Climate Change

[Dr Jon]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about his crystal weaving superstitions.
Good point.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Can't really have a lot of respect for the opinions of a man who thinks he's a tampon.

 

[Dr Jon]

Yeah, forget about him - there are better things to worry about.

 

[ferrelhadley]

.

 

[Dr Jon]

Just seen
Lack of research linking climate change and floods is a 'scandal'

Of course there's been no investment. Government prefers to deny there's any problem, especially when such an admission would kipper the property development "industry" in areas like the Thames valley.


Anybody want to buy an exclusive riverside development in Abingdon?

Flooding may have shot up the political agenda but that hasn't stopped local planning authorities driving through housing developments in areas at severe risk of flooding.

link

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Climate change apart, the government are actively making the problem worse.

http://www.monbiot.com/2014/01/13/drowning-in-money/

 

[Dr Jon]

Talking of Government fuckwittery, I see that the USG is cutting funding to GHG monitoring, presumably in the belief that if people don't have this information, they can't complain about it...

 

[MikeMcc]

I see Tamino is back in fine form with some excellent analyses of temperature trend and arctic sea ice loss. The temperature trend article is especially surprising:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/global-temperature-the-post-1998-surprise/

 

[Dr Jon]

Google Earth interface for CRUTEM4 land temperature data

 

[teqniq]

Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war

From California to the Middle East, huge areas of the world are drying up and a billion people have no access to safe drinking water. US intelligence is warning of the dangers of shrinking resources and experts say the world is 'standing on a precipice'...

 

[Dr Jon]

CO2 growth highest on record

Despite many promises, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) continue to grow.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect this is one reason why funding for GHG monitoring is being cut...


ETA
Good editorial in the Graun.

 

[free spirit]

CO2 growth highest on record

Call me a cynic, but I suspect this is one reason why funding for GHG monitoring is being cut...

pretty shocking that we're still getting Co2 growth records, but that blog article and its graphs are a complete load of shite. You can't just go applying 3rd and 4th order polynomials to a graph for no good reason, then gasping in horror at the rate of the rise it shows a few years down the line - the line is a meaningless extrapolation.

 

[Dr Jon]

pretty shocking that we're still getting Co2 growth records, but that blog article and its graphs are a complete load of shite. You can't just go applying 3rd and 4th order polynomials to a graph for no good reason, then gasping in horror at the rate of the rise it shows a few years down the line - the line is a meaningless extrapolation.

While many welcomed the warning contained in the graph, some argued against using higher-order polynomial trendlines. So, for those who don't feel comfortable with a 4th-order polynomial trendline, the graph below adds both a linear trendline and a 3rd-order polynomial trendline.

The increase in CO₂ is not linear though:

source

Support CO2 and O2 Measurements at Scripps!

 

[ferrelhadley]

 

[Dr Jon]

*snip*

That whole series is worth watching.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

That whole series is worth watching.

Yes, it really is. Look at one of the institutions that some of the researchers are from: the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They are funded to do all sorts of things, and much of it isn't all that nice, nuclear weapon theory etc. It's a lab that isn't exactly a bunch of commie tree-huggers and yet they are worried too, taking a long view for national security. (Edit: probably not the individual scientists, the institution)

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

This one is the most alarming:

 

[Dr Jon]

Typical cheapskate Tory:
George Osborne wants climate change tackled as cheaply as possible

The chancellor told the modernisers that he accepts the need to tackle climate change but does not want to harm economic growth in the process.

Economic growth causes climate change you tosser.

 

[Left]

Why are people not screaming about this? Why is this not the biggest scandal in human history? If things continue as they are, human extinction is not just likely, it's inevitable within a few hundred years at the most. If we stop all emissions now we still face mass extinctions, millions of deaths, much of the world becoming uninhabitable, thousands or millions of years of unstable climate. Why are the deniers not total social pariahs? It's basic fucking physics and has been understood, and warned about, for nearly 150 years. What a fucking pathetic selfish bunch of apes we are. Maybe we deserve what's coming, but the rest of the planet doesn't. Fuck.

 

[gentlegreen]

Presumably this is the next mass extinction event - albeit a whimper rather than a bang.
Plant life mops up the CO2 and lays it down as fossil fuels all over again and some small creature evolves into our replacement.

 

[ferrelhadley]

If things continue as they are, human extinction is not just likely, it's inevitable within a few hundred years at the most.

Human extinction from climate change is extremely unlikely.

 

[Dr Jon]

We're losing 200 species per day.
What makes you think we're so different?

 

[Left]

Human extinction from climate change is extremely unlikely.

If warming gets above 2°C we don't know what could happen. With warming of 4-6°C human extinction is a real possibility. It becomes a certainty if emissions are not reduced in the next 50 years.

 

[ferrelhadley]

If warming gets above 2°C we don't know what could happen. With warming of 4-6°C human extinction is a real possibility. It becomes a certainty if emissions are not reduced in the next 50 years.

6 degrees may mean huge loss of life but I have never read anything indicating that it would result in extinction. I cannot think of any scenario for human extinction barring total Venus style runnaway and that is somewhere between extremely unlikely and impossible.

Mark Lynas 6 Degrees gives an over view of 6 degree world.

 

[Dr Jon]

Three paths to near-term human extinction

 

[ferrelhadley]

Three paths to near-term human extinction

McPherson is a clown.

 

[Dr Jon]

Yeah, really funny

 

[ferrelhadley]

Yeah, really funny

Lets see his peer reviewed work on the topic then, not this dog and pony show.

 

[Dr Jon]

I believe that the figures he quotes are from peer-reviewed sources, some of which are listed here:

Scientists Consider Extinction

 

[ferrelhadley]

I believe that the figures he quotes are from peer-reviewed sources, some of which are listed here:

Scientists Consider Extinction

So none, just currying the rather bland rice of other peoples work.