Record Heat
Yes, there’s “record heat” thanks to the nonsensical way we measure temperatures.
Mann-Made Warming
Watts Up With That provides a humorous, but accurate, summation in Friday Funny: Josh on Mann-Made Warming.
In the last couple of weeks, record highs have been set around the U.S., particularly in the Los Angeles area, which I did a lengthy debunking of. Records were also set in Scotland, then denied by an errant Ice Cream truck, and also questioned in Africa. Josh is on the case to illustrate the one common denominator to all these high temperature records we’ve discussed here on WUWT.
For people who don’t believe this, or think we are just “making stuff up”…Here’s the official weather station at the airport in Rome, Italy. I wonder if the Pope has seen this?
WUWT provides more examples including some in the US including LA and Burbank. Here’s Burbank.
Yes, the weather station is virtually surrounded by asphalt runways, taxiways, and aircraft parking ramps. The likelihood for the station to get in the middle of a 400F jetwash is almost a certainty, being so close to taxiways with turns. This is a ridiculous place to measure for high temperatures.
Heat Islands
NASA notes Satellites Pinpoint Drivers of Urban Heat Islands in the Northeast.
Cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston are prominent centers of political power. Less known: Their size, background ecology, and development patterns also combine to make them unusually warm, according to NASA scientists who presented new research recently at an American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, Calif.
Summer land surface temperature of cities in the Northeast were an average of 7 °C to 9 °C (13°F to 16 °F) warmer than surrounding rural areas over a three year period, the new research shows. The complex phenomenon that drives up temperatures is called the urban heat island effect.
Measurement Bias?
You bet
Reporting Bias?
You bet
Nonsensical Lawsuits
Clearly, we are not accurately measuring the rise in temperatures but that does not stop nonsense lawsuits.
Today a NY District Judge Tossed NYC’s Climate Change Lawsuit Against Five Oil Companies.
NYC said BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips. Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell should compensate the city for the cost of mitigating the effects of global warming.
Judge Keenan wrote “Climate change is a fact of life, as is not contested by Defendants. But the serious problems caused thereby are not for the judiciary to ameliorate. Global warming and solutions thereto must be addressed by the two other branches of government.”
Last month, a federal judge dismissed climate change cases against oil companies brought by Oakland and San Francisco based on similar grounds.
This case was so asinine that I wonder why it was filed in the first place. The judge should have made the city pay all of the defendants’ legal costs.
That would stop the nonsense.
Sound the CO2 Alarm
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That’s the sound of my CO2 bullshit detector.
Mark Perry noted the USA alarmist nonsense.
JUST OUT FROM EIA: CO2 Emissions from US Electric Power Fell Last Year to the Lowest Level in 30 Years, Thanks #Fracking #natgas @EnergyTomorrow pic.twitter.com/LjlzTbxRnU
— Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) March 27, 2018
Daniel LaCalle also rang the bell.
Last year the United States had the largest decline in CO2 emissions *in the entire world* for the 9th time this century. https://t.co/YxPRdXPiU4
— Daniel Lacalle (@dlacalle_IA) July 16, 2018
In Climate Agreement, Hypocrisy and Summits, LaCalle accurately writes “Decarbonization is unstoppable . Not thanks to a summit or due to politicians, quite the opposite. Thanks to competition, technology and research. Thanks to human ingenuity. Coal has been disappearing from the global energy mix for decades, despite – not to thanks to – governments. And the same is happening with oil.”
Rising Oceans
But wait, what about the sea rise from melting ice in the antarctic?
I’m glad you asked.
Please consider The “Alarmist Gone Wild” Perspective of the Increase in Antarctic Snowfall.
Anew studypublished in the journal Climate of the Past has some (small) good news as far as snowfall is concerned: it’s going up. Since the 19th century, snowfall across Antarctica has increased by about 10 percent. It isn’t nearly enough to offset sea level rise from ice melting, but the numbers are still impressive.As a press releasepoints out, the continent is packing on about two Dead Sea’s worth of new ice each year.
Since it’s unclear as to whether or not Antarctica is currently losing or gaining ice, largely due to glacial isostatic adjustment uncertainties, two Dead Seas worth of additional ice (on top of the 19th century accumulation rate) is a lot of fracking ice… If two Dead Seas worth of ice per year were disappearing from Greenland, it would be catastrophic according to the alarmists. We know this because Greenland is currently losing an estimated 186-375 billion tons of ice per year and this is described as catastrophic, despite its insignificance to the overall mass and volume of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). In Greenland, our friends at Skeptical Science describe this as “ominous”…
WUWT blasted the claim “Several millimeters a year of sea level rise coming from Antarctica’s melting ice each year”
“On what planet?,” asked WUWT.
“The best recent estimate is that Antarctica is somewhere between gaining enough ice to lower sea level by as much as 0.14 mm/yr and losing enough ice to raise sea level by 0.55 mm/yr. So… Several millimeters a year of sea level rise are *not* coming from Antarctica’s melting ice each year.”
Sea Level Math
At the current rate, the sea level will rise by 1.6 inches over the next 100 years if we stay on this path.
Mercy! We need a plan.
Al Gore’s $90 Trillion Plan
In order to combat the devastating impact of a global sea rise, new global commission says World Needs a $90 Trillion Infrastructure Overhaul.
I am quite certain that spending $90 trillion on nearly anything would actually do opposite of whatever the intention was.
With that thought, let’s move on to sunspots.
Sunspots Vanish at Alarming Rate
Sunspots are vanishing at an alarming rate. Let’s investigate some possible implications.
Quiet Sun: No sunspots
“Watts Up With That?” reports Quiet Sun: More than 3 months without a sunspot*.
The title is very wrong, it’s more like five days. But there have been about 100 days this year. Here are some details.
2 July 2018 – “The Belgian department of solar physics research (SIDC) says we are about to touch 100; that is, a hundred days in which we do not see spots on our sun,” says Italian meteorologist Dr. Carlo Testa.
During a time of few or no sunspots (a solar minimum) the Sun emits less energy than usual, says Dr. Testa. “According to some scholars, this situation could lead to climatic upheavals.”
Suffice it to recall, says Testa, that between 1645 and 1715 the most significant solar minimum of history, the Little Ice Age, occurred, bringing years and years marked by very strict winters that lasted until June.
Now several studies indicate that we’re headed into another Great Solar Minimum, says Testa. For some scholars, this is only a hypothesis, but we are seeing small signals that support this idea: namely, the most powerful strat-warming ever recorded in mid-February, the very very unstable Spring, and finally this summer that continues to limp along.
“What if the worst is to come?” asks Testa.
NASA: Sunspots Vanishing Faster than Expected
Also consider NASA: Sunspots Vanishing Faster than Expected
Sunspots are becoming scarce. Very scarce. So far in 2018 the sun has been blank almost 60% of the time, with whole weeks going by without sunspots. Today’s sun, shown here in an image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, is typical of the featureless solar disk.
Beware, the Ice Age Cometh
Damn. If the sunspot theory holds up, we will have wasted $90 trillion to stop global warming when we need global warming!
Role of CO2
I am willing to concede – and always have – that man is responsible for a percentage of global warming (assuming global warming is actually happening).
Here is a better way of stating things: Man-made CO2, in isolation, all things being equal, would tend to raise temperatures. That statement should not be in dispute, by anyone.
But assuming there is global warming, does it account for less than 1%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 50%, or more?
And assuming it is happening, what percentages does one want to assign to natural cycles, sunspots or other solar activity like solar flares, volcanoes, changes in the earth’s core, changes in wind patterns, ocean current changes, changes in earth’s magnetic field, etc, etc, but also “man-made” global warming.
I do not pretend to know all the factors. No one else does either. And I highly doubt every factor has been tracked (or even can be!)
Correlation is not causation. Even if CO2 models correlate to change, are there more important factors (even natural cycles) that are coincidental to man-made CO2?
Magnetic Fields
Where’s the discussion on this?
Earth’s Magnetic Field Flip Could Happen Sooner Than Expected
Changes measured by the Swarm satellite show that our magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster than originally predicted, especially over the Western Hemisphere
Earth’s magnetic field acts like a giant invisible bubble that shields the planet from the dangerous cosmic radiation spewing from the sun in the form of solar winds. The field exists because Earth has a giant ball of iron at its core surrounded by an outer layer of molten metal. Changes in the core’s temperature and Earth’s rotation boil and swirl the liquid metal around in the outer core, creating magnetic field lines.
Complex Systems
“The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in ways not predicted by its components. The” https://t.co/jbetMJvKN1
— Vitaliy Katsenelson (@vitaliyk) July 17, 2018
Cloud Mystery
That is a lengthy video, but a very important one. Henrik Svensmark’s documentary on climate change and cosmic rays is one of the best believable explanations of global warming that I have seen.
Svensmark looks at background radiation coming from space, based on the earth’s position in the Milky Way galaxy. His model accurately predicted prior ice ages and warming cycles.
I recommend watching the entire video. It is fascinating. One can also skip to the 30 minute mark or so for a shorter version.
His believable thesis is background radiation, or lack thereof causes warming and cooling cycles.
The video should give everyone pause to think about the simple models the alarmists project.
Final Thoughts
Climate changes – ice ages and warming – have occurred over millions of years whether man was even alive.
It is beyond idiotic to map two variables, CO2 and temperature change (one of them extremely inaccurately), in an enormously complex system of thousands of variables evolving over hundreds of millions of years, to make a determination we need to spend $90 trillion to do something about it based on data from the last 100 years.
But that is precisely what the alarmists have done.
The sad thing about this discussion is that I am in favor of reducing pollution. Millions of people in China are suffering from both air and water pollution.
Acid rain is real. It has killed forests on the East coast.
It’s the hype on global warming and idiotic proposals to stop it that I cannot stand.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Global Warming is a scam look at today, they found a WW2 airplane under 300 ft of ice in Greenland, so u see how cold its getting, also multidecadal ice growth and zero sun spots, temps are going to plunge, not get hotter, check all the data, Al Gore lied and C02 despite the doomsdayers is excellent for plant growth. Humans are so naive and if they just checked the facts they would realize Earth is cooling and getting a whole lot cooler, so you can expect continued volatile weather, continued fires from the spraying of Aluminum and Strontium (known pyro accelerates btw) or do people just think fires that can jump are normal??
The post claims “the sea level will rise by 1.6 inches over the next 100 years if we stay on this path”. Oops, off by almost a decimal point. Not sure where you got the figure of 0.41 mm a year of sea level rise, but the actual amount of annual sea level rise is 3.2 mm per year (climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/). “Climate gentrification” is already a term being used, as home owners that can afford to are moving to higher ground to escape tidal flooding. But for those that really do believe that sea level is only increasing by 0.41 mm per year, you might want to take advantage of some of the attractive prices being offered on homes on the Outer Banks and Miami Beach. You can get about a 7% discount (as of April, 2018) for buying a home with climate change risk.
Mish you rightly claim that nobody can model the Earth and that many variables are in play. But you are so woefully uninformed on everything else that you really need to not address this topic again as you look like a fool.
No, you really don’t know all the factors. You seem to think you can “reason” your way to an understanding of climate change. And that a youtube video that you think “sounds” most realistic is the one to go for.
You seem to believe you know more than the thousands of scientists who have been studying this problem for decades.
Ok – any fk’n idiot that quotes WUWT as a “source” for (anything) is, well, a fk’n idiot. Hot Whopper does a great job on pointing out all the lies, deception, fallacies, psuedo-science and whatnot at WUWT. The moment I read “Global Warming Hysteria” I knew I found another idiotic misinformed website engaging in more connedspiracy, more lies, more deception. I will continue to “side” with the real science experts on the topic of global warming – and I also will continue to believe what my own eyes and experience have shown me. Only total morons continue to pretend global warming isn’t real.
Leftism itself is a religion of “wish-fulfillment.” It’s politics is a theocracy where heresy is evil (racism, climate-change “denial,” LGBT “phobias,” etc.) and must be eradicated, one new law at a time, to make our world “perfect.”
Look at things objectively; all First World countries are Leftist theocracies.
“C02 tariffs from civilized countries would be a possible fix” – TO WHAT?
“If I remain dumb as shit ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it.
If I keep believing govt lies ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it.
If it’s actually cooling and crops fail who cares gangsta rap made me do it.
If CO2 has nothing to do with pollution ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it.
If prosperity tech produces less pollution, who cares gangsta rap made me do it.
I’ve traveled to 3rd world countries and seen their pollution, but don’t tell the sheeple so gangsta rap can make them do it.
If the sheeple keep their head up their ass ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it.”
I stand corrected:
US is the top 2 polluter per capita among in the G20 countries, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia.
US emmisions are 16 tonnes/capita/year. Thats x2 of most European countries, so it is certainly doable: US just needs to take some global responsibility. Cutting the military spending by half , could easily finance the operation.
Emissions from China and India is primalily production, so C02 tariffs from civilized countries would be a possible fix.
Oh yeah, this comes from your main man Ice Cube:
If I sell a litle crack ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it
If I die in Iraq, ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it
If I take you for granted ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it
If I fuck up the planet ain’t nothin to it gangsta rap made me do it
I get why you don’t give a shit, Mish. It’s because you are going to be dead dead dead and you just resent young people that have their whole liberal lives ahead of themselves when all you do is eat cheap fatty bacon! LOL
Gee, and how did they get NASA, the UK Met Office, and the Japan Meteorological Agency to join their conspiracy? And given how easy it is to research how completely the heat island theory has been debunked, it’s astounding that this nonsense is still being bounced around the global warming denialist echo chamber
Quite correct, science has absolutely nothing to do with “consensus”. Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental plates was denied by the “consensus” of geologists for almost seven decades – only when the last of his “pre-eminent” coleagues leading the field had finally died did geologists meekishly admit that Wegener was right all along and the consensus was 180 degrees wrong. Naturally, no apologies were forthcoming for the destruction of the man’s academic life and reputation – not that he would have cared, since he was also dead by that time.
Not only that, the often cited “97% consensus” figure has in the meantime been thoroughly debunked. It was based on an atrociously shoddy paper riddled with bias and wilful misinterpretation of the data. But that is par for the course for modern-day climate “science” and its supporters.
Their biggest problem from a propganda perspective is that as science goes, it is a fairly easy to grasp field. Let’s be honest, it’s not exactly “rocket science” as the saying goes. Any layman with a well-rounded education can immerse himself in the theory and data such as they are and investigate its claims without having to fear that he runs across something that is too hard to understand (it will be a lot more difficult for a layman to dispute the assertions of a theoretical phycisist than those of a climate scientist).
That makes it vulnerable to push-back, especially once one realizes
In short, anyone with an IQ above room temperature who takes the time to investigate the issue closely quickly realizes that there seems to be a concerted effort to pull the wool over our collective eyes. Appeals to the “consensus” sound hollow indeed.
There is far too little warming – we should strive to get back to the balmy weather people enjoyed in the time of the Roman empire, when wine grapes could be grown as far north as Sweden and Norway.
BTW, pensions are another thing your precious govt lied about…
Two quick answers, 1) libertarians believe in liberty, not the govt, and thus tend to NOT believe anything the govt says (or the people that are dependent on govt for grants). Knowledgeable libertarians also believe nature and the free market are much better at solving problems than govt. We also believe in cycles, which means there is no such thing as infinite growth, as nature (including human nature) always corrects imbalance. On the other side, Collectivists believe in govt, which has always lied, as pensioners will soon discover. Collectivism has been tried over and over again, and always failed, which means one would have to be insane to believe in it.
2.) I don’t know that baby boomers have a monopoly on ignorance. BTW, who is denying the climate changes? Since you believe the climate can only warm, it would seem you are the climate change denialist. Besides believing in science, rather than dogma, I would say we are very concerned for our children and grandchildren. WE are heading into a cooling cycle, which is much more destructive than warming periods, as crop failures and plagues rise during these periods. Since volcanic cycles are also rising, these could produce the rogue wave that lowers temps even more and compounds the problems. WE should be preparing for this inevitability, instead of denying it. You could make one point about baby boomers. They believed govt deficits could grow exponentially without consequences. But, as an educator, you know that exponential growth becomes parabolic, which is exactly what has happened to health care spending – plug 9% growth every year for 38 yrs into your calculator and see what the graph looks like (if you are not comfortable with exponents, I will tell you that we are in the part of the curve that’s going vertical). Luckily, nature/math always has a way of dealing with govt largess, as once again, the govt debt bubble is about to pop with rising interest rates, which means govt’s ability to pay for benefits is going to evaporate. It’s not that govt won’t desperately try to hang on to its perks and power. It will, which is why economy killing taxes, fees & penalties will be increased, and we will likely have another civil war.
But, as an educator who knows his history, you are fully aware how great societies collapsed. You do provide one good data point. You clarify why our education system continues to decline with more govt involvement.
My thesis is, you cannot make science of a claim “the hottest year since records started in the eighteen fifties”. Pointing we have no reference to President Millard Fillmore´s weather satellite program providing compatible raw data with recent decades satellites caused an uproar from these weather Fascists. Neither was there at that time reliable global data available, because of poor coverage in the Southern Hemisphere in special. Furthermore randomly placed thermometers, which existed were not calibrated. That is like going to a store and to witness thermometers for sale having at least a two centigrade spread in readings. These climate change gurus however are happy to interpolate the data and claim it is science. I would have failed my first year in Uni from providing such methodology in physics.
The same NOAA that is refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena to release their data, methodologies and emails?
That NOAA? Yea, real trustworthy bunch we have over there. Exactly what weather related secrets are they witholding, and why?
We’ve gotten way too good at measurement. We’re so good at it that we’re able to panic over very small increments that wouldn’t have been detectable prior to the late 20th century. 0.14mm increase in sea level? Huh?
‘Climate deniers’ ….. ‘Holocaust deniers’. Oh, I see what you did right there. Classy as always and no doubt a boost to the credibility of the climate change argument.
Lots of harsh criticism flying around in the comments section.
Here are some refreshing insights from Judith Curry, a retired Climate Scientist formerly at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences of Georgia Tech.
On the Credibility of Climate Research:
On the political and institutional difficulties with honest climate research (aka “Why did I resign my tenured faculty position?”):
A recent example of why accurately modeling the Earth’s climate is very difficult (linked to Curry’s blog titled “Climate Etc.” at link to judithcurry.com). Spoiler: The shape of small ice crystals in clouds affects the result.
Mish – using WUWT as your primary source for a post reduces the credibility of every article you author. It’s one of the least credible websites around. And the temperature heat island theory has been researched extensively and shown not to be skewing the results by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project and others (unless you are a conspiracy theorists that thinks NASA, NOAA, the UK’s Met Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency are all faking the results). Prior to using WUWT again as a source, you really need to check out blog.hotwhopper which is a pretty effective take down on the propaganda spewed out by WUWT
It’s not about INCOMING radiation, its the outgoing infrared (heat) thats is the problem. This is very basic knowledge.
You do a great disservice to your students by misleading them. 20 years ago the hysteria was over “Global Warming”. The term had to be changed when all of the predictions and models failed to predict reality. Nobody denies climate change – the climate has always changed on this planet. The doubt comes in as to whether humans are the cause or if there’s a damn thing humans can do about it that wouldn’t result in a worse outcome.
“‘Well we’re screwed, but there is nothing we can do about it.’.”
Speak for yourself. As long as there’s plenty of space in Canuckistan, I won’t be “screwed” by Whitehorse getting a degree or two warmer over the next century. And, considering which temperature zones most other individuals, of most other species, fancy hanging out in, neither will many others.
The earth has, at times, been plenty hotter than it is today. As well as plenty colder. Indicating there are nice buffers on either side of today’s arbitrary mean temperature. Hence, little worry about anything all that catastrophic occurring as a result of a few degrees change in either direction.
The role of science is to “disprove” randomness. Not to disprove arbitrary speculation about what you simply assert cannot be explained by simple random (per current knowledge) variation. Unless you can demonstrate, with a fair degree of certainty, that your observations cannot possibly be explained by anything (reasonable, not God doing so just because…) other than what you claim is the causative variable(s), you simply have to admit to being Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
Which is fine, as there will always be correlations that, while possible true, cannot currently be reliably disentangled from background noise caused by other, currently unaccounted for, variables. It’s not as if science’s job is to “scientifically prove” every minute detail nor variation. Rather, it’s job is to be extremely cautious about what it claims to be able to “prove.”
Mish. It has nothing to do with CO2. The Planet Venus has a CO2 Atmosphere. It is also the brightest object in the Solar System, It REFLECTS AWAY the incoming radiation from the Sun along the entire electromagnetic spectrum..
Yes. It is hellishly hot on the surface. It is also very dark. Local Noon on Venus is equivalent to twilight here on Earth.
The same clouds that trap heat in the lower atmosphere reflect away the same amount of heat in the upper atmosphere. CO2 does not behave as a one way mirror. It is a zero sum game.
So, since the heat that is trapped on Venus did not come from the Sun, then from where did it originate?
Well Venus is also one on the most geologically active planets in our solar system. The heat came from the volcano and earthquake activity.
Likewise we have experienced a rising frequency of earthquakes and volcanoes here on Earth in recent times. That is what is happening.
Man has nothing to do with that.
“Established science (you know smart educated people) says its more than 95% likely , so YOU are the one to provide a better explanation. Find a theory that has greater explantory value than C02 emissions and your job is done. If you cant do that you must accept the CO2 explation as true (assuming you are a rational being).”
Smart people recognize that the assertion of non random is what requires proof. It’s what science is built on. Intuitively grokking why this must always be so, is part and parcel of what being more intelligent than a doorknob is all about.
Random is the default. If you assert you have discovered a pattern that cannot be explained by random variations in other variables than the one(s) you claim are causative, you need to prove it. “The Man on TV says so, and he says he is, like, smaaaart and, like, edumecated and, na-na-na-na, you can’t prove he is not” doesn’t really get you very far as far as scientific discourse is concerned.
Kidhorn…Don’t clouds increase the albedo of Earth? Wouldn’t increased atmospheric water vapor form more clouds which tend to reflect away incoming solar radiant energy? So it is not solar in origin.
The heat you seek is due to geological activity as the increase of volcanic and earthquake activity, in recent times, has been increasing and releasing potential energy which has been stored in the mantle. Heat, energy, and temperature are synonyms….as you well know.
Put some pressure between your hands and then laterally force them to slide upon one another and tell me that they do not get hot. Go ahead.
Correct. Furthermore clouds increase the albedo of Earth? Wouldn’t increased atmospheric water vapor form more clouds, due to any warming, tend to reflect away incoming solar radiant energy?
The increase in heat (temperature) is due to geological activity as the increase of volcanic and earthquake activity, in recent times, has been releasing potential energy which has been stored in the mantle.
In no surprise to anybody, when Mish wanders beyond his expertise in the economy, he sometimes dives into the depths of conspiracy theories.
Basically, when you push and push into a climate deniers arguments, they end up with some claim of a large conspiracy.
This conspiracy seems to have been going on for over 150 years, is worldwide, and includes 10,000’s of scientists whose sole goal across nations and centuries is to raise taxes on Americans in 2018.
Or, you could just approach the science with an open mind and without political bias and the basic facts are easy to see and understand. But where’s the fun in that? How can you be smarter than everybody else if you don’t have special insight that the experts don’t?
As a science teacher, I’ve discussed with my students the evolution of climate denialism. It is a difficult concept for young people to understand. 20 years ago, the climate denialists were saying ‘climate change isn’t happening’. Now the line is ‘Climate change is happening but it isn’t caused by humans.’. 20 years from now, it will be ‘Well we’re screwed, but there is nothing we can do about it.’.
Amongst climate change deniers, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works as expressed in their claims that ‘scientists cannot prove that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are leading to climate change.’. The role of science is not to prove but to disprove. We have not been able to disprove the ability of carbon dioxide to absorb and propagate infrared radiation. One can therefore extrapolate that the same physical process occurs when carbon dioxide absorbs heat in the atmosphere. If you increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 270ppm in 1750 to the current levels of 412 ppm, you would see the increase in global average temperatures, as we have seen, worldwide. I have never seen any credible, science-based refutation of this. Instead, people like Mish and other commentators on this blog simply doubt that this is happening or claim that if has no appreciable affect of global temperatures and climate. The consensus on the link between carbon dioxide and increasing global temperatures is so strong amongst scientists I feel like we are getting into flat-earth territory here by doubting it.
Grand solar minimum, cosmic rays etc as causes of global temperature increase. What do they have in common? Besides both being dismissed by the scientific community as causing climate change, they are factors that humans cannot change as opposed to carbon dioxide emissions. This is why they are so commonly referred to by climate change deniers. They allow us to go about things; business as usual.
Two quick questions, 1.) Why is climate change denial so prevalent amongst libertarians? My guess is that really tackling climate change would impact the ‘religious’ belief amongst libertarians in the free market to solve all human problems as well as the absurd belief in infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources. 2.) Why are the majority of climate change denialists baby boomers? My guess is that they don’t really have much skin in the game as my generation (Millennials) and my 2 month old daughter’s generation are going to be dealing with the brunt of the ecological destruction to come. Here is a link to a video that debunks the majority of the pseudo-science nonsense spouted by Mish in this post.
Shooting the messenger is always a sound strategy – especially when that messenger has the biggest db of everything that impacts economic cycles, including climate changes. Read before you rationalize.
Yep. Follow the money and you can find a “scientist” willing to sell their soul for another round of funding.
Since you seem to be a fan of NASA, which depends on establishment funding, you may appreciate the following:
link to scientificamerican.com
link to armstrongeconomics.com
The two cancers that have invaded western thought processes are: linear, one-dimensional analysis that requires simple if this, than that conclusions, which ignores cycles; and the ignorance of anything that happens outside the US.
Your “theory” appears to say that temps will continue to warm indefinately, just as socialist assume govt and deficit spending will continue to rise without consequences; and gold will rise and the dollar will fall, even though there is worldwide demand for dollar-based assets. History has proven that both assumptions are flat wrong.
The climate was much warmer before the internal combustion engine, and we haven’t even had the compounding effect of a large volcanic eruption yet. Since experience is the great educator, the Left is about to experience a Renaissance as we enter another mini ice age and Socialism collapses with the popping of the govt debt bubble.
“Most people”… So the several million people who aren’t “most” just have to die now then.
It isn’t debatable that millions of people live in poverty we can’t even comprehend and that cheap energy is the only thing keeping them alive with any hope of escaping that poverty. Right now. That’s why China, India and countless 3rd-world countries have their pollution problems in the first place.
Speaking of China and India, your fantasies are meaningless until you address the pollution from those two countries. How do you plan to do that? War? So far they’ve been allowed to exclude themselves from all the phony agreements that purport to address climate change. The US is but a drop in the bucket compared to them, yet we’re expected to make all the sacrifices and destroy our own economy for the sake of your death cult?
“US is the top 1 polluter in the world”. Ludicrous.
Perhaps you misread what I wrote? I wrote that if it were up to me then climate change science would NOT determine policy today. I also expressed concern that the cure might be worse than the disease (because of the very same political issues to which you allude). I suggested only that we should continue to watch what happens. If the climate models achieve a consistent track record of being correct and if they show TEOTWAWKI, then I would want to know that. Even then I would still have concerns about the political and economic risks of enacting atmospheric CO2 restrictions. I never once mentioned the word “pollution.”
None of that is crazy as far as I know.
Established science (you know smart educated people) says its more than 95% likely , so YOU are the one to provide a better explanation. Find a theory that has greater explantory value than C02 emissions and your job is done. If you cant do that you must accept the CO2 explation as true (assuming you are a rational being).
Not true. Most people live in this world by spending less than 8% of the energy consumption from the most polluting countries in this world (US , Australia, Canada). Most peoples energy need are derived from wood, which is recyclable in regard to C02 emissions. Climate change on the other hand will make millions homeless because of changes in rain patterns (check UN papers on this one).
US is the top 1 polluter in the world and naturally has the highest number of climate sceptics and understandably so: Being the lead agent in the destruction of our common livingplace is a heavy moral burden to bear. If you want to be a moral person: Trust your peers and/or educate yourself.
You are actually quoting Armstrong economics: Great scientific credentials !
(just like Mish who browsed a couple a pages on the internet and suddenly has more insight than rest of the established scientific community)
Does this then make the ice core data irrelevant in the grand scheme of the argument?
Personally, I truly hope sea levels do rise more than a few inches as I’d like to see all those multi-million $ mansions on the coastlines swamped. I live well above sea level so can view these miserable ‘tards realising what idiots they really are. How do you say ‘Schadenfreude’ in German?
Sounds to me like you need to be cured of a few delusions. Pease see this quote from a genuinely intelligent man:
“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
If there is an unavoidable uncertainty in temperature measurement, then airports would want to err on the high side. Nobody minds if the plane is able to take off in a little less runway than is actually available (actual temperature lower than reading). Everybody minds if the plane needs a little more runway is actually available (actual temperature higher than reading).
Why would airports to which temperatures are CRITICAL create a situation
for for higher readings? When the reported temps are too high NOBODY flies,
kind of bad for business eh?
Current CO2 is greater than 150,000 years ago on the NASA chart, yet the current temperature is well below the Minoan peak on Armstrong’s posted chart.
Perspective is that temperature has not risen like the NASA CO2 chart.
Here’s NASA’s chart:
So many posters who don’t understand how any of this works. CO2 absorbs infrared at very specific frequencies and then quickly re-emits the energy. What happens is a photon from the ground hits a CO2 molecule, gets absorbed and then re-emitted. The re-emitted photon is sent off in a random direction. Some photons, which would otherwies escape into space, are sent back to the earth, where they’re absorbed at the surface and heat the surface up. This only happens to avery small pct of photons, but enough to make a difference. As mentioned above, water vapor also does this at different IR frequencies and what’s much worse is methane, which does this at more frequencies than H20 and C02.
So far, the warming has been very small, but in theory, the warming could lead to more water vapor in the atmosphere and more methane, which would lead to more warming, etc… Causing a uncontrollable self reinforcing feedback loop. Not predicting it, but it’s not impossible.
The amount of radiation emitted from the earths surface is proportional to the the aboslute surface temperature raised to the 4th power, so a small increase in surface temperature can greatly increase surface emissions. Increasing the earths surface from say 58F->60F results in a 1.5% increase of surface emissions. Increasing emissions cools the earth. So, the earth is very resistant to surface heating.
I think the earth is slowly warming, but I question anything dire will happen. Glaciers will melt in aggregate and sea levels will rise a little, but my best guess is temperatures will stabilize at a reasonable temperature.
Are you nuts? It’s all about money and power. Pollution is not related to the changing climate. There are existing laws to address pollution, and if we could eliminate the career politician, they might get enforced. Prosperity is solving pollution problems, which explains why the poorest countries are the most polluted.
The chart on the right, circled in red, was the temperaturre peak in the Minoan Warming. Each subsequent peak was lower In the lower right is where we are now, coming off the Little Ice Age.