Global Climate Change Science News

[trdsf]

I break the whole question of climate change down very simply.

If we follow the advice of climate scientists, and they turn out to be wrong, the worst we suffer is a cleaner environment, a reduction in or even elimination of dependence on fossil fuels, and greater energy independence.

If we follow the advice of climate change deniers, and they turn out to be wrong, the worst we suffer is extinction.

And unlike Pascal's Wager, these consequences are all in the real world.

[Seth]

I break the whole question of climate change down very simply.

If we follow the advice of climate scientists, and they turn out to be wrong, the worst we suffer is a cleaner environment, a reduction in or even elimination of dependence on fossil fuels, and greater energy independence.

You're not an economist, are you? Or a politician? Or a scientist?

Didn't think so.

If we follow the advice of climate change deniers, and they turn out to be wrong, the worst we suffer is extinction.

And that's a bad thing because....???

And unlike Pascal's Wager, these consequences are all in the real world.

Maybe. Two hundred or more years from now.

Plenty of time, no need to panic, no need to do anything today, or tomorrow, or next year, or next century. Lots of time for research, invention, development and deployment of appropriate and AFFORDABLE solutions to what may or may not be a problem two centuries from now. Also plenty of time to adapt to changing climate conditions.

Or die.

[Tero]

It's a matter if attitude. Denial will bring no change.

[Seth]

a reduction in or even elimination of dependence on fossil fuels, and greater energy independence.

I find it interesting that the US has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the number one oil producer in the world, which means "energy independence" from foreign oil, which is what Democrats and Republicans alike have been yammering for for decades.

But the closer we get to it, the louder the econuts yammer and the more they obstruct.

It's because they are actually Luddites who want us all to live in wattle-and-daub huts and grub for roots with sharpened sticks.

I think the oil companies should go ahead and build the pipeline to the tar sands of Canada from both ends and tell Obama to go fuck himself by withdrawing the international border crossing permit that gives him a thumb on the scale. Get the permits from the states involved and build the damned thing right smack up to the fucking US/Canada border as the Canadians build it to their side. Leave about three feet between the ends of the pipe with the border in the center and then, when the Republicans retake the Senate and control the House, and Obama has been impeached (and Biden too if necessary) drop in the last section, bolt it together and turn it on. Fait accompli.

[Seth]

It's a matter if attitude. Denial will bring no change.

Good. That's what's needed, no change.

Or, if you're smart, you start adapting to the predicted changes, take a hundred years to do it, and stop worrying about what's going to happen in your lifetime, which is nothing.

[Tero]

900 fake papers debunked
http://www.desmogblog.com/fossil-fools- ... t-petition

[cronus]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... iling.html

Burning blue sky: Earth's cloud shield is failing

It's the clouds that stop the oceans boiling. But as the planet warms, our main defence against the sun's fierce heat is weakening

AMONG the ranks of fluffy clouds stretching across the summer sky, one catches your eye. There is something familiar in the shape. Is it a dog? A bear on its hind legs? Not quite. As the pale billows shift, the cloud spreads out something like a pair of wings. Aha – a guardian angel. A little lopsided, but somehow reassuring. Until another change catches the air. The wings melt away and the cloud shrinks. Slowly it takes on a form that is less comforting. Starker. More... skeletal.

As well as providing entertainment on a lazy day, cloud-watching has a more serious side. Clouds have a vital role that few people appreciate: their overall effect is as a global heat shield, reflecting sunlight that would otherwise bake the ...

(continued, behind paywall guessing ...planet to a crisp?)

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29115845

Greenhouse gas levels rising at fastest rate since 1984

A surge in atmospheric CO2 saw levels of greenhouse gases reach record levels in 2013, according to new figures.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 2012 and 2013 grew at their fastest rate since 1984.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says that it highlights the need for a global climate treaty.

But the UK's energy secretary Ed Davey said that any such agreement might not contain legally binding emissions cuts, as has been previously envisaged.

The WMO's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin doesn't measure emissions from power station smokestacks but instead records how much of the warming gases remain in the atmosphere after the complex interactions that take place between the air, the land and the oceans.

About half of all emissions are taken up by the seas, trees and living things.

According to the bulletin, the globally averaged amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 396 parts per million (ppm) in 2013, an increase of almost 3ppm over the previous year.

"The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years," said Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the WMO.

(continued)

[Tero]

Question: how is the reading for a weather station for a day made? High, low? Both.? There is no problem really, but the data goes directly to anonaly:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-ref ... malies.php

[Tero]

In my search for what comes out of a single weather station, did not get very far. Just bits. Most stations get multiple daily readings, airports hourly. The data sets are available but it gives you a whole excel sheet cluttering up your e mail. as it turns out, the denialists have more data posted, as they were convinced that the stations and data were wrong. Watts posted this
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/ ... al2010.pdf
where the interesting thing is that the high and low both have an anomaly compared to "normal."

I think this is another denialist site
http://climateaudit.org/station-data/

GISS linked data sets. They do not collect data, only compile
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/

This is some critique of thermometers, and implies that they read a min and max daily
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushc ... al1991.pdf

NASA GISS freely admits they have to use variable data depending on the station:
Q. What do we mean by daily mean SAT ?
A. Again, there is no universally accepted correct answer. Should we note the temperature every 6 hours and report the mean, should we do it every 2 hours, hourly, have a machine record it every second, or simply take the average of the highest and lowest temperature of the day ? On some days the various methods may lead to drastically different results.

see
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/

[Tero]

Last line previous post:

If you click on the NASA map for nearest you station you can get annual temp data such as this
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/giste ... dt=1&ds=14

within there you can get a pdf of monthly averages.

[macdoc]

Anyone who has ever slipped over on black ice in the dead of winter will attest to how dangerous it is. But [HILITE]a darkening of the Greenland ice sheet could impact upon the entire world, as the hastening trend reduces the Arctic’s ability to reflect sunlight and increases global warming.[/HILITE]

The world’s leading expert on the ice that covers the huge expanse of Greenland has told The Independent that he was “stunned” to see how much darker it has become in the past year – warning it could start a hugely damaging “cascading feedback loop” of the area becoming blacker as less and less light is reflected.

Dr Jason Box, a glaciology professor, has just finished his 23rd expedition to the Danish-owned island since 1994, a series of trips that included spending a year camped on the country’s inland ice. And this time, said Dr Box, he had never seen anything like it.

“Where I took the photos I was stunned by how large an area had such a dark appearance,” said Dr Box, who works for the Geological Survey of Greenland. “This rocket ride has just gotten off the launchpad. I expect the snow and ice to continue darkening – every indication is that the Arctic climate will continue warming and the number of wildfires will keep increasing.”

more
http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 42159.html

Not good.....

[cronus]

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 42080.html

Leading climate scientists call on religious leaders to help save the environment

Two of the world’s leading scientists have made an unprecedented call on religious leaders to spark a “massive mobilisation of public opinion”, insisting that only through God can we save the environment.

Writing in the journal Science, Cambridge University’s Partha Dasgupta and Veerabhadran Ramanathan, of the University of California, have made an impassioned plea for help in curbing the “potentially catastrophic” effects of what they call “the ongoing abuse of the planet’s natural resources”.

Arguing that human’s relationship with natural resources is “at a crossroads”, they say: “Unsustainable consumption, population pressure, poverty and environmental degradation are intricately linked, but this is appreciated neither by development economists, nor by national governments who permit GDP growth to trump environmental protection in their policies.”

“The transformational step may very well be a massive mobilisation by the Vatican and other religions for collective action to safeguard the well-being of both humanity and the environment,” they add.

Naomi Oreskes, professor of history of science at Harvard University, said the call was a remarkable development in the world of climate science.

(continued)

[Seth]

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 42080.html

Leading climate scientists call on religious leaders to help save the environment

Two of the world’s leading scientists have made an unprecedented call on religious leaders to spark a “massive mobilisation of public opinion”, insisting that only through God can we save the environment.

Writing in the journal Science, Cambridge University’s Partha Dasgupta and Veerabhadran Ramanathan, of the University of California, have made an impassioned plea for help in curbing the “potentially catastrophic” effects of what they call “the ongoing abuse of the planet’s natural resources”.

Arguing that human’s relationship with natural resources is “at a crossroads”, they say: “Unsustainable consumption, population pressure, poverty and environmental degradation are intricately linked, but this is appreciated neither by development economists, nor by national governments who permit GDP growth to trump environmental protection in their policies.”

“The transformational step may very well be a massive mobilisation by the Vatican and other religions for collective action to safeguard the well-being of both humanity and the environment,” they add.

Naomi Oreskes, professor of history of science at Harvard University, said the call was a remarkable development in the world of climate science.

(continued)

Dipshit needs to go to Mongolia or Wyoming and then bitch about overpopulation.

The rabbit-warrens people choose to live in are what they deserve for being unwilling to go out on their own somewhere there are fewer people.

Seventy percent of the US population lives on twenty percent of the land surface, evidently by choice.

Plenty of room for more people and improvements in agricultural technology have only increased per-square-meter crop yields in the last 100 years, which allows the US to supply much of the third world from our surpluses.

[Tero]

Wyoming, guns. Solution to all!


Move 41 million Liberians to Wyoming: no more ebola. Well, if there are any, just shoot them.