Climate change and other predictions of Imminent Doom

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Typhoon
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Simple Minded

Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Simple Minded »

http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/07/17/ ... a-century/

love the comments. If we're all gonna die when the oceans boil off, at least we can keep a sense of humor about it until then!

Illini_Steve • 19 hours ago

How long will it be before Al Gore declares that this weak solar activity is being caused by global warming on earth?

Ron Brueske > Illini_Steve • 19 hours ago

Now look at what you just did. Al Gore will now make hundreds of millions of dollars more off of that one. You had better get your statement copy righted and get some of it.

Auntie Socialist > Ron Brueske • 18 hours ago

Well, with all those greenhouse gases on Earth absorbing more sunlight and reflecting less back towards the sun, that would have a cooling effect on the sun, right?

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


Paul K > Auntie Socialist • 17 hours ago
Perhaps the article could have mentioned that the previous many decades had much more solar activity than the historical average, and using history as a guide correlates with the slight increase in average worldwide temps during that time.

obammy > Paul K • 15 hours ago

Paul, you are thinking far too clearly and intelligently for our current climate freaks, b obama, algore, and all the "scientists".

bobdog19006 > obammy • 11 hours ago

Heretic! Burn him! Burn him with FIRE!
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Doc
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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MSNBC Host wants climate deniers sent to re-education camps

sr9rXQECQps
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Typhoon
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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Once the non-believers arrive at the scientism re-education camps, they should start with the following:

recall Bill Nye's "science experiment" purporting to demonstrate CO2 driven global warming

28991442

well

Climate change in a shoebox: Right result, wrong physics [link to full paper in pdf]

Paul Wagoner , Chunhua Liu and R. G. Tobin

Abstract. Classroom experiments that purport to demonstrate the role of carbon dioxide’s far-infrared absorption in global climate change are more subtle than is commonly appreciated. We show, using both experimental results and theoretical analysis, that one such experiment demonstrates an entirely different phenomenon: The greater density of carbon dioxide compared to air reduces heat transfer by suppressing convective mixing with the ambient air. Other related experiments are subject to similar concerns. Argon, which has a density close to that of carbon dioxide but no infrared absorption, provides a valuable experimental control for separating radiative from convective effects. A simple analytical model for estimating the magnitude of the radiative greenhouse effect is presented, and the effect is shown to be very small for most tabletop experiments.
Image
It has been known for more than a century that the warming of air in a real greenhouse results primarily from entirely different physics—mainly that the glass prevents mixing between the warm air inside and the cooler air outside, and therefore suppresses convective heat transfer between the interior and the exterior; the infrared absorption of the glass plays a much smaller role. We show here, via experimental data and a simple theoretical model, that the effects observed in the demonstration described in Ref. 1 arise from a similar restriction of convection rather than from radiative effects. In this case, it is the density difference between carbon dioxide and air, rather than the presence of a solid barrier, that suppresses mixing of the gases. Although the details differ, similar considerations apply to other demonstrations that have been reported.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Doc
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Doc »

Typhoon wrote:Once the non-believers arrive at the scientism re-education camps, they should start with the following:

recall Bill Nye's "science experiment" purporting to demonstrate CO2 driven global warming

28991442

well

Climate change in a shoebox: Right result, wrong physics [link to full paper in pdf]

Paul Wagoner , Chunhua Liu and R. G. Tobin

Abstract. Classroom experiments that purport to demonstrate the role of carbon dioxide’s far-infrared absorption in global climate change are more subtle than is commonly appreciated. We show, using both experimental results and theoretical analysis, that one such experiment demonstrates an entirely different phenomenon: The greater density of carbon dioxide compared to air reduces heat transfer by suppressing convective mixing with the ambient air. Other related experiments are subject to similar concerns. Argon, which has a density close to that of carbon dioxide but no infrared absorption, provides a valuable experimental control for separating radiative from convective effects. A simple analytical model for estimating the magnitude of the radiative greenhouse effect is presented, and the effect is shown to be very small for most tabletop experiments.
Image
It has been known for more than a century that the warming of air in a real greenhouse results primarily from entirely different physics—mainly that the glass prevents mixing between the warm air inside and the cooler air outside, and therefore suppresses convective heat transfer between the interior and the exterior; the infrared absorption of the glass plays a much smaller role. We show here, via experimental data and a simple theoretical model, that the effects observed in the demonstration described in Ref. 1 arise from a similar restriction of convection rather than from radiative effects. In this case, it is the density difference between carbon dioxide and air, rather than the presence of a solid barrier, that suppresses mixing of the gases. Although the details differ, similar considerations apply to other demonstrations that have been reported.
Best to start with Bill Nye. I am not sure how a mechanical engineer / TV show host got to be a expert on global warming. Then again I am not sure how a large share holder by inheritance from his politician father got a Nobel prize for making a documentary and became the world's first self appointed 1%er "Carbon Billionaire" Must have something to do with the "Evil corporations" using all their money to lie about them raping the earth. I think they talked about that in one of the James Bond documentaries Maybe it was "Dr. No" or was it "Gold Finger"?
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Doc
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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New study show steady increase in temps since the last ice age...
Heating Up or Cooling Down? Scientists Study Past Climate Change Conundrum

Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Aug 12, 2014 11:58 AM EDT
Arctic Sea Ice Pack
A new study of past climate trends reveals that, in contrast to a previous study, there’s been a consistent global warming trend over the course of our current geological epic rather than a period of global cooling before human influence. An image of an area of the Arctic sea ice pack well north of Alaska, captured by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite on Sept. 13, 2013. (Photo : NASA Worldview)

Is the world warming or cooling? What does climate change actually entail? A new study of past climate trends reveals that, in contrast to a previous study, there's been a consistent global warming trend over the course of our current geological epic rather than a period of global cooling before human influence.

Weather Extremes May be on the Rise and Triggered by Atmospheric Waves

Our current geological period is called the Holocene, and this particular warming trend is called the Holocene temperature conundrum. It has important implications for understanding climate change and evaluating climate models, as well as for the benchmarks used to create models for the future.

"The question is, 'Who is right?'" said Zhengyu Liu, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Or, maybe none of us is completely right. It could be partly a data problem, since some of the data in last year's study contradicts itself. It could partly be a model problem because of some missing physical mechanisms."

Over the last 10,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide rose by 20 parts per million before the 20th century. During this time period, the massive ice sheet of the Last Glacial Maximum steadily retreated. These physical changes suggest that the mean global temperature should have continued to warm. Yet last year's study seemed to suggest a period of global cooling about 7,000 years ago and continuing until humans began to leave a mark. Something didn't add up.

That's why Liu and colleagues created three models, running simulations of climate influences that spanned from the intensity of sunlight on Earth to global greenhouse gases, ice sheet cover and meltwater changes. Each showed global warming over the last 10,000 years.

It's possible that samples that were collected for the previous study may not have adequately addressed the bigger picture. For example, biological samples taken from a core deposited in the summer may be different from samples at the exact same site had they been taken from a winter sediment.

The latest study reveals that more research may be needed to determine exactly what sort of trends impacted our planet in the past. This, in turn, could help inform future climate models.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/artic ... undrum.htm
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Simple Minded

Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Simple Minded »

Doc wrote:
Best to start with Bill Nye. I am not sure how a mechanical engineer / TV show host got to be a expert on global warming.
Then again I am not sure how a large share holder by inheritance from his politician father got a Nobel prize for making a documentary and became the world's first self appointed 1%er "Carbon Billionaire"
I credit either divine intervention, or the unexpected, untimely deaths of previous gods of destruction....Coming Ice Age god, Population Time Bomb god, DDT god, Y2K god, etc.

Or, perhaps, the masses needed a new Boogey Man to fear or the elites needed a new Boogey Man to steer the herd. Now that is a chicken or egg question that "science" can not "settle."

Even in "science" religious beliefs start as heresies and end as superstitions.

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/ ... -year.html
Ammianus
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Ammianus »

Meanwhile, in California................

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... ml?hpid=z3
When the winter rains failed to arrive in this Sacramento Valley town for the third straight year, farmers tightened their belts and looked to the reservoirs in the nearby hills to keep them in water through the growing season.

When those faltered, some switched on their well pumps, drawing up thousands of gallons from underground aquifers to prevent their walnut trees and alfalfa crops from drying up. Until the wells, too, began to fail.

Now, across California’s vital agricultural belt, nervousness over the state’s epic drought has given way to alarm. Streams and lakes have long since shriveled up in many parts of the state, and now the aquifers — always a backup source during the region’s periodic droughts — are being pumped away at rates that scientists say are both historic and unsustainable.

One state-owned well near Sacramento registered an astonishing 100-foot drop in three months as the water table, strained by new demand from farmers, homeowners and municipalities, sank to a record low. Other wells have simply dried up, in such numbers that local drilling companies are reporting backlogs of six to eight months to dig a new one.

In still other areas, aquifers are emptying so quickly that the land itself is subsiding, like cereal in a bowl after the milk has drained out.

“How many straws can you stick into one glass?” asked John Viegas, a county supervisor who, after months of fielding complaints from constituents about water shortages, recently was forced to lower his own well by 40 feet. “People need to realize you can’t water everything.”

The shrinking of the aquifers has added a new dimension to the concerns over the historic drought that continues to shatter records across the Western United States. The parched zone now spans a dozen states and nearly 600 counties, from southern Texas to the northern Rockies, and includes fields and grazing land that produce a third of the country’s beef cattle and half of its fruit, vegetables and winter wheat. Prices for most of these products have soared this year.

Hardest hit is California. As of last month, nearly 60 percent of the state is officially in an “exceptional” drought — the highest level, above “severe” — and meteorologists are seeing no immediate change in a relentlessly dry forecast. Indeed, scientists are warning that the state’s cyclical droughts could become longer and more frequent as the climate warms.

If that happens, the elaborate infrastructure built to deliver water to the state’s 38 million residents and 27 million cultivated acres may not survive the challenge, new research suggests. Already the drought has led to the “greatest water loss ever seen in California agriculture,” said a study last month by researchers at the University of California at Davis.

A massive shift to groundwater helped farmers survive this year, but if pumping continues at current rates, some of the state’s aquifers could soon be depleted, the study warned. One of the authors, Richard Howitt, a professor emeritus of resource economics, likened the problem to a “slow-moving train wreck.”

“A well-managed basin is used like a reserve bank account,” Howitt said. “We’re acting like the super rich who have so much money they don’t need to balance their checkbook.”

The study estimated that 5.1 million acre-feet of water will be pulled from the state’s underground reserves this year, a volume roughly equivalent to the storage capacity of Lake Shasta, the state’s biggest reservoir and third-largest lake after Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea.
Damage to aquifers is viewed as more serious because, once depleted, an aquifer takes far longer to replenish — often decades or more, compared with a few years for an empty reservoir, said Thomas Harter, a groundwater specialist from the university’s Land, Air and Water Resources department.

“It’s a downward path,” he said. “We cannot do what we did this year on a permanent basis.”
Climate Change so fake, you can see it with your own eyes!
noddy
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by noddy »

http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/n ... o-climate/
Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California. "During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself," says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.

"None of this should be a surprise to anybody," agrees Celeste Cantu, general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority. "California is acting like California, and most of California is arid." (Related: "Behind California's January Wildfires: Dry Conditions, Stubborn Weather Pattern.")

Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state's infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries.
then again maybe the climate is doing what it always does.
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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noddy wrote:http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/n ... o-climate/
Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California. "During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself," says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.

"None of this should be a surprise to anybody," agrees Celeste Cantu, general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority. "California is acting like California, and most of California is arid." (Related: "Behind California's January Wildfires: Dry Conditions, Stubborn Weather Pattern.")

Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state's infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries.
then again maybe the climate is doing what it always does.
That's funny, I remember a lot of folks saying Climate Change isn't real, can't possibly happen, and that everything's more or less balanced out in this decade! What's happening???
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Typhoon
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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Ammianus wrote:
noddy wrote:http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/n ... o-climate/
Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California. "During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself," says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.

"None of this should be a surprise to anybody," agrees Celeste Cantu, general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority. "California is acting like California, and most of California is arid." (Related: "Behind California's January Wildfires: Dry Conditions, Stubborn Weather Pattern.")

Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state's infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries.
then again maybe the climate is doing what it always does.
That's funny, I remember a lot of folks saying Climate Change isn't real, can't possibly happen,
I don't think that anyone is claiming that the climate does not change.

After all, the climate has been changing since the earth first had a climate.

What is odd is the implication that there is some optimum static climate for the planet, that we know what it is, and that it is within our power to achieve and maintain it.
Ammianus wrote: and that everything's more or less balanced out in this decade!
What is "everything" and what does "balanced out" mean?
Ammianus wrote: What's happening???
The MSM is misattributing natural climate variation to man made influences.
In other words, peddling doom porn for clicks.

Image

Especially with regards to quasi-periodic regional events such as drought in historically arid California.
noddy wrote:http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/n ... o-climate/
Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California. "During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself," says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.

"None of this should be a surprise to anybody," agrees Celeste Cantu, general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority. "California is acting like California, and most of California is arid." (Related: "Behind California's January Wildfires: Dry Conditions, Stubborn Weather Pattern.")

Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state's infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries.
Image
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Simple Minded

Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Simple Minded »

noddy wrote:http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/n ... o-climate/
Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California. "During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself," says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.

"None of this should be a surprise to anybody," agrees Celeste Cantu, general manager for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority. "California is acting like California, and most of California is arid." (Related: "Behind California's January Wildfires: Dry Conditions, Stubborn Weather Pattern.")

Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state's infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries.
then again maybe the climate is doing what it always does.
I can remember visiiting CA about 20 years ago and being shocked to see rice being grown outside Sacremento.

I asked my local customer "Isn't it a desert around here?"
"Yes it is!"
"Growing rice in the desert. That seems stupid!"
"Rice farmers get water subsidies!"
"Got it!"
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Doc
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Doc »

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28870988
Global warming slowdown 'could last another decade'
Matt McGrath By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News
global ocean currents Currents in the Atlantic could be responsible for a slowdown in temperature rises
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Sceptics 'winning' climate argument
'Growth drives UK flooding problems'
Carbon concerns over wood burning

The hiatus in the rise in global temperatures could last for another 10 years, according to new research.

Scientists have struggled to explain the so-called pause that began in 1999, despite ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The latest theory says that a naturally occurring 30-year cycle in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the slowdown.

The researchers says this slow-moving current could continue to divert heat into the deep seas for another decade.

However, they caution that global temperatures are likely to increase rapidly when the cycle flips to a warmer phase.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

The Pacific is a symptom of the hiatus but not the ultimate cause. The Atlantic is the driver”

Prof Ka-Kit Tung University of Washington

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global average temperatures have increased by around 0.05C per decade in the period between 1998 and 2012.

This compares with a decadal average of 0.12 between 1951 and 2012.

More than a dozen theories have been put forward on the cause of this pause in temperature growth that occurred while emissions of carbon dioxide were at record highs.

These ideas include the impact of pollution such as soot particles that have reflected back some of the Sun's heat into space.

Increased volcanic activity since 2000 has also been blamed, as have variations in solar activity.

The most recent perspectives have looked to the oceans as the locations of the missing heat.

Last year a study suggested that a periodic upwelling of cooler waters in the Pacific was limiting the rise.

However this latest work, published in the journal Science, shifts the focus from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Southern oceans.

The team, lead by Prof Ka-Kit Tung from the University of Washington, US, says there is now evidence that a 30-year current alternately warms and cools the world by sinking large amounts of heat beneath these deep waters.

They've used observations from a network of devices called Argo floats that sample the oceans down to 2,000 metres.
Ice age fears

The researchers say that there was another hiatus between 1945 and 1975 due to this current taking down the heat, that led to fears of a new ice age.

From 1976 though, the cycle flipped and contributed to the warming of the world, as more heat stayed on the surface.

But since the year 2000, the heat has been going deeper, and the world's overall temperatures haven't risen beyond the record set in 1998.

"The floats have been very revealing to us," said Prof Tung.

"I think the consensus at this point is that below 700 metres in the Atlantic and Southern oceans [they are] storing heat and not the Pacific."

A key element in this new understanding is the saltiness of the water. The waters in the Atlantic current coming up from the tropics are saltier because of evaporation. This sinks more quickly and takes the heat down with it.
el nino Atmospheric humidity over the Pacific during the El Nino in 1997

Eventually though, the salty water melts enough ice in Arctic waters to lower the saline level, slowing down the current and keeping the heat near the surface.

"Before 2006 the saltiness was increasing, this indicated that the current was speeding up," said Prof Tung.

"After 2006, this saltiness is diminishing but it's still above the long-term average. Now it is slowly slowing down.

"Once it gets below the long-term average, then it is the next period of rapid warming."

As well as the data from the Argo floats, Prof Tung has also examined the Central England Temperature record, that dates back over 350 years. He believes that this confirms the regular 70-year cycles of warm and cold spells.

This historic pattern, he says, could extend the current period of pause.

"We probably may have another 10 years, maybe shorter as global warming itself is melting more ice and ice could flood the North Atlantic, but historically we are in the middle of the cycle."
Rising staircase of warming

Several other researchers in this field acknowledge the Tung analysis is part of a growing body of evidence that suggests the Atlantic has a role in the pause.

Prof Reto Knutti from the ETH Zurich has recently published a review of all the current theories on the hiatus.

"I see the studies as complementary, and they both highlight that natural variability in ocean and atmosphere is important in modifying long term anthropogenic trends," he said.

"A better understanding of those modes of variability is critical to understand past changes (including differences between models and observations during the hiatus period) as well as predicting the future, in particular in the near term and regionally, where variability dominates the forced changes from greenhouses gases."

Other scientists say that the Atlantic hypothesis is interesting but a much longer range of observations is needed.

"We really don't have a lot of data," said Dr Jonathan Robson from the University of Reading, UK.

"So if there is this 60-year oscillation in the ocean, we haven't observed it all, basically we've observed the impact of it. We may have to wait 15-20 years to know what's going on."

Prof Tung believes that whatever the cause and the length of the pause, we are on a "rising staircase" when it comes to global temperatures that will become apparent when the Atlantic current switches again.

"At the end we will be on the rising part of the staircase, and the rate of warming there will be very fast, just as fast as the last three decades of the 20th Century, plus we are starting off at a higher plateau. The temperatures and the effects will be more severe."
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Severe Drought Grows Worse in California

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.


What losing 63 trillion gallons of water looks like


453834506.jpg
453834506.jpg (142.53 KiB) Viewed 1690 times


.
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Typhoon
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Re: Severe Drought Grows Worse in California

Post by Typhoon »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Xeriscaping has come a long way since the 70's. Using native plants is much more than pebbles and agave.

Image
When it comes to fauna, a pristine lawn is more sterile than a desert.

Xeriscaping is a great idea.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Torchwood
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Re: Severe Drought Grows Worse in California

Post by Torchwood »

The odds are that we will get an El Nino in the Pacific this winter, if so that would normally bring a lot of rain to the west coast and break the drought (conversely, the eastern Pacific gets drought).

Traditional Mediterranean gardens such as the Alhambra use local drought resistant cover plants, not grass, and the climate is similar to California. But then, US adaptability to local climate is not great. View the glass towers of Phoenix, with huge aircon and heating bills, compared to cool by day/warm at night adobe, mud brick being the desert building material of choice throughout the world.
Simple Minded

Re: Severe Drought Grows Worse in California

Post by Simple Minded »

Mythologies and Pathologies of the California Drought

September 2, 2014 8:31 am / 7 Comments / Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson

The third year of California drought has exposed all sorts of water fantasies. If in wet years they were implicit, now without rain or snow for nearly three years, they are all too explicit. Add them up.

Take the Bay Area, Ground Zero of water environmentalism. From Mill Valley to San Jose is where most of the green activists are based who have demanded, even as the snowfalls and rains ceased, that reservoir storage waters be diverted to the sea to encourage the resurgence of the delta smelt and river salmon. The Bay Area’s various earlier lobbying groups long ago helped to cancel the final phases of the California State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, and now talk about reducing world carbon emissions rather than building more storage capacity to solve California’s water crisis.



How odd that is — given that the San Francisco greater community has almost no aquifer to supply its millions. Environmentalists count instead solely on vast water transfers from the far distant Hetch Hetchy reservoir to supply the nearly three million water users of the Bay Area with their daily showers and lawn irrigations.

The brilliantly engineered project supposedly had ruined a Yosemite Park valley greater than its more famous counterpart below Half Dome and El Capitan. Odder still, the Hetch Hetchy conduits run right across the San Joaquin River that environmentalists are intent on supplying with reservoir water long ago designed for irrigated agriculture. When most Bay Area drivers cruise along the I-280 by the full-to-the-brim Crystal Springs Reservoir they have not a clue that the lake would be little more than a muddy slough of scant local runoff, without the importation of thousands of acre-feet of clean water from the Hetch Hetchy project. Nor do they grasp the greater irony that they have reservoir water to divert to fish only because someone else built the reservoirs that they near automatically oppose. Consider the logic: don’t dare build an unnatural reservoir to irrigate food lands; but if you dare build it over my opposition, I want the ensuing banked water to ensure the rivers run year-round for my fish projects — given that before your artificial reservoirs the rivers sometimes had a bad natural habit of running dry and suffocating my fish.

Could not Bay Area professors, journalists and politicians shower once a week or let their garden foliage die on the greater sacrificial altar of diverting Hetch Hetchy water into the San Joaquin River to save the smelt or facilitate salmon runs? After all, at least farmers can claim they are producing food for the masses with reservoir water. But what do Facebook and Apple techies claim — that without a verdant garden they cannot design social networking? In 1990 there was no Facebook or Google and people continued to live; without food they cannot at any time.

A larger point is that 70% of Californians prefer to live in places like the naturally arid seaside resorts of San Diego, Santa Monica, Malibu, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Carmel, Santa Cruz, and the Bay Area, coastal communities whose growth long ago both outpaced the local aquifers and Coast Range small reservoirs, and thus required water transfers from wetter environs.

If greens were going to match their advocacy with concrete action, they would move from Santa Cruz or Mill Valley to Eureka or Yuba City where the rain falls — or at least inward to Fresno and Visalia where for eons runoff from the nearby Sierra has created a vast aquifer of easily accessible and clean ground water. Barring that, Menlo Park could shower on “smelt-free Mondays,” while Palo Alto could restore the salmon by paving over its lawns. In an honest world, we would admit that the Madera resident is far more ecologically attuned to his environment than is the Presidio Heights grandee or UC professor ensconced in the dry Berkeley Hills. The former at least chooses to live atop an aquifer, the latter assumes someone else had long ago found a way to import him his nightly shower from far across the state and at far greater cost.

In other words, the California coastal strip is an environmentally unwise place to locate millions of Californians; its swarms exist largely by water transfers from either Northern California or the Sierra Nevada mountains. And yet far too many of its inhabitants have a bad habit of pontificating about water usage for others.

Then we come to the matter of population. California is no longer the 15 million person state that once was adequately served by our forefathers’ water-transfer projects. It is not even the 40 million person state that our ancestors warned could survive long droughts (but only if their descendants of course finish the state and federal water projects). It is instead a 40 million person state with a 20 million person system of reservoirs and canals. In that regard, California’s population would long ago have stayed static, given the recent three decade exoduses of millions of residents tired of high income, sales, and gas taxes, and poor roads, schools, and law enforcement in return.

The great equalizer was illegal immigration. Millions of impoverished arrivals from Mexico and Latin America, since the latest and largest immigration wave of the last forty years, largely explain why the state continues to grow. Aside from the question of legality and whether such massive influxes were a wise or unwise occurrence, most can agree that our liberal establishment welcomed illegal immigration (along with agribusiness, construction industries, and hotels and restaurants), but without any commensurate desire to build the sort of infrastructure that would ensure such new Californians sufficient water — not to mention jobs in industries like irrigated agriculture, timber, gas and oil drilling, construction, and mining. Instead, the out-of-sight/out-of-mind liberal mindset welcomed millions of foreign nationals in, but then pursued an ever more exclusionary and mostly elite environmentalism that ensured a 40 million person state, but one without the water or employment opportunities to allow rough parity among its diverse residents.

The current drought is a product of nature, which has a bad periodic habit of withholding rain and snow over California, a natural occurring and long-recorded phenomenon that has nothing to do with global warming. We used to accept that fact and its corollary: most Californians preferred to live where there was the least amount of state rain and snow — and were willing to pay for the necessary infrastructure to make showering in Malibu or Monterey as natural as in Crescent City or Lake Tahoe. But as in most of California’s existential crises — budgeting, infrastructure, pensions, immigration, education, law enforcement — the problem lies in its thin coastal corridor, a surreal place where liberal grandees assume that they are exempt from the chaotic ramifications of their own utopian ideologies.

California’s real motto is “We think it up, you live it out.”
Simple Minded

Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

Post by Simple Minded »

Maybe the sky isn't falling after all?

What if mankind waged war on AGW and no one showed up?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/16/o ... ying-home/
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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http://online.wsj.com/articles/peoples- ... 1411339021
People's Climate Demarche
The anticarbon campaign stalls even at the United Nations.

Sept. 21, 2014 6:37 p.m. ET

Tens of thousands of environmental protestors paraded through New York City on Sunday, in a "people's climate march" designed to lobby world leaders arriving for the latest United Nations climate summit. The march did succeed in messing up traffic, but President Obama won't achieve much more when he speaks Tuesday at this latest pit stop on the global warming grand prix.

Six years after the failure of the Copenhagen summit whose extravagant ambition was to secure a binding global treaty on carbon emissions, Mr. Obama is trying again. The Turtle Bay gathering of world leaders isn't formally a part of the international U.N. climate negotiations that are supposed to climax late next year in Paris, but the venue is meant to be an ice-breaker for more than 125 presidents, prime ministers and heads of state to start to reach consensus.

One not-so-minor problem: The world's largest emitters are declining to show up, even for appearances. The Chinese economy has been the No. 1 global producer of carbon dioxide since 2008, but President Xi Jinping won't be gracing the U.N. with his presence. India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi (No. 3) will be in New York but is skipping the climate parley. Russian President Vladimir Putin (No. 4) has other priorities, while Japan (No. 5) is uncooperative after the Fukushima disaster that has damaged support for nuclear power. Saudi Arabia is dispatching its petroleum minister.
Enlarge Image

(L-R) French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, former United States Vice President Al Gore, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and French Environment Minister Segolene Royal take part in the "People's Climate March" down 6th Ave in the Manhattan borough of New York September 21, 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon excused these truancies at a press conference last week: "In any event, we have other means of communications, ways and means of having their leadership demonstrated in the United Nations." In that case, why not do a conference call?

To understand the coldness of this brush off, global CO2 emissions increased to 35.1 billion metric tons in 2013, a new record and a 29% increase over a decade ago. Of the year-over-year carbon climb, China at 358 million metric tons jumped by more than the rest of the world combined and is responsible for 24.8% of emissions over the last five years. Over the same period, developing nations accounted for 57.5%.

What this means is that regardless of what the West does, poorer countries that are reluctant to sign agreements that impede economic progress hold the dominant carbon hand. No matter U.S. exertions to save the planet from atmospheric carbon that may or may not have consequences that may or may not be costly in a century or more, the international result will be more or less the same, though U.S. economic growth will be slower.

Mr. Modi is unlikely to indulge the rich world's anticarbon politics when a quarter of the Indian population still lacks electricity. Mr. Obama might also pause to reflect that 30.6% of the 114.8 American households qualify for low-income energy subsidies. Thus by the Administration's own reckoning they can't afford current energy costs, much less the higher costs of a zero-carbon future.

In his first speech as White House budget director, Shaun Donovan nonetheless told the Center for American Progress on Friday that "the scale of our ambition at home is going to be the single most important driver" for climate action by China and other nations. In fact, the costly anticarbon regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency is developing will by the EPA's estimate address a mere 0.18% of world-wide carbon emissions. Some effort in persuasion.

This reality has now led more than a few climateers to claim that decarbonizing the economy will be magically cost-free. Mr. Donovan lectured that "climate denial will costs us billions of dollars," as a hotter planet reduces GDP and drives up deficits, while natural disasters like coastal superstorms impose new relief costs on the federal fisc.

So the problem is so dire that we must impose huge new costs on carbon and energy production, but don't worry—you won't feel a thing. The government will create all new energy industries and wealth in a seamless transition. Caveat emptor: Supposedly professional economists who promise that scarce resources can be made scarcer at zero cost have stopped practicing economics. They have become politicians, if not as honest.

Rather than debasing economics, perhaps the climate lobby should return to the climate science and explain the hiatus in warming that has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years depending on the data set and which the climate models failed to predict even as global carbon dioxide emissions have climbed by 25%. Their alibi is that the new warming is now hidden in the oceans, an assertion they lack the evidence to prove.

The campaign to redo the global energy economy has produced plenty of spectacle (the activists in Manhattan), contempt for democratic norms (the EPA), and the promise of a less prosperous future (Germany's renewable fuels fiasco). But perhaps Mr. Modi has a better sense of priorities because while in New York he plans to attend a Central Park event on the theme of reducing global poverty as well as the 9/11 memorial that is a reminder of the renewed threat of terrorism.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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water-ski in North Pole


Sunny North Pole.jpg
Sunny North Pole.jpg (108.26 KiB) Viewed 1674 times

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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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Heracleum Persicum wrote:.

water-ski in North Pole


Sunny North Pole.jpg
.
The Arctic was ice free in the 1930's

http://mclean.ch/climate/Arctic_1920_40.htm
"Arctic Warming" During 1920-40:
A Brief Review of Old Russian Publications


Sergey V. Pisarev

P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology
Russian Academy of Science
Moscow, Russia


1. The idea of Arctic Warming during 1920–40 is supported in Russian publications by the following facts:
* retreating of glaciers, melting of sea islands, and retreat of permafrost
* decrease of sea ice amounts
* acceleration of ice drift
* change of cyclone paths
* increase of air temperature
* biological indications of Arctic warming
* ease of navigation
* increase in temperature and heat content of Atlantic Waters, entering Arctic Basin.

2. The reasons of Arctic Warming (according to old Russian publications).

3. Cooling in 1950–1960.

Retreating of glaciers, melting of islands, and retreat of permafrost

During the Persey cruise in 1934 Zubov noticed that the glaciers of Jan-Mayen and Spitsbergen were considerably reduced, relative to their sizes adduced in British sailing directions of 1911. Retreat of glaciers was observed also at Spitsbergen, Franz-Joseph Land, and Novaya Zemlya. The ice bridges between some of Franz-Joseph islands melted.

Alman explored the glaciers of Spitsbergen in 1934 and came to the conclusion that they were melting. The observations of 1935–1938 showed that Iceland glaciers were melting too.

According to Sumgin, the south boundary of permafrost shifted to the north by 40 km during 1905–1933.

The disappearance of Vasilievsky Island in the Laptev Sea and washing away of the Lyakhovsky islands were phenomena of the same type.


The decrease of sea ice amounts in 1920–1940

The area of ice in the Greenland Sea in April–August of 1921–1939 was 15–20% less than in 1898–1920 (data of Karelin).

In the Barents Sea the area of ice was 12% less in 1920–1933 than in 1898–1920 (data of Zubov).

Vise pointed out that since 1929 the south part of the Kara Sea in September was free of ice, while in 1869– 1928 the possibility of meeting ice there in September was about 30%.

The polar ice very often came close to the coast of Iceland in the last century and in the beginning of this century. During 1915–1940 the situation changed: no ice was observed in that region; negligible amounts of polar ice were noticed there only in 1929.


The thickness of ice determined during the Fram cruise was 655 cm; during the Sedov cruise it decreased to 220 cm (the reason for this was more intensive summer melting of ice).

Before Arctic warming, the strait of Jugorsky Shar froze near the 24th of November, but in 1920–1937 it became frozen two months later—in January.

According to Vise, near Dicson and Franz-Joseph Land the amplitudes of tides increased by 20–30% as a result of a decreasing amount of ice.


The acceleration of ice drift

In spite of the fact that the amount of Arctic ice transported to the Greenland sea increased (established by Soviet expeditions in 1920–1940), the amounts of ice in that sea decreased because of the influence of factors promoting destruction and melting of ice:
* an increase in the velocity and temperature of the Norway and Spitsbergen currents
* an increase in the velocity of winds, connected with common intensification of atmospheric and hydrospheric circulation.

The velocity of the drift of North Pole station in 1937 was 2.4 times greater than the velocity of Fram’s drift.


Change of cyclone paths

Vise noticed that cyclones’ paths changed. They moved significantly northward from their paths before the Arctic warming and so the wind regime changed: After 1920 the prevailing winds in Jugorsky Shar changed from cold east winds to warm southwest winds.


The increase of air temperature

According to Vise, in Varde (northeast of Norway) since 1918 the average annual air temperatures were higher than the average air temperature of the previous century (the exception was 1926, when the average temperature was lower by 0.2°C).

Beginning with 1930, not one negative anomaly of average yearly or monthly temperature was observed in the whole Arctic sector from Greenland to Cape Tcheluskin, and during the same time the positive anomalies reached significant values: 1934/35 ± (4–10)°C, November in Spitsbergen ± 10°C.

Vise noticed, that the average annual temperatures observed during the Fram cruise (for the period of November 1893–August 1895) were lower by 4.1°C than those observed during the Sedov cruise (for the period of November 1937–August 1939), although the Fram and Sedov locations more or less coincided (Fram, 81°59'/113°26'; Sedov, 82°43'/121°30).

At the station Tikhaya (Franz-Joseph Land), temperatures below 40°C were never observed after 1929. But 10 expeditions in the archipelago before 1929 observed such temperatures every winter, except 1896.



Biological indications of Arctic warming

Knipovich, in 1921, was the first who paid attention to the changes of Arctic fauna. Marketable species of fish spread to the north after the beginning of the 20th century and fisheries in the north became more intensive.

Some benthos species spread to the north.

The ornitofauna of the Arctic region changed: some species of birds (White Gulls) left their places of habitation, and some southern species were noticed in the far north (swans in Iceland).

Uspensky stated that 40–50 species of birds moved to the North during 1890–1930.


Ease of navigation

The sailing conditions in the Arctic region became much more favorable in 1920–1940. This can be proved by the following cruises:

* Knipovich, 1932 (round Franz-Joseph Land)
* Sibiryak, 1932 (round Severnaya Zemlya)
* sailing of non-icebreaking ships along North Sea Route in 193—no ice met
* possibility for non-icebreaking ships to double Novaya Zemlya every year since 1930.
The severe conditions of navigation in previous years can be proved by the following cruises:
* In 1912, the ship Foka, a member of the Sedov expedition, could not reach Franz-Joseph Land.
* In 1912, the ship St. Anna, a member of the Brusilov expedition, was trapped in ice near Yamal and carried out with the ice to the central Arctic.
* In 1901, the icebreaker Ermak failed to double Novaya Zemlya.


Increase of temperature and heat content of Atlantic Waters entering the Arctic Basin

The waters of Nordcape Current (Zubov) became warmer by approximately 0.7°C in 1940–45 compared to the beginning of this century.

In the regions adjacent to Spitsbergen and Franz-Joseph Land, the lower boundary of the cold intermediate layer rose from 150–200 m in the beginning of the century to 75–100 m in 1940–45.

Not one station made during the Fram cruise showed Atlantic Waters exceeding a temperature of 1.13°C, but in 1935 (Sadko cruise) Zubov observed Atlantic Water temperatures reaching 2.68°C, and in 1938 (Sedov cruise) even in the places situated to the north and east of Fram’s drift (it must be colder there) the temperatures reached 1.8°C.

According to Shokalsky, “the temperature of surface waters of the Gulfstream steadily rises from the beginning of our century.” The increase of surface waters’ temperature can also be seen (Shokalsky) in the other regions of the ocean subjected to the influence of the Gulfstream and the Atlantic Current.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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JQ3gRNVLfg8
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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Is there anything Climate Change cannot do? :roll:


http://news.discovery.com/earth/global- ... 141002.htm
Climate Change Could Alter the Human Male-Female Ratio

Oct 2, 2014 01:40 PM ET // by Rachael Rettner, LiveScience


Climate change could affect the ratio of human males to females that are born in some countries, a new study from Japan suggests. The researchers found that male fetuses may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Since the 1970s, temperature fluctuations from the norm have become more common in Japan, and at the same time there has been an increase in the deaths of male fetuses, relative to the number of deaths of female fetuses in that country, according to the study.

Over this period, the ratio of male to female babies born in the country has been decreasing, meaning there have been fewer and fewer male babies born relative to the number of female babies born.

PHOTOS: Global Warming Right Before Your Eyes


This suggests that climate warming or climate extremes could negatively affect male fetuses, study researcher Dr. Misao Fukuda, of M&K Health Institute in Ako, Japan, told Live Science in an email.

In the study, the researchers looked at monthly temperature data gathered from 1968 to 2012 by the Japan Meteorological Agency and also at data on fetal deaths and infants born during that time from the Vital Statistics of Japan database. In recent years, there have been nearly 90,000 newborns, and about 1,000 fetal deaths recorded monthly in Japan. The researchers considered fetal deaths to be those that were spontaneously aborted (or miscarried) after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The study also looked at two recent extreme weather events in Japan — a very hot summer in 2010 and a very cold winter in 2011. During the hot summer — which was the warmest in the country since 1898 — there was an increase in the number of fetal deaths in September of that year, and nine months later, there was a decrease in the ratio of male to female babies born in the country.

A similar phenomenon occurred the next year — during a very cold winter in January 2011, there was an increase in fetal deaths, and nine months later, there was a decrease in the number of male babies born relative to female babies born in that country. [5 Ways Climate Change Will Affect Your Health]

BLOG: War Of The Words: Climate Change Or Global Warming?


These findings suggest that "the recent temperature fluctuations in Japan seem to be linked to a lower male: female sex ratio of newborn infants, partly via increased male fetal deaths," the researchers wrote in the Sept. 14 issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility.

However, the new study only found an association, and cannot prove that the climate changes were responsible for the change in sex ratio in Japan. Other factors, such as pollution and toxins in the environment, may affect sex ratios. But the researchers noted that the study found a link between temperatures in a specific month, and the sex ratios nine months later, suggesting temperature fluctuations may play a role in recent declines in the country's sex ratio.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy

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New strategy of the part of the Global Warming Alarmists Since the temperatures are not going up anymore shift the focus to CO2 emissions and their "known" effect and disregard temperature.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... e-science/
Is 2 Degrees the Right Limit for Global Warming? Some Scientists Say No
We've come to think of it as the threshold of catastrophic climate change—but it’s the wrong limit to set, two researchers argue.
Coal fired power plant in winter with emissions blowing downwind

Emissions waft from the smokestacks of a coal-fired power plant during winter.

Photograph by Skip Brown, National Geographic Creative

Michelle Nijhuis

for National Geographic

Published October 1, 2014

For more than a decade international climate-policy discussions have revolved around a seemingly simple goal: Limit the rise in average global surface temperature to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). But a new paper argues that the two-degree target is not only increasingly unrealistic but also misleading.

"More and more, it's a combination of fantasy and irrelevance," says David Victor, a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego, and the co-author of a critique of the target published in today's issue of Nature. "Maintaining it forces us to continue to pretend that it's feasible—and focuses people's attention on a number that isn't very well connected to the damage humans are doing to the climate."

The two-degree target first gained prominence in the early 1990s, when a number of international scientific panels suggested the limit as a way to maintain the relatively stable climate conditions that humans (and other species) had adapted to over the previous 12,000 years and to prevent some of the worst impacts of climate-change-driven drought, heat waves, and sea-level rise.

The 2009 Copenhagen Accord—the document that emerged from that year's UN Climate Change Conference—enshrined a two-degree rise in global average temperature as the threshold of "dangerous" human interference in the climate system.

"There was little scientific basis for the 2°C figure that was adopted," Victor and his coauthor, Charles Kennel, director emeritus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, write in Nature, "but it offered a simple focal point and was familiar from earlier discussions ... At the time, the 2°C goal sounded bold and perhaps feasible."

For many nations and advocacy groups, the target has acquired "near totemic status," Andrew Jordan of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research wrote recently. "To question this target...is to challenge the whole rationale for collectively addressing climate change."

Unattainable and Misleading

Victor and other critics, however, say that as the target becomes effectively unachievable, it threatens the relevance of the process it's intended to catalyze. Though some models show that the target can still be met, those make "heroic assumptions"—immediate global cooperation, for instance, or the sudden, wide availability of new technologies.

"Pretending that they are chasing this unattainable goal has also allowed governments to ignore the need for massive adaptation to climate change," Victor and Kennel write.

Victor also points out that average global surface temperatures doesn't fully represent the changing global climate. Although the increase in average surface temperature has stalled over the past 16 years, average temperatures in the deep ocean—where most of the extra heat in the climate system is stored—has continued to rise.
Ocean temperatures lag air temperature in the deep ocean by centuries.
"We think it's an error to boil it all down to a single goal, given how complex the climate system is," he says.

What's the Alternative?

Victor argues that policymakers should instead focus on a suite of "vital signs" that are more tightly linked to carbon emissions, including atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations, ocean heat content, and high-latitude temperature changes. Because of their closer correlation with emissions, he says, these indicators could be more easily translated into emissions-reduction goals and actions at national and local levels. He cites the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals established in 2000—a set of global health and environmental targets, most of which are expected to be met by the end of 2015—as a promising model.

"Surface temperature can be misleading if it's the only metric we use," agrees Jay Gulledge of the Climate Change Science Institute at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "But I wouldn't take the next step of saying that policymakers should disregard it."

Early last year Gulledge and several colleagues suggested that policymakers modify their all-or-nothing approach to a temperature target, instead adopting a "climate security" strategy borrowed from defense planning: Aim for an ambitious target, but prepare for the consequences should emissions-reduction measures fall short.

Michael Oppenheimer, a former chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who and now a professor at Princeton University, concedes that the two-degree target is imperfect. "Two degrees probably allows us to avoid dangerous impacts in some parts of the world but not in others," he says. "Certain areas have already exceeded the danger threshold."

But Oppenheimer argues that the target can be refined without discarding it. Scientists can predict regional climate-change risks much more reliably than they could 20 years ago, for instance, and those predictions are being incorporated into the international scientific assessments that inform United Nations climate-change negotiations. And while indicators like ocean heat content may respond more quickly or dramatically to the carbon emissions that cause climate change, surface temperature is more closely related to the effects of climate change—and the effects, after all, are what climate policies at any level are intended to ease.

Victor and Oppenheimer do agree that the two-degree target is slipping out of immediate reach. "There is a good chance we will miss it," Oppenheimer says. "But it still tells us where science thinks we should be, and where we need to get back to. Missing it doesn't mean that the Earth will explode or that climate policy will end. It just puts a sharp point on the fact that we goofed."
SO they want a standard that does not require temperatures to rise in the atmosphere... Clever buggers..
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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