Experts: Aim of 2 Degrees Climate Goal Insufficient 442
An anonymous reader points out that a long held goal of keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising above 2 degrees Celsius might not be good enough. "A long-held benchmark for limiting global warming is 'utterly inadequate,' a leading U.N. climate scientist declared. Keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising past 2 degrees Celsius – a cap established by studies in the early 1970s – is far too loose a goal, Petra Tschakert, a professor at Penn State University and a lead author of an assessment report for the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said in a commentary published in the journal Climate Change Responses. Already, with an average increase of just 0.8 degrees Celsius, she wrote, 'negative impacts' are 'widespread across the globe.' Tschakert called for lowering the warming target to 1.5 degrees Celsius."
Complete article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Complete article (Score:5, Informative)
For example, when discussing this graph [climatecha...ponses.com], the article mentions:
in Yokohama in March 2014 [24], authors and delegates spent a considerable amount of time negotiating the temperature axis.....as a response to the insistence on the part of some parties, including St. Lucia, Saudi Arabia, and Bolivia, a second thermometer was added to the right. For many delegates, it was fundamental to not omit in this crucial figure the 0.61C change that had been accumulating..... fierce debates erupted over the visual highlighting of certain temperature targets in the graphic......St. Lucia, supported by Dominica, Jamaica, Tuvalu, Cuba, Mali, France, and then also Germany, requested a third dotted line at 1.5C......others considered it policy-prescriptive and hence inappropriate for the IPCC whose mandate it is to be no more than policy-relevant. A compromise to add dotted lines at all 0.5C increments, offered by the IPCC authors as well as Belgium, Austria, the U.S., and others, was rejected. In the end, the graphic was approved, without any horizontal lines, as most ‘scientifically neutral.’
One non-political report. (Score:5, Informative)
Only nations that donate to the IPCC budget get a vote on the other reports, last I checked there were ~135 nations who together represent pretty much every political view in the rainbow, it takes a long time for them to agree. The IPCC budget is $5-6M/yr, nobody who actually works on the reports is paid a dime by the IPCC, all of the scientists involved DONATE their time. Their financial accounts are on their web site. Try finding the accounts for an anti-science no-think-tank such Senator Inhofe's barking dog - the heartland institute.
Re:Complete article (Score:5, Informative)
Because the changes in this case are not natural at all?
Saying "climate always changes" is like saying "water always flows", and then promptly putting a firehose in your living room and then turning it on. I realize you think this is a great rhetorical trick, but that's all it is.
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Plagues are natural. Eradicating them is artificial. Saying "changes are not natural" is like saying "warmth in the winter is not natural" and then breaking all the windows in your house on the coldest day of the year. I realize you think "natural" is synonymous with perfect holiness and righteousness, but this is a science topic, so please keep your arguments rational.
Re:Complete article (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you trying for the Logical Fallacy of the Year Award here? The point of AGW theory is that the changes we are seeing are not natural in origin. Instead of playing semantics, deal with what the theory states. Invoking private definitions is probably the lowest form of debate, because it's useless and accomplishes nothing.
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The fact that it's getting warmer isn't proof that AGW is correct; at best, it's proof that it might not be completely wrong. I'm not saying that you're guilty of that fallacy, but I've seen many posts here by AGW fanatics that essentially say exactly that.
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From a strictly theoretical perspective the answer would be yes. However, for an experimental and physical indication of reality of how carbon dioxide acts to produce its effects is now so thoroughly understood that it would be foolish to deny the easily computable results of any model that seriously attempts to predict system behaviors and defy the highly probable and extremely harmful outcomes of failing to understand the basics of atmospheric physics or its immediate biological consequences.
Re:Complete article (Score:4, Funny)
Some people won't be happy until we build another control earth and repeat the experiment a few times, just to be sure.
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No, it would be called science.
(A) We've known the mechanism since the 1800s when Fourier et al first raised warnings about CO2s spectral absorbsion lines and the implication the coal spewing industrial revolution might have on atmosphere. This is validated science and underwrites so much physics that we'd have to turn the clock back on at least a century of scientific understanding in multiple fields if it wasn't t
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They can and they do. Most models are tested against earlier data to see how it lines up. Current models are pretty damn accurate.
Physics hasn't got a lot of room for opions I'm afraid
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Eradicating plagues is hardly artificial or unnatural. One only has to look to the evolution of the ascomycetous genus Pencillum and use of this fact by Homo sapiens to see that. At least you are free to argue in the face of mathematical absurdity of assuming a false premise and being able to conclude both truth and falsity, without knowledge of either. Clearly, you need another premise.
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But knowing you as I do, the underlying science itself is just politics, and that's something built into your personal identity.
I'm not sure what you're saying here.
Re:Complete article (Score:5, Informative)
This year we have seen record low temperatures across the north american continent that have pushed our country to the limits.
While the eastern third of the country has been cold the western third of the country has seen record high temperatures. In fact the eastern third of North America is about the only place on the Earth that's had below average temperatures this winter.
Re:Complete article (Score:5, Informative)
No kidding. Here on Vancouver Island, other than perhaps a four or five day stretch back in December with sub-zero degrees celsius temperatures, and the odd day here and there of frosty mornings, we literally did not have a winter.
There seems to be this popular attack of AGW that involves "Look outside, if it isn't a desert, all those scientists are evil liars!"
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I live a bit south of you in the Willamette Valley and I remember that cold stretch back in December. It's been a strange winter. No snow in the Cascades where there should be 4 feet or more of snow pack by now.
Those guys attacking AGW need to get out more.
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I'm sure it's the same down in Washington State as it is up here in coastal British Columbia. Low snow pack means lower river levels, which means potential problems for irrigation in areas under cultivation, harm to fish stocks, and the potential for severe water restrictions in some areas.
I own some property out in a rural area of Central Vancouver Island, and while my house is on a civic water system, my kid and her partner live on the property in a house that gets its water from a creek that flows beside
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I have done research on this topic and I think I will take my chances with the conclusions of the majority of the scientific community. Not the principle that if it is temporarily good for jobs then it is the right answer. The track record of going after the money and nothing else is littered with destroyed lives, Bhopal for example. I note that with freedom comes responsibility and I also note that the people who shout about it the most are the least likely to take any responsibility for anything.
Nutz (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that Milankovitch cycles show the earth's recent temperature swings are significantly more than 1.5 degrees WITHOUT impact from man, this seems a bit nutty. Global climate change has been happening for a long time before man started burning fossil fuels. Sure it sucks for some, but then again, it will be sweet for some people who get benefits from such a change. Life goes on, just like it has in the past ice ages, despite 1000 metre thick glaciers covering much of Europe and N. America.
Earth is not a static closed system folks... It changes shitloads more all by itself then any amount attributed to by even the most generous of climate analysts. Get used to it. Buy a vineyard in England.
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While undoubtably true, one of the big issues with our currently changing climate is that the anthropogenic forcing is supposedly pushing change faster than historical 'natural' climate change. Thus, ecologies will have less time to adjust and that is generally considered to be a Bad Thing. The problem with that theory is that some of the finer grained climate studies - mostly from newer ocean sediment cores - indicates that some significant changes have happened over periods of decades. That clearly is
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Again, it's philosophical. If you believe that, ultimately, the gene pool needs some chlorine then perhaps massive die offs of humanity (and lots of other organisms, remember, this is a high extinction event we are going through) are a good thing.
If you are a politician or an administrator trying to keep a society happy, or at least alive, not so much.
Re:Nutz (Score:4, Informative)
Considering that Milankovitch cycles show the earth's recent temperature swings are significantly more than 1.5 degrees WITHOUT impact from man, this seems a bit nutty. Global climate change has been happening for a long time before man started burning fossil fuels. Sure it sucks for some, but then again, it will be sweet for some people who get benefits from such a change. Life goes on, just like it has in the past ice ages, despite 1000 metre thick glaciers covering much of Europe and N. America.
Earth is not a static closed system folks... It changes shitloads more all by itself then any amount attributed to by even the most generous of climate analysts. Get used to it. Buy a vineyard in England.
The difference in temperature between the depths of the ice age and now is about 5 degrees C but that rise in temperature was spread out over 10,000-15,000 years (5 degrees/10,000 = 0.0005 degrees/year). The current temperate change is between 0.01 and 0.02 degrees/year, two orders of magnitude greater than when the ice age ended. The problem isn't so much that temperature is changing but that it's changing so fast. The greater the rate of temperature change the harder adaption will be for both human and natural systems. The Earth will survive and life will survive the current warming but there will mass extinctions and that may well include civilization as we now know it.
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The current temperate change is between 0.01 and 0.02 degrees/year, two orders of magnitude greater than when the ice age ended. The problem isn't so much that temperature is changing but that it's changing so fast. The greater the rate of temperature change the harder adaption will be for both human and natural systems.
I've never been able to figure out the original of those claims - do you know? I can't find any scientific sources for it - on the contrary:
Until a few decades ago it was generally thought that all large-scale global and regional climate changes occurred gradually over a timescale of many centuries or millennia, scarcely perceptible during a human lifetime. The tendency of climate to change relatively suddenly has been one of the most suprising outcomes of the study of earth history, specifically the last 1
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Life goes on, just like it has in the past ice ages, despite 1000 metre thick glaciers covering much of Europe and N. America.
I don't think much life goes on if it was covered by 1000 meter thick glaciers.
Re:Nutz (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think much life goes on if it was covered by 1000 meter thick glaciers.
If you get overrun by a glacier, I'm not sure how much sympathy I'd have for you.
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No, glaciers sneaking up on us aren't going to be a problem. But they do illustrate nicely what a few degrees temperature difference means. It is possible that some places on earth get overrun by sea level rise if we hit certain tipping points in West Antarctica.
Social scientists (Score:5, Interesting)
Less well known perhaps is a critique from feminist social scientists who interrogate what may be deemed ‘acceptable’ and what may be ‘dangerous’, and for whom, and who contest the global community as a homogeneous entity. Joni Seager, for instance, demonstrates how notions of acceptability always mirror ‘a prism of privilege, power, and geography’ [14]. She argues that those for whom a 2C target [are] politicians and economists from the global North deeply entrenched in a masculinized rationality that nature can be controlled and that in the imminent climate race with inevitable winners and losers they will be among the former. Seager rejects the notion of a 2C target as a real geophysical threshold that neatly distinguishes between little and much danger
That is worth a read for educational purposes alone.
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So apparently the Barristas at Starbucks are taking up science again ?
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Re:Social scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservatives need to come to the table with solutions
You need problems first in order to have solutions. For example, this article is about how 1.5 C rise in temperature is supposed to be bad with all sorts of "negative impacts", but there's no actual evidence for the claim. Providing solutions to non-problems doesn't help anyone.
Nor do we have a sane plan for keeping temperature rise below 1.5 C. Note that you won't get the US, China, Russia, or OPEC on board.
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The language always seems kind of inflammatory, but sometimes I think they have something of a point.
When calculating risks and outcomes, everybody brings certain biases to the table about what are considered acceptable outcomes, losses and gains. That those biases may be driven by "masculinized rationality" may be taking it a bit far, but the idea that it's not a perfectly bright line threshold and that some tradeoffs may be involved shouldn't be disregarded.
A social scientist translating for them (Score:3, Informative)
What they're trying to say, using the usual feminist sociology over-loquatiousness is:
For some on the planet, keeping it under 2 degrees will preserve a relatively familiar or at least acceptable quality of life.
For others on the planet, quality of life can only be preserved by keeping it under, say 1.5 degrees, or even one degree.
The first group (that can live with a higher threshold) are those in the upper portions of the global economic scale, and it's an acceptable rise for them because they can also af
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There will still be beachfront property it'll just be a little farther inland from where it is now.
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That is is paralysis by analysis. Its trick the intellectually bankrupt resort to when they want to seem insightful or somehow smart.
Different people are going to tolerate levels of adverse consequences differently is obvious. That goes for the short term and the long term. In the end that fact is inconsequential what matters is what is acceptable for most people or what matters for the people in a position to affect outcomes.
That fact the 1.2 degrees might destroy the economy of some island group somepl
Can be any goal you want (Score:4, Insightful)
Either 2 degrees or 1.5 it doesn't really matter as we're going to go sailing by both of them and keep on going by a wide margin. We've started to late and done too little to even meet the 2 degree goal. And the commitments that are being proposed for the upcoming summit in France later this year don't look like they are going to be enough.
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Yep. We could set up a scientific strategy that integrates political, social, environmental, economic and physical sciences in a worldwide approach to generate popular support for fair and wise chosen solutions while attempting manage the benefits and losses to all parties or we could disagree about the number that we won't achieve. The second is much easier.
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Best estimates for climate sensitivity are centered around 3 degrees, and the 2 degree limit is based on pre-industrial conditions when CO2 levels were around 280ppm. Experts have put the corresponding upper CO2 limit on 550 ppm.
Tired of Consensus = Fact (Score:5, Informative)
These stories are tiring as there is no chance for "settled science fact" in climate change.
All of these estimates are based on elaborate math models and yet the Earth's long term climate ON ITS OWN, has swung widely over recorded history.
And from the geologic history, we know we will again go into another ice age based on the history of the change in the Earth-Sun orbit & precession changes on a regular 110,000 year cycle. And without human intervention, the ice age ends.
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All of these estimates are based on elaborate math models, yet the Earth's long term climate ON ITS OWN, has swung widely over recorded history.
Natural swings have occurred, but they all have their causes, and scientists run the same models on historic climate events to verify their understanding. Your use of "yet" suggests a contradiction that isn't there.
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These stories are tiring as there is no chance for "settled science fact" in climate change.
All of these estimates are based on elaborate math models and yet the Earth's long term climate ON ITS OWN, has swung widely over recorded history.
And from the geologic history, we know we will again go into another ice age based on the history of the change in the Earth-Sun orbit & precession changes on a regular 110,000 year cycle. And without human intervention, the ice age ends.
There is no chance of another glacial period occurring until CO2 levels drop well below 300 ppm again.
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Math models so sophisticated, in fact, that they entirely failed to predict the current global warming hiatus.
Just looked her up (Score:2)
She's a Geography professor [psu.edu].
So why would I care about her opinion on global warming, either way?
Re:Just looked her up (Score:5, Informative)
The area of geography she studies is how communities/economies are impacted by and adapt to changes in prevailing climates, which seems pretty relevant, depending on what question you're asking. She would be a poor authority on questions like modeling the impact of CO2 on weather, but more within her area if asking questions like, "how easy/difficult would it be for Indonesians to adapt to a 2" ocean-level rise?".
In terms of the IPCC reports, the research/authorship is divided into three working groups: #1 studies the underlying science; #2 studies impacts & adaptation; #3 studies possible mitigation strategies. She's part of #2.
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(Man, I'm sorry I don't have any mod points today, so you'll have to settle for kudos. Well done.)
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Except she's not speaking to her area of expertise. Her opinion on what the target should be for limiting temperature rise is not any more relevant than, say, an electrical engineer's or a chemist's.
If the UN wants to issue authoritative statements about the science, they should have an actual climate scientist in charge.
2ÂC target? It's gonna get worse (Score:2)
"Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money." (source [quoteinvestigator.com]).
If AGW is real and the global temperature is to rise unmitigated, the rich (who actually own the planet) will actually start doing something about that only when war comes knocking on their front doors.
Up until then there will be no tangible changes to prevent further warming of the Earth.
Only 1C (Score:2)
From what I've heard scientist in the 80s came up with 1 C before serious changes would kick in. Then some economists decided that the damages could be managed until we reach 2C. So the 2C is an economic goal. Interestingly at ~0.9C we already see permafrost melting and decaying which could leed to some feedback effect that could ultimatley dwarf our contribution. So that article may be overly inconservative with its 1.5C goal.
Energy balance over temperature (Score:5, Informative)
The basic physics of climate change is that increasing levels of gases trap more energy from the sun, increasing the amount of energy in our atmosphere and climate system. We know by and large, most of the energy is stored in the oceans as water holds energy much better than gases in the air.
With such a simple observation, I'd like to make the observation that it seems too few of the IPCC guys pushing for policy stuff are paying any attention to the energy budget. Instead, we have the only basis scientifically being that the average surface temperature is warming, and CO2 levels are rising and we are the ones pushing them up. That's all well and good, and they are important observations. About 30 years ago though we started sending up satellites to measure incoming and outgoing radiation. The ERBS and CERES programs from NASA have given us direct measurements of trends in the overall energy balance at the edge of space. The most direct measurement of global warming that we can have. The summary from each program, has let us find a decade level average energy imbalance, and we've found it is in good or at least general agreement with energy levels measured via Ocean Heat Content observations.
Here's the important bit though. As the IPCC's most recent AR has observed, the satellite measurements show that for the duration of the CERES project, there has been NO TREND in the energy imbalance. The earlier ERBS data showed the same as well. Our satellite measurements have shown significant and very steady trends in energy balance cycling monthly, but the average over the years and decades we've measured is just a steady and consistent average neither shifting noticeably up or down. Meanwhile, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over that same time have climbed like nobody's business. All our models and expectation for X degrees of warming for so much CO2 kinda hinges pretty heavy on CO2 pushing up the energy imbalance. If it's not, and observations suggest that. We may not need to be so worried as some of the panic ridden crowd wants.
Before I get citation needed shoved down my throat, here's a peer reviewed journal [wiley.com] article published in Geophysical Research Letters. It is comparing observed atmosphere energy imbalance to the CMIP5 model runs. It finds good agreement, but also makes the very notable observation that the energy imbalance trend is dominated by volcanic activity(ie NOT the CO2 levels that are higher than they've been in millenia). Full abstract:
Observational analyses of running 5 year ocean heat content trends (Ht) and net downward top of atmosphere radiation (N) are significantly correlated (r~0.6) from 1960 to 1999, but a spike in Ht in the early 2000s is likely spurious since it is inconsistent with estimates of N from both satellite observations and climate model simulations. Variations in N between 1960 and 2000 were dominated by volcanic eruptions and are well simulated by the ensemble mean of coupled models from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). We find an observation-based reduction in N of 0.31±0.21Wm2 between 1999 and 2005 that potentially contributed to the recent warming slowdown, but the relative roles of external forcing and internal variability remain unclear. While present-day anomalies of N in the CMIP5 ensemble mean and observations agree, this may be due to a cancelation of errors in outgoing longwave and absorbed solar radiation.
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Climate never STOPS changing (Score:3, Interesting)
Of COURSE it isn't sufficient.
When - ever - has an activist said "yeah, well, what's being done is pretty much good, yeah. I'm happy. I guess I don't have much to be upset about any more"?
Here's a hint: if there's one thing I can guarantee the climate won't do, is be static.
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I think you missed the part about objecting to human activity rapidly changing the climate in destructive ways. It's not the mere fact that the climate changes people object to, it's the fact that some of us are doing to to enrich ourselves at the expense of others in the world and in the future.
Experts (Score:2)
Reading the reactions I find it amazing how many climate experts there are on slashdot.
Fixed that for you (Score:2)
keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising above 2 degrees Celsius
s/above/more than/
Cultural Solutions vs Technological Solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
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Isn't Florida supposed to be underwater ?
Since you obviously haven't been here for a while, many parts of Florida are underwater at high tide. In Palm Beach and parts of Miami storm drains flow backwards and boat docks are underwater. Just across the inlet, West Palm Beach has a massive project going on to raise sewer lines so toilets will confinue flushing and there are several similar projects in Miami. They're also spending hundreds of millions to reinforce the well casings in the wells Miami gets its
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Florida, and that has nothing to do with rising sea levels but rising population levels.
Hint: More paving = More drainage in a rainy climate.
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It has no where else to go!
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So you believe runoff got so bad it raised the level of the ocean? WOW.
Sounds more like you'll make yourself believe nearly anything to avoid facing the truth.
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So tell me, how does that put a dock under water? How does it require raising the whole sewer system to keep it working? How does it just happen to synchronize with the tide?
I can see it occasionally reversing the storm drains, of course, but some areas now have floods happen on a sunny day. It just comes up out of the ground.
Now pull your head out of your ass, the gas is making you woozy.
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Which makes sense. Sea level rise in the last 50 years has amounted to about 4 inches, probably not enough to make drains run backwards.
The way sea level rise will make itself known isn't through changes in day to day phenomena, but in exceptional phenomena like storm surge flooding. This is a place where inches may well matter. People plan around concepts like a "ten year flood" or a "hundred year flood", and this creates a sharp line on the map where there is no sharp line in reality. Depending where
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I don't live anywhere near the coast but we had a flood in 1994 here that exactly matched the 100 year flood plain drawn up by the Army Corp of Engineers. I mean, exactly. Everywhere it stated 100 year flood plain was under water.
Ocean Levels (Score:4, Informative)
But not newly underwater. Sea levels have risen about 200 mm, or about 7.8 inches [europa.eu] in the last century (1910 to 2008) (also, the rate of rise hasn't changed much, either -- see linked graph again.) Which time period has to include almost all, or perhaps all, of Florida's sewer infrastructure -- Miami was officially incorporated as a city with a population of just over 300 on July 28, 1896. Fort Lauderdale was incorporated even later -- 1911. This tells us quite handily that region's sewage infrastructure was built during that 7.8 inch rise.
So if Florida's infrastructure is seeing drainage run backwards due to an 8 inch change in levels, that is clearly related to absolutely dismal design and implementation -- not to sea level rise. I mean, good grief. What do you think the design criteria were? "If anything at ALL happens, sewers should overflow?" Please refer to the actual data when making claims. Also: If your public officials have been telling you that this is due to sea level rise, they are lying through their teeth, and you should take them to task for it. Good luck with that.
Yes, no doubt. But they aren't fighting with sea level rise. They're fighting with incompetence.
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't it supposed to raising 2 degrees/decade yy now ?
Aren't the poles supposed to be ice free by now ?
Isn't Florida supposed to be underwater ?
Isn't the entire east coast supposed to be rubble from super hurricanes ?
Dustbowls that would make the 1930s look like nothing ?
Really enough of the chicken little.
Instead of listening to hyperbole why don't you peruse the actual scientific literature on those subjects? You won't find any of that in the time frames you contemplate.
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The IPCC has stated that sea level rise this century will likely be in the neighborhood of 2.6 feet or less but that extreme conditions could cause as much as a 6.5 foot rise in sea levels over the next hundred years. Maybe you are referring to Al Gore's propaganda where he stated a bunch of US cities could soon be underwater in the near future. You must remember Al Gore is a politician and as such, if his lips move, he's lying.
Re:Let's see (Score:4, Insightful)
The IPCC has stated that sea level rise this century will likely be in the neighborhood of 2.6 feet or less but that extreme conditions could cause as much as a 6.5 foot rise in sea levels over the next hundred years. Maybe you are referring to Al Gore's propaganda where he stated a bunch of US cities could soon be underwater in the near future. You must remember Al Gore is a politician and as such, if his lips move, he's lying.
Really ? That's what I must remember ?
It couldn't be James Hansen predicting the West Side Highway would be under water by 2005 ?
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/2... [salon.com]
The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”
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Lets Hypothetically ?
https://news.google.com/newspa... [google.com]
That would be like the "Hypothetically " ice free north pole by 2000 ?
Or would that be the same way the UN spoke of "Hypothetical" climate refugees
http://www.spiegel.de/internat... [spiegel.de]
It's a result of billions of humans living on the planet and their activities and industry. Short of ridding the world of the majority of those people global warming will continue to climb
Real shame people don't take genocide well.
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Lets Hypothetically ?
https://news.google.com/newspa... [google.com]
That would be like the "Hypothetically " ice free north pole by 2000 ?
Actually, the full quote is "...and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean..." (emphasis mine). The source of the claim, Berndt Balchen [wikipedia.org] certainly had an interesting biography, but neither was he trained as a scientist, nor what the statement in a scientific publication.
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15 years after the prediction date the Arctic is still covered in ice and the and the Antarctic ice is expanding.
And your point is? Because one non-scientist made an ambiguous claim about a possible outcome, all scientific claims are invalid? We've started commercial shipping through the Arctic [fednav.com], and "Antarctic ice" is shrinking [antarcticglaciers.org], what is growing slightly is maximum Antarctic sea ice extend.
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Informative)
California is regularly in drought. It's a 500 year cycle for them.
But good of you to bring it up, If the environmentalists hadn't been blocking water management and in general been in the business of creating problems http://naturalresources.house.... [house.gov].
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So in other words
You can't lay California's lack of rainfall at warming's feet.
And Environmentalists created the inability to deal with the problem and are obstructing its solution ?
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You can't lay California's lack of rainfall at warming's feet but you can say the drought was exacerbated by record high temperatures that caused the soil to dry out more than previous droughts.
Records? Let's look: (Score:3)
You can say it -- the question is, can you show it? Take a look at the actual data [noaa.gov] and you will see that although the average is running a little warm, all of 2012, 2013, 2014 and what we've had thus far of 2015 are just about devoid of record temperature excursions.
My understanding is that it is lack of precipitation -- not high temperatures -- that account for California's current problems. Which you can also see on that same page on th [noaa.gov]
Re:Records? Let's look: (Score:5, Informative)
How unusual is the 2012–2014 California drought? [wiley.com]
By Daniel Griffin and Kevin J. Anchukaitis, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 41, Issue 24, December 2014
Abstract
For the past three years (2012–2014), California has experienced the most severe drought conditions in its last century. But how unusual is this event? Here we use two paleoclimate reconstructions of drought and precipitation for Central and Southern California to place this current event in the context of the last millennium. We demonstrate that while 3 year periods of persistent below-average soil moisture are not uncommon, the current event is the most severe drought in the last 1200 years, with single year (2014) and accumulated moisture deficits worse than any previous continuous span of dry years. Tree ring chronologies extended through the 2014 growing season reveal that precipitation during the drought has been anomalously low but not outside the range of natural variability. The current California drought is exceptionally severe in the context of at least the last millennium and is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and record high temperatures.
Re:Let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
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If developed countries stop using fossil fuels, it will only encourage their use in poorer countries, as the fuels become cheaper.
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They are shoving treaties at us left right and centre, it's a nightmare trying to stop the bad treaties (like TTIP, TPP CETA, NAFTA, ACTA etc).
But all of a sudden when it comes to global warming, we can't agree on anything, funny that.
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But all of a sudden when it comes to global warming, we can't agree on anything, funny that.
Probably the rich people can't find anything that wouldn't impact their own luxury lifestyle.
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How do you get the entire world to agree on a tax?
Convince the entire world, that someone else will have to pay the tax, and that the entire world will be exempt from it.
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If you tax fossil fuels you also tax any imports for the fossil fuels that went into making and delivering them. Poorer countries don't use enough fossil fuels to matter much right now.
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A lot, and then, a lot more. How else do you stop fossil fuel usage, ask nicely?
Build more Nuclear power plants, make the licensing easier and less expensive, and pour funding into MSR technology and making Nuclear available more safely and at smaller scales. Create a tax on industrial complexes and power plants based on Net CO2 released.
Tax vehicle owners for the expected Net release of CO2 based on their registered vehicles, and for vehicles that burn fuel: regular emissions check, with mandato
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It's funny, but I remember hearing the same sort of comment back in the '70s during the energy crisis.
Oddly enough, it didn't seem to have worked out that way.
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And in the 50's they thought nuclear would provide energy "too cheap to meter".
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Renewable energy dominance is inevitable, solar energy is forecast to drop to 2c per kwh vs nuclear's 10c. Nuclear is not getting any cheaper. Wind turbines are getting taller and cheaper because there is a more consistent stronger supply of wind higher up and there is ongoing technical innovation. Wind is already going for under 4c per kwh without subsidy.
This is now:
Texas city opts for 100% renewable energy - to save cash, not the planet [theguardian.com]
Cheapest solar - SunEdison sells solar PV output at 5c/kWh ... [reneweconomy.com.au]
How Low [cleantechnica.com]
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yeah why don't you go tax a volcano because just one small eruption is millions of times larger in volume of CO than the entire world production of hydrocarbon fuels... I AM AN IDIOT..
FTFY. Human emissions of CO2 are about 100 times greater than volcanic emissions.
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volcano because just one small eruption is millions of times larger in volume of CO than the entire world production of hydrocarbon fuels...
I'm going to need a source here, because https://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm [skepticalscience.com] says that volcanoes produce about one percent of the world's CO2 emissions.
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yeah why don't you go tax a volcano because just one small eruption is millions of times larger in volume of CO than the entire world production of hydrocarbon fuels... [...]
I'm sorry, but that is simply unscientific nonsense. Human emissions are about 2 orders of magnitude greater than all volcanic emissions combined. None of the major volcanic eruptions of the last decades have left a significant blip in the CO2 curves. See e.g. the USGS [usgs.gov] on the issue.
Re:Meaningless goal (Score:5, Informative)
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Let's reword that... The people who make a living off this stuff disagree with you(him). Weird, right?
The money is in agreeing with you. Big Oil and the like are happy to pay scientists for studies which say that they can continue raping our ma.
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And even if we all of the sudden say "Stop everything, we're at 2 degrees!" and somehow manage to do it, it's not going to stop because we want it to just like that. It's not a static system.
The idea behind the 2 degree limit is that we stop sooner, and let the momentum continue to take it up, until it reaches a +2 degree steady state.
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The sea level rise is approximately 1 to 4 millmeters per year.
Something tells me there aren't a very large number of cities within a few inches of having to relocate.
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Citation needed.
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Here is an example : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org] (hunting quotas, protected species, ...)
The Nazis attached a high value to the land, which must be protected from both pollution and "inferior races".
They did think forward, after all, the third reich was supposed to last a full millennium. So yes, maybe some of their ideas were a bit misguided to say the least but they did think long term.
The anti-tobacco movement was another thing the Nazis did right : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
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Yes, and Ghenkis Khan also had a measurable effect on the environment, as forests regrew in the wake of his conquests:
http://carnegiescience.edu/new... [carnegiescience.edu]
But really, liberals and conservatives really want the same thing... more wealth by reducing the competition for resources. One proposes using economic market forces, the other proposes reducing the competition with military forces. Either way, we win. Unless you lose. But then, you're dead, so you're part of the solution, so... yay?!
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The issue isn't so much the proper temperature but the rate at which temperature is changing. The current rate of change is around 2 orders of magnitude greater than it was coming out of the last ice age.
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Heck, I'm going to go our on a limb and predict that we'll see at least seven or eight billion people die within the next century.