Climate change: the longer we wait to act, the more severe the costs.

[Direckshun]

It's really time for the excuses to end. There are a hundred arguments you could make against climate change:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

There's no way human activity can alter the climate.

And even if it can, there's no way it can alter it by that much.

And even if it could, there's nothing alarming about it.

And even if there was, there's nothing we can do about it.

And even if there is, it wouldn't do much.

And even if it did, it would cause too much economic collateral damage / be ineffectually implemented / inexcusably rob us of freedom to pursue.

Therefore, I am opposed to climate change legislation.

The science has shot down every one of these arguments, save the last one which is a political argument.

To that political argument, ask yourself one question:

Do you think, in our current trajectory of global greenhouse gasses, that whether it be 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years, is unsustainable and damaging to our ability to exist on this planet as we currently do?

If you do, than you really have no choice. We must act now to stave off having to suffer drastic solutions later.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9010HU20130103

Cost of combating climate change surges as world delays: study
By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle
OSLO | Thu Jan 3, 2013 7:15am EST

An agreement by almost 200 nations to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 will be far more costly than taking action now to tackle climate change, according to research published on Wednesday.

Quick measures to cut emissions would give a far better chance of keeping global warming within an agreed U.N. limit of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times to avert more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

"If you delay action by 10, 20 years you significantly reduce the chances of meeting the 2 degree target," said Keywan Riahi, one of the authors of the report at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

"It was generally known that costs increase when you delay action. It was not clear how quickly they change," he told Reuters of the findings in the science journal Nature based on 500 computer-generated scenarios.

It said the timing of cuts in greenhouse gases was more important than other uncertainties - about things like how the climate system works, future energy demand, carbon prices or new energy technologies.

The study indicated that an immediate global price of $30 a metric ton on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, would give a roughly 60 percent chance of limiting warming to below 2C.

Wait until 2020 and the carbon price would have to be around $100 a metric ton to retain that 60 percent chance, Riahi told Reuters of the study made with other experts in Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.

And a delay of action until 2030 might put the 2C limit - which some of the more pessimistic scientists say is already unattainable - completely out of reach, whatever the carbon price.

"The window for effective action on climate change is closing quickly," wrote Steve Hatfield-Dodds of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia in a separate commentary in Nature.

Governments agreed to the 2C limit in 2010, viewing it as a threshold to avert dangerous climate change. Temperatures have already risen by 0.8 degree C (1.4F) since wide use of fossil fuels began 200 years ago.

ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN

After the failure of a 2009 summit in Copenhagen to agree a worldwide accord, almost 200 nations have given themselves until 2015 to work out a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions that will enter into force in 2020.

Amid an economic slowdown, many countries at the last U.N. meeting on climate change in Qatar in December expressed reluctance to make quick shifts away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energies such as wind or solar power.

Each U.S. citizen, for instance, emits about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. There is no global price on carbon, only regional markets - in a European Union trading system, for instance, where industrial emitters must pay off they exceed their CO2 quotas, 2013 prices are about 6.7 euros ($8.83) a metric ton.

The report also showed that greener policies, such as more efficient public transport or better-insulated buildings, would raise the chances of meeting the 2C goal.

And fighting climate change would be easier with certain new technologies, such as capturing and burying carbon emissions from power plants and factories. In some scenarios, the 2C goal could not be met unless carbon capture was adopted.

($1 = 0.7585 euros)

(Scientist corrects carbon price to $30 a tonne from $20 in paragraph 6)

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by cdcox

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/...sen_etal_1.pdf

Readers digest version:

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/meteo469/node/141

Note these predictions were made in 1988 and model sophistication and computational power have increased several fold since then. This isn't the last word on climate model validation but to claim that the models don't have any predictive skill is not congruent with peer reviewed literature.

Seriously? You are going to try to pass HANSON off as VALIDATION? If this is what passes for validation among climate "scientists" than the entire field is a ****ing joke. Hanson was thoroughly and unequivocally wrong in his predictions. I often use him as an example to prove MY point.

I love how your "reader's digest" version of the facts blatantly lies about CO2 levels to try to make him less wrong. The fact is, our CO2 levels rose MORE than even his most dire scenario was set up for. (This depends on where you get your numbers but it varies from marginally above to significantly above) That scenario predicted a 1 degree Celsius change in temperature. REALITY= less than HALF that.

I find it frankly amazing that anyone would ever try to pass Hanson off as validation when anyone with a clear objective view can see it is nothing of the sort.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

I love how your "reader's digest" version of the facts blatantly lies about CO2 levels to try to make him less wrong. The fact is, our CO2 levels rose MORE than even his most dire scenario was set up for.

It's not just CO2, its methane, CFCs, volcanoes, and everything else that goes into the forcings. More information which clearly shows that the forcing follows scenario B most closely:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...8-projections/

Doing a little research on my own, scenario A assumed exponential increases in global warming gases, while scenario B was a linear increase. If you look at emissions data both CO2 and methane increases have been linear, while CFC emissions have decreased. So where you get the idea that our emissions have been above scenario A I have no idea.

[cdcox]

Here is the description of the three scenarios from Hansen's paper:

" We make a 100-year control run and perform experiments for three scenarios of atmospheric composition. These experiments begin in 1958 and include measured or estimated changes in atmospheric CO2, CH4, H2O, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and stratospheric aerosols for the period from 1958 to the present. Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000."

Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone, 1988: Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J. Geophys. Res., 93, 9341-9364, doi:10.1029/88JD00231.

Here is global CO2 emissions which shows an exponential growth pattern up to the 1950's and a sub-linear growth rate since then, totally consistent with scenario B:



http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.html

So your characterization of the emissions as a "blatant lie" needs to be retracted.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by cdcox

It's not just CO2, its methane, CFCs, volcanoes, and everything else that goes into the forcings. More information which clearly shows that the forcing follows scenario B most closely:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...8-projections/

Doing a little research on my own, scenario A assumed exponential increases in global warming gases, while scenario B was a linear increase. If you look at emissions data both CO2 and methane increases have been linear, while CFC emissions have decreased. So where you get the idea that our emissions have been above scenario A I have no idea.

I love that you use as "proof" someone who "adjusts" Hanson's model AFTER THE FACT. It amazes me that you (and others) have no problem with this. Hey if Hanson had only used the CURRENT accepted climate sensitivity parameter.. he would have been much closer (close enough that we'll "fudge" and say it was accurate!).

I get my data from... hold on this is the weird part... OBSERVED DATA. Not from projections or other models.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full

Here is what Hanson said ...

“Specifically, in scenario A CO2 increases as observed by Keeling for the interval 1958-1981 [keeling et al, 1982] and subsequently with a 1.5%/yr growth of the annual increment.”

“In scenario B the growth of the annual increment of CO2 is is reduced from 1.5%/yr today to 1%/yr in 1990, 0.5%/yr in 2000 and 0 in 2010; thus after 2010 is constant, 1.9 ppmv/yr.”

“In scenario C the CO2 growth is the same as scenarios A and B through 1985; between 1985 and 2000 the annual increment is fixed at 1.5 ppmv/yr; after 2000, CO2 ceases to increase, its abundance remaining fixed at 368 ppmv.”

I haven't actually run the hard numbers for a few years but last I checked it was almost exactly scenario A, feel free to check it for yourself. But a quick eyeballing of this graph...



Shows a slight exponential increase.. you know.. something around 1.5-2%... it most certainly isn't the straight line that Scenario B calls for.

Yes you can bring up the CFC or methane or whatever arguments and there we start to deviate from his established scenarios but I can further show that he was still off by a significant margin.

THE ONLY WAY you can make Hanson's predictions accurate are to adjust the model AFTER THE FACT and even then it still significantly off, just not as insanely wrong as it otherwise would be.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by cdcox

So your characterization of the emissions as a "blatant lie" needs to be retracted.

No, it was a blatant lie. Maybe it wasn't KNOWINGLY a lie, but it was false nonetheless. Do the math yourself. And don't post bullshit misleading graphs when you can easily go to source numbers from the link I posted.(I call it misleading because the time frame is completely off and it includes a bunch of data that has no bearing on the discussion... you would be ok if you said .."just take a look at the far right side of this graph, ignoring everything except the dark red line")

[AustinChief]

OH NOES! Misleading graph time! Posted from the same source cdcox just used.



(again, misleading because the data represented doesn't apply directly to the topic, but it certainly could be used to illustrate my point if I wasn't more concerned with accuracy)

[RINGLEADER]

If all humans were wiped off the planet tomorrow there would still be climate change. Sometimes it will get warmer and sometimes it will get cooler. There would still be hurricanes and forest fires and tornadoes and storms. There may not be as much pollution, but the climate change would still be there whether we're there or not.

[RINGLEADER]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full

Has there ever been another period in time where CO2 increased 60 parts per million over 50 years?

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Here is the description of the three scenarios from Hansen's paper:

" We make a 100-year control run and perform experiments for three scenarios of atmospheric composition. These experiments begin in 1958 and include measured or estimated changes in atmospheric CO2, CH4, H2O, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and stratospheric aerosols for the period from 1958 to the present. Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear linear growth of trace gases, and scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000."

Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone, 1988: Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J. Geophys. Res., 93, 9341-9364, doi:10.1029/88JD00231.

Here is global CO2 emissions which shows an exponential growth pattern up to the 1950's and a sub-linear growth rate since then, totally consistent with scenario B:



http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.html

So your characterization of the emissions as a "blatant lie" needs to be retracted.

OK, then explain this:

[listopencil]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

OH NOES! Misleading graph time! Posted from the same source cdcox just used.



(again, misleading because the data represented doesn't apply directly to the topic, but it certainly could be used to illustrate my point if I wasn't more concerned with accuracy)

Here's one from Google:

[listopencil]

One final chart that you can not deny:

[cdcox]

Ok, I carefully checked the CO2 data and I agree that actual emissions are above scenario A. But looking at the other gases, clearly they have not followed scenario A:




If you look at the total climate forcing of these gases and lay a straight line on the slope of the curve in 1985 and project it forward, clearly forcing has been growing at a sublinear rate since the paper was published, which would put us some where between scenario B and C.



http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/

You can't just look at CO2 alone.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Ok, I carefully checked the CO2 data and I agree that actual emissions are above scenario A. But looking at the other gases, clearly they have not followed scenario A:


If you look at the total climate forcing of these gases and lay a straight line on the slope of the curve in 1985 and project it forward, clearly forcing has been growing at a sublinear rate since the paper was published, which would put us some where between scenario B and C.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/

You can't just look at CO2 alone.

I don't have time right now but I'll refute this in more detail later... regardless... that was NOT what Hanson's model predicted. So you could argue that his model wasn't wrong (you'd be wrong but you could argue it), you CAN NOT, however, argue that it was right or that it validates anything.

BTW I totally agree that you can't just look at CO2.. just like you can't marginalize solar data or a multitude of other factors.

And let me reiterate, Hanson (and others) aren't close to being accurate until you start to either "adjust" the model or you simply lie about the observable data. (By YOU I mean people like the guy in the one article not YOU personally. You're a stand up guy. )

[AustinChief]

Let me add one more quick thing... let's take a very simplistic look at what you just presented. If we take it at face value, we'd conclude that curbing methane production is where we should concentrate a healthy amount of our climate change energy. That certainly flies in the face of where the POLITICAL push has been. Given that the largest domestic producers of methane are landfills and livestock, it's simply not as "sexy" to talk about it. Which shows how the POLITICAL side of the "climate change" movement isn't really about good science.

Again this is completely oversimplified but meant to illustrate a valid point.

[CoMoChief]

We should just pay Al Gore money through carbon taxes....that will most certainly fix the problem.