but the actual reason probably is that externalities from burning coal (= cancer rates) are becoming too expensive (cancer cost = lost productivity + treatment cost). Of course they cannot say that openly because that would mean that for the last 40 years they were trading the lives and health of their citizens for economic growth… Which they of course did.

China being a centrally planned economy, there is little doubt that the new 5-year plan will be executed and the CO2/aerosol reduction goals will be met.

The smog is hardly caused by power plants, though they contribute. Heavy industry, autos, and home heating are the likely primary contributors to city smog. The articles already noted they idled industry to bring the levels down.

I expect they will now adopt pollution control practices we’ve had in place since before the 80’s

 

[Zachary]

What’s a WSJ?

And don’t trees like CO2? There must be a level of CO2 required to achieve optimal crop production, below which, crops fail or above which the CO2 is too much and harm the crops.

(There are too many long, boring scientific entries in this thread for most laymen…honestly, I’m not here to read a dozen reports about science that I can’t verify was done correctly…can we get a dummies version of an answer…)

 

[LeafByNiggle]

What’s a WSJ?

Wall Street Journal, the source of the article quoted in the first post of this thread.

And don’t trees like CO2? There must be a level of CO2 required to achieve optimal crop production, below which, crops fail or above which the CO2 is too much and harm the crops.

Yes, but quantifying what that level may be, and how the benefits from more CO2 are balanced against the harms is not something that is easy to do. That is why these threads morph into quotations of various scientific papers, reports, opinions, etc. There is no “dummies” version of the answer. But you are right about most of us being unable to personally verify the correctness of the methods being used in these scientific papers. That is why the issue ultimately becomes an appeal to authorities and the discussion of the qualifications of said authorities.

 

[lynnvinc]

:ehh:

And everyone who is a climate alarmist or who “believes” (interesting word for science, huh?") in global warming is?

Either a climate scientist or someone who closely follows climate science, including those who understand that science tends to be reticent in it claims, striving to avoid the false positive of making untrue claims, while people concerned about life on earth would be striving to avoid the false negative of failing to address true problems…

…unlike the AGW “disbelievers,” who follow blog nonsense non-science.

 

[lynnvinc]

Of course, this is not an attack against the scientists, it is just an attack on the WSJ reporter that was doing the story on the scientists work.

Ad Hominem nonetheless.

Sorry, but I do not put much stock in stories the WSJ may come out with re climate science, since they are known to be deniers of AGW using any bogus sources they can find…altho they did do a good story on Amory Lovins some years back about how America could become much more energy efficient, saving businesses and households money without lowering productivity or living standards.

As for the supposed “scientist” mentioned in the article, I do not consider Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics, to be a climate scientist. He tries and has to be corrected by real climate scientists, such as when he mistakenly used the Celsius (interval, but not ratio data) rather than the Kelvin scale (ratio data) to do his “science,” thinking he had disproved AGW (see realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/does-a-global-temperature-exist/ and rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/rabett-writes-universitaets-prof.html ). More info on him: desmogblog.com/ross-mckitrick

I really don’t consider it an ad hominem attack to prefer expert sources of information over non-expert sources and be exasperated wild claims based on these not-so-good sources. I think the non-experts might offer some constructive criticism sometimes, and the climate scientists can study the issue and see if any of it holds water, but for more definitive information I personally prefer it from experts, not from people out of their field and out of their league. Terribly sorry if that offends people, but I’m NOT going to lower my standards just because it offends people that I maintain them.

 

[lynnvinc]

Source: WSJ subscription required
Respost: no subscription

Here’s what happened to AGW…it has continued as usual but in a different place, AND the models have the skill now to predict such:

“Climate model simulations of the observed early-2000s hiatus of global warming,” Gerald A. Meehl, Haiyan Teng, & Julie M. Arblaster. Nature Climate Change, 07 September 2014 at nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2357.html

ABSTRACT: The slowdown in the rate of global warming in the early 2000s is not evident in the multi-model ensemble average of traditional climate change projection simulations. However, a number of individual ensemble members from that set of models successfully simulate the early-2000s hiatus when naturally-occurring climate variability involving the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) coincided, by chance, with the observed negative phase of the IPO that contributed to the early-2000s hiatus. If the recent methodology of initialized decadal climate prediction could have been applied in the mid-1990s using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 multi-models, both the negative phase of the IPO in the early 2000s as well as the hiatus could have been simulated, with the multi-model average performing better than most of the individual models. The loss of predictive skill for six initial years before the mid-1990s points to the need for consistent hindcast skill to establish reliability of an operational decadal climate prediction system.

Isn’t it amazing how science and technology advances and how wrong some can be about climate models and about a GW “pause”!

 

[Ridgerunner]

What’s a WSJ?

And don’t trees like CO2? There must be a level of CO2 required to achieve optimal crop production, below which, crops fail or above which the CO2 is too much and harm the crops.

(There are too many long, boring scientific entries in this thread for most laymen…honestly, I’m not here to read a dozen reports about science that I can’t verify was done correctly…can we get a dummies version of an answer…)

WSJ is the Wall Street Journal.

I have read that the optimal CO2 level for plants is 600 parts per million. I have read that we are now at about 400 parts per million.

If you stay with these threads very long, you will find that all sorts of people have access to charts and graphs and opinion pieces, most of them from environmentalist resources. You will find that many are contradictory. Some get abandoned.

Not calling you a “dummy” at all, but some facts stick out and are not seriously contested:

1. There is an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Nobody knows for absolute certain why, because it has also happened in pre-industrial times, but it is usually attributed to the burning of fossil fuels in modern economies.
2. There is absolutely no agreement as to what effect that may have in the future or, indeed, whether increases will continue into the future. People on one side say everbody agrees to the facts they believe. People on the other side say the same thing.
3. There is presently no global warming going on, and hasn’t been for something like 15-18 years. Those who believe in manmade global warming have explanations for that. Others challenge those explanations.
4. There are other potential sources for atmospheric warming; desertification from improper agricultural practices being one of them. i’m practically the only one who ever talks about that.
5. There is a lot of money behind the supporters of the manmade global warming theories.
6. It is extremely politicized.

One could go on and on, but I won’t. But if you watch the global warming threads long enough, you’ll see that it’s a debate among people who produce secondary sources to “prove” their points. It’s like a high school debate in that way.

 

[Patti_M]

WSJ is the Wall Street Journal.

I have read that the optimal CO2 level for plants is 600 parts per million. I have read that we are now at about 400 parts per million.

If you stay with these threads very long, you will find that all sorts of people have access to charts and graphs and opinion pieces, most of them from environmentalist resources. You will find that many are contradictory. Some get abandoned.

Not calling you a “dummy” at all, but some facts stick out and are not seriously contested:

1. There is an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Nobody knows for absolute certain why, because it has also happened in pre-industrial times, but it is usually attributed to the burning of fossil fuels in modern economies.
2. There is absolutely no agreement as to what effect that may have in the future or, indeed, whether increases will continue into the future. People on one side say everbody agrees to the facts they believe. People on the other side say the same thing.
3. There is presently no global warming going on, and hasn’t been for something like 15-18 years. Those who believe in manmade global warming have explanations for that. Others challenge those explanations.
4. There are other potential sources for atmospheric warming; desertification from improper agricultural practices being one of them. i’m practically the only one who ever talks about that.
5. There is a lot of money behind the supporters of the manmade global warming theories.
6. It is extremely politicized.

One could go on and on, but I won’t. But if you watch the global warming threads long enough, you’ll see that it’s a debate among people who produce secondary sources to “prove” their points. It’s like a high school debate in that way.

Thank you Ridgerunner. You put this in a way that even I could understand. I was in a very heated debate with 2 guys online about this topic of coal fired power plants. I work in an industry that has dealings with several power plants in the area. they are struggling to comply with new drastic and ever changing EPA standards. I think everyone agrees that energy sources must move forward and adapt but my argument regards the timing. I believe that a more gradual phasing out would have a less devastating impact on energy pricing (for the consumer) and the coal producing states.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

… but some facts stick out and are not seriously contested:

Then let me be the first to “seriously” contest them.

1. There is an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Nobody knows for absolute certain why, because it has also happened in pre-industrial times, but it is usually attributed to the burning of fossil fuels in modern economies.

I don’t really contest this one, but it does not refute AGW.

1. There is absolutely no agreement as to what effect that may have in the future or, indeed, whether increases will continue into the future. People on one side say everbody agrees to the facts they believe. People on the other side say the same thing.

I if you mean “no agreement” among people in general, that is obvious. But then there is no general agreement to many facts about science.

1. There is presently no global warming going on, and hasn’t been for something like 15-18 years. Those who believe in manmade global warming have explanations for that. Others challenge those explanations.

Saying that there is no global warming going on is like saying there is no seasonal spring warm-up on April 14th because April 14th was cooler than April 13th. If you refrain from redefining global warming to suit your purposes, it is a lot harder to refute.

1. There are other potential sources for atmospheric warming; desertification from improper agricultural practices being one of them. i’m practically the only one who ever talks about that.

Climate scientists who make projections about the effect of CO2 are not unaware of desertification.

1. There is a lot of money behind the supporters of the manmade global warming theories.

This is the easiest of all to contest, because there is a lot more money behind the downplaying of global warming.

1. It is extremely politicized.

If by “it” you mean the discussion of what we should do about global warming, I couldn’t agree more. But if you mean the day to day activity of scientists who study climate as a profession, I think the most you can say is it is somewhat politicized.

 

[lynnvinc]

WSJ is the Wall Street Journal.

I have read that the optimal CO2 level for plants is 600 parts per million. I have read that we are now at about 400 parts per million.

That’s funny, bec the climate scientists (who know better about this than blog non-scientists) say that if we go above 350 ppm long term we will push the climate system into a new regime inhospitable to life on earth. That means we need to reduce our GHG emissions so as to allow earth systems to reabsorb that excess CO2. And the problem is that as time passes and the problem festers, earth systems are becoming less and less able to do that…

1. There is an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Nobody knows for absolute certain why, because it has also happened in pre-industrial times, but it is usually attributed to the burning of fossil fuels in modern economies.

Actually they do know what percent is from industrial emissions (it’s about one-fourth) by figuring carbon isotopes 13C to 12C…

1. There is absolutely no agreement as to what effect that may have in the future or, indeed, whether increases will continue into the future. People on one side say everbody agrees to the facts they believe. People on the other side say the same thing.

Wrong again. Back in the late 80s early 90s they were predicting increased hurricane and storm intensity, increased heat waves, increased droughts and drought intensity, increased and intense deluges (heavy rains within a short timeframe), increase wildfires, etc, (I know bec I was putting up Earth Day displays re these back then from info I got from the scientists…even tho they had not been proven at 95% confidence back then) and now ALL of these things are coming to past. Just look at the news, or better yet at scientific studies that prove these have indeed increased.

(For those who hate climate models, then maybe reality will convince them.)

1. There is presently no global warming going on, and hasn’t been for something like 15-18 years. Those who believe in manmade global warming have explanations for that. Others challenge those explanations.

Totally wrong there, it has continued unabated, but just unexpectedly in a different place, in the deeper oceans. Please read my post just above this one about that and about how they now have models that could have even predicted that if they had been developed earlier back in the 90s.

1. There are other potential sources for atmospheric warming; desertification from improper agricultural practices being one of them. i’m practically the only one who ever talks about that.

Correct, and ALL the climate scientist mention changes in land use as a contributor to AGW. You just haven’t been reading what the scientists are saying, so don’t blame them.

1. There is a lot of money behind the supporters of the manmade global warming theories.

And rightly so, like research grants to study this most dangerous problem humanity has ever faced (except maybe all out nuclear war).

1. It is extremely politicized.

And who politicized it. We environmentalists were just minding our own business reducing our GHG emissions, and informing our friends, relatives, parishes, workplaces, etc about the great savings they could realize in doing the same, while saving the earth. Then along comes big oil and coal-funded politicalizing of the issue, creating a parallel bizarre nonsense “blog science” to confuse people and appeal to their worst instincts, making them believe if they accept AGW and do something about it, they will end up in chains in some cave or something very dire.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thank you Ridgerunner. You put this in a way that even I could understand. I was in a very heated debate with 2 guys online about this topic of coal fired power plants. I work in an industry that has dealings with several power plants in the area. they are struggling to comply with new drastic and ever changing EPA standards. I think everyone agrees that energy sources must move forward and adapt but my argument regards the timing. I believe that a more gradual phasing out would have a less devastating impact on energy pricing (for the consumer) and the coal producing states.

See what I mean? Look at the posts following mine. On it goes, unendingly. In Medieval times, I have read, there were heated debates about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and likely there were those who passionately held to their theories about it. Nowadays, among other endless theoretical debates that go nowhere, manmade global warming is the subject.

It could be entertaining, and would actually be amusing but for the fact that political objectives ride on it; objectives that are not necessarily good for most people. Obama has already said he wants to make utility bills “skyrocket” for the sake of it, and he has made a pretty fair start of it. It is estimated that his coal regulations alone will cost people in my state an average of $1400 more a year in their utility bills. I can afford it though i don’t see the sense in it. But a lot of people can’t afford that.

And the majority of Americans no longer believe in it, so the aspirations of the politicians to make energy more difficult for Americans to obtain are likely to fade (excepting whatever Obama does through executive fiats) dailycaller.com/2014/06/26/poll-53-of-americans-dont-believe-in-man-made-global-warming/

So, why are we doing it? Well, there are political “true believers”, some of whom have money and power, and then there are those who don’t seem (by their actions) to believe in it but push it anyway and don’t have to now spend $1400/year out of, say $1400/month income just to keep their houses warm. What’s $1400 to Al Gore who could afford to spend that on an expensive dessert?

Just maintain the healthy skepticism you would if the topic was how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. It’s just a debate. Nothing more.

And remember, there has been no global warming for something like 15-18 years. Everybody admits it, but some say it’s hidden somewhere, like in the ice or the ocean or somewhere. More dancing angels.