Why Climate Change Won't Matter in 20 Years

[The Garbone]

I think it is a goofy RO type setup.

Also it appears to be rather dodgy, I would worry about it getting swept overboard in a blow.

https://youtu.be/V6_oEmG7DzU

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Also the science is not settled and never will be.

Agreed, that is the gist of Thomas Kuhn's writings on paradigm shifts. However, we need to make some decisions based on the best evidence. And the best evidence supports AGW.

Just out

https://gmuchss.az1.qualtrics.com/CP...RR9lW0HjZaiVV3

Forbes Welcome

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Just out

https://gmuchss.az1.qualtrics.com/CP...RR9lW0HjZaiVV3

Why do you suppose the participation rate in the survey was only 53 percent, and what do you think would motivate an AMS member not to participate?

Do you think more skeptical or more concurring members would choose not to participate?

Do you think a survey in which only 53 percent of the requested participants participate yields valid results absent an evaluation of why so many didn't participate?

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Why do you suppose the participation rate in the survey was only 53 percent, and what do you think would motivate an AMS member not to participate?

Do you think more skeptical or more concurring members would choose not to participate?

Do you think a survey in which only 53 percent of the requested participants participate yields valid results absent an evaluation of why so many didn't participate?

I seldom try to ascribe motivations.

No idea - see my first comment.

See my first comment.

[markpierce]

Climate over the last ten thousand years has gotten warmer, with some ups and downs, and increasing CO2 levels are a godsend for plants and our food crops. That's a blessing. ... Global cooling is a great threat (think plague and starvation). Read your history. (Please excuse me for not reading the previous 72 pages.)

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by fryewe

Do you think a survey in which only 53 percent of the requested participants participate yields valid results absent an evaluation of why so many didn't participate?

This is twice the percentage that answered the previous AMS survey which deniers tried to quote mine.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full...S-D-13-00091.1

Heartland Institute email distorts American Meteorological Society study, admits it’s all about “spin” | Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by markpierce

Climate over the last ten thousand years has gotten warmer, with some ups and downs, and increasing CO2 levels are a godsend for plants and our food crops. That's a blessing. ... Global cooling is a great threat (think plague and starvation). Read your history. (Please excuse me for not reading the previous 72 pages.)

Read some science

There are optimal levels of just about anything

All was well and natural cycles did their part of keeping CO2 levels between 180 and 300 ppm for over 800,000 years. During that time human beings evolved and domesticated plants suitable to that environment. During that time natural cycles like the Milankovitch cycles, would trigger warming releasing CO2 resulting in a positive feedback. There was a stable system in equilibrium.

Then in the mid 18th century we increased anthropogenic carbon emissions from 3 million tonnes per annum to almost 10 billion tonnes per annum. We were the trigger that added CO2. That increased CO2 levels by about 40% to over 400 ppm, a level not seen for for 3 - 5 million years. That messed up the equilibrium and system is now unstable.

Increased CO2 in open environments leads to:
1) Increased predation by pests
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0800568105
2) Compromised nutritional value in food crops
doi:10.1038/nature13179


The last time atmospheric CO2 was at 400 parts per million was during the ancient Pliocene Era, three to five million years ago, and humans didn’t exist.
- Global average temperatures were 3 to 4 degrees C warmer than today (5.4 to 7.2 degrees F).
- Polar temperatures were as much as 10 degrees C warmer than today (18 degrees F).
- The Arctic was ice free.
- Sea level was between five and 40 meters higher (16 to 130 feet) than today.
- Coral reefs suffered mass die-offs.

“The extreme speed at which carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing is unprecedented. An increase of 10 parts per million might have needed 1,000 years or more to come to pass during ancient climate change events. Now the planet is poised to reach the 1,000 ppm level in only 100 years if emissions trajectories remain at their present level.”

+++++++++++++++++++++

Further back - 55 million years

During the PETM, around 5 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere per year. The Earth warmed around 6°C (11°F) over 20,000 years, although some estimates are that the warming was more like 9°C (16°F). Using the low end of that estimated range, the globe warmed around 0.025°C every 100 years. Today, the globe is warming at least ten times as fast, anywhere from 1 to 4°C every 100 years. In 2010, our fossil fuel burning released 35 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. In 1751, there was 10 million tonnes of anthropogenic CO2 released per annum. That is not sustainable.

+++++++++++++++++

Global cooling is not a threat.

The sun's activity is in free fall, according to a leading space physicist. But don't expect a little ice age. "Solar activity is declining very fast at the moment," Mike Lockwood, professor of space environmental physics at Reading University, UK, told New Scientist. "We estimate faster than at any time in the last 9300 years."
Lockwood and his colleagues are reassessing the chances of this decline continuing over decades to become the first "grand solar minimum" for four centuries. During a grand minimum the normal 11-year solar cycle is suppressed and the sun has virtually no sunspots for several decades. This summer should have seen a peak in the number of sunspots, but it didn't happen.
But Lockwood says we should not expect a new grand minimum to bring on a new little ice age.Human-induced global warming, he says, is already a more important force in global temperatures than even major solar cycles. "

++++++++++++++++

BTW - for some great history try The Great Warming by Brian Fagan.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Warming-...by+Brian+Fagan

[markpierce]

Sorry, Jack. You haven't convinced me. You've overlooked the Black Plague and years without summers. Millions starved or died of disease. Nearly destroying western civilization.

[transmitterdan]

Point of order...positive feedback results in unstable systems. Negative feedback is required to have a stable system.

[Reefmagnet]

Jack, are you suggesting humans would not have evolved if the climate hadn't changed from 5 million years ago? Also, do you think it's a mere coincidence that rise of human civilization coincided with the start of the present inter glacial period?

[The Garbone]

How does this all affect coffee and other commodity futures?

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Point of order...positive feedback results in unstable systems. Negative feedback is required to have a stable system.

Generally yes. However, I do like a positive feedback in my bank account.

I would not like the positive feedback found in melting permafrost generating methane emissions.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by The Garbone

How does this all affect coffee and other commodity futures?

As for coffee

Cultivation of the arabica coffee plant, staple of daily caffeine fixes and economic lifeline for millions of small farmers, is under threat from climate change as rising temperatures and new rainfall patterns limit the areas where it can be grown, researchers have warned.

Arabica, which has long been prized for its delicate and aromatic flavour, accounts for 70% of the global coffee market share. But it is particularly sensitive to temperature increases, which reduce its growth, flowering and fruiting and make it more susceptible to coffee pests.

With global temperatures forecast to increase by 2C-2.5C over the next few decades, a report predicts that some of the major coffee producing countries will suffer serious losses, reducing supplies and driving up prices.

Coffee catastrophe beckons as climate change threatens arabica plant | Global development | The Guardian

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Jack, are you suggesting humans would not have evolved if the climate hadn't changed from 5 million years ago? Also, do you think it's a mere coincidence that rise of human civilization coincided with the start of the present inter glacial period?

First question - no I am not suggesting that.

Second question - In my human geography, history and anthropology classes it was clear that there is no consensus as to the rise of civilization. One of them, the adversity theory of Arnold Toynbee, is somewhat counter to your suggestion.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by markpierce

Sorry, Jack. You haven't convinced me. You've overlooked the Black Plague and years without summers. Millions starved or died of disease. Nearly destroying western civilization.

Global cooling could be a problem, but it in not in the cards.

There will be no warming cooling resulting from a new solar minimum. So say the solar scientists.

One of the factors leading to the LIA was volcanism.

Meanwhile, there is still the idea of decreased radiation from the sun, as evidenced by, for example, a decline in visible spots on the sun during the period of the Little Ice Age. The researchers addressed that question by setting solar radiation at a constant level in their climate models. They said the simulations indicated that the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time.

Bottom line: What caused the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that’s generally agreed to have ended in the 19th century. One idea is that decreased radiation from the sun caused this period of widespread cooling on Earth. In early 2012, scientists at University of Colorado Boulder with co-authors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other organizations announced evidence suggesting that volcanoes caused the Little Ice Age. They used radiocarbon-dating of samples of dead plant material, collected from high northern latitudes, in combination with a computer model, to show that four massive volcanoes could have triggered the widespread cooling. Their study was being published in Geophysical Research Letters in January 2012.

What caused the Little Ice Age? | Earth | EarthSky

The Little Ice Age also saw the Age of Reason.

The Bubonic Plague is coincidental with the LIA, not caused by it.