Climate Emails Stoke Debate

[chenGOD]

So you don’t think that human activity has had an impact on climate, especially with respect to sea levels? I just want to be sure I understand your position. 

[goDel]

No disagreement on human impact on co2 levels. Just that the milankovitch parameters are way more important with respect to causing changes in climate. The Al Gore story about temperatures following the co2 levels is just bonkers. We would have been fried by now. Correlation is no causation.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact influence of humans on climate change. Any outcome will likely be within the margin of error, I'd argue. Just like the impact of any policy will have wrt reducing co2 levels. We're looking at this issue at timescales less than 100 years, which imo, is nonsense. Climate will keep on following milankovitch cycles and a next ice age will come eventually. Climate scientists in the 70s/early 80s of last century were even thinking we were already moving into the next one. As climate seemed to be getting colder at that point in time. Which only shows one of the big issues when it comes to following climate changes on a smaller timescale. There just isn't any model with 200 years of data which is sufficient in explaining what's going on, or predicting where we're heading. The best models in explaining climate change are based on the milankovitch parameters and cover periods 100K/millions of years.

As far as I'm concerned, science isn't there yet to explain changes in smaller timescales. At least, I haven't seen convincing evidence. They are trying though. But if the next decade will show a global cooling, which is a possibility, we can't explain why and worse, some might argue the next ice age might be coming (or some other end of the world scenario).

[may be rude]

6 minutes ago, goDel said:

No disagreement on human impact on co2 levels. Just that the milankovitch parameters are way more important with respect to causing changes in climate. The Al Gore story about temperatures following the co2 levels is just bonkers. We would have been fried by now. Correlation is no causation.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact influence of humans on climate change. Any outcome will likely be within the margin of error, I'd argue. Just like the impact of any policy will have wrt reducing co2 levels. We're looking at this issue at timescales less than 100 years, which imo, is nonsense. Climate will keep on following milankovitch cycles and a next ice age will come eventually. Climate scientists in the 70s/early 80s of last century were even thinking we were already moving into the next one. As climate seemed to be getting colder at that point in time. Which only shows one of the big issues when it comes to following climate changes on a smaller timescale. There just isn't any model with 200 years of data which is sufficient in explaining what's going on, or predicting where we're heading. The best models in explaining climate change are based on the milankovitch parameters and cover periods 100K/millions of years.

As far as I'm concerned, science isn't there yet to explain changes in smaller timescales. At least, I haven't seen convincing evidence. They are trying though. But if the next decade will show a global cooling, which is a possibility, we can't explain why and worse, some might argue the next ice age might be coming (or some other end of the world scenario).

doubling the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is going to cause a predictable affect. it's basic chemistry. some molecules convert more light into energy. this chart shows atmospheric concentration of 3 greenhouse gases, going back 2000 years. 

climates have been fairly stable at the thousand year scale. maybe not at the million year scale. we are destabilizing the biosphere. unpredictable, macroscopic chain reactions are being set in motion.

scientists agree that we are at the emergency point, now.

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by very honest

[goDel]

Quote

climates have been fairly stable at the thousand year scale. maybe not at the million year scale. we are destabilizing the biosphere. unpredictable, macroscopic chain reactions are being set in motion.

you have to take milankovitch cycles into account, to begin with. second, you're arguing it's predictable in terms of chemistry and unpredictable in terms of climate change. what is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

Quote

Artifacts taken from the Earth have been studied to infer the cycles of past climate. A study of the chronology of Antarctic ice cores using oxygen-nitrogen ratios in air bubbles trapped in the ice, which appear to respond directly to the local insolation, concluded that the climatic response documented in the ice cores was driven by northern hemisphere insolation as proposed by the Milankovitch hypothesis.^[8] Analysis of deep-ocean cores, analysis of lake depths,^[9][10] and a seminal paper by Hays, Imbrie, and Shackleton^[11] provide additional validation through physical artifacts. Climate records contained in a 1,700 ft (520 m) core of rock drilled in Arizona show a pattern synchronized with Earth's eccentricity, and cores drilled in New England match it, going back 215 million years.^[12]

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by goDel

[may be rude]

1 minute ago, goDel said:

you have to take milankovitch cycles into account, to begin with. second, you're arguing it's predictable in terms of chemistry and unpredictable in terms of climate change. what is it?

maybe it's more physics than chemistry. i think of it as largely chemistry because we're talking about a mixture of gases and the equation of predicting the affect of changes to the mixture. 

 

the question of which branch of science is most pertinent is beside the point. there are equations of predicting global temperature change based on increased greenhouse gas concentration. that's all these scientists do is try to calculate things with known principles, and they're unequivocal about what science says the result of increased greenhouse gas concentration is.

[goDel]

Look, I don't want to be the idiot pulling his middle finger while continuing to burn fossil fuel. Thing is, if you look at the research/evidence on milankovitch cycles, you'll notice there are still a number of issues. Stuff we can not explain well. Changes in climate which aren't explained properly. The important thing to take away from that, imo, is that these unexplainable changes were taking place long before we discovered oil. Or in other words, there are changes we still can't explain which are outside of human influence. I'd consider that a problem. Because, nowadays, any degree the climate gets hotter (or colder?) will be directly blamed on human activity. Which is nonsense. We're still not in a position to explain these changes properly.

[may be rude]

i think you've got some strawmen going on there.

• climate activists do not believe that all changes to climate are caused by greenhouse gas concentration
• scientists do not deny that other things affect climate

goDel, we are techno forum friends. it's ok to admit that maybe the global scientific community is correct when it continues to affirm, after long-enduring scrutiny, that the scope of increased greenhouse gas concentration would be expected to result in global temperature changes, like we are seeing.

Edited May 26, 2019 by very honest

[goDel]

1 minute ago, very honest said:

maybe it's more physics than chemistry. i think of it as largely chemistry because we're talking about a mixture of gases and the equation of predicting the affect of changes to the mixture. 

 

the question of which branch of science is most pertinent is beside the point. there are equations of predicting global temperature change based on increased greenhouse gas concentration. that's all these scientists do is try to calculate things with known principles, and they're unequivocal about what science says the result of increased greenhouse gas concentration is.

it's not an either/or thing. if there are equations predicting global temperatures based on greenhouse gasses, i'd argue those models are just as reliable as those in 2007 that predicted the economy would keep on growing and everything was going fine. all brilliant equations by brilliant people. which turned out wrong.

thing is, science is about explaining. predicting is mostly pseudo science. that's running the numbers and hoping that extrapolating patterns in the historical data will predict the future. Which is fine and all, but just like in 2007, it matters a lot which data you're using and how much history you take into account. there's no guarantee a model made on 2000 years worth of data will be useful the make any predictions. especially when the underlying causality is still not understood enough. That's not to argue greenhouse gasses aren't important. That's to argue we don't know how important. Because of the complexity. 

[may be rude]

10 minutes ago, goDel said:

it's not an either/or thing. if there are equations predicting global temperatures based on greenhouse gasses, i'd argue those models are just as reliable as those in 2007 that predicted the economy would keep on growing and everything was going fine. all brilliant equations by brilliant people. which turned out wrong.

thing is, science is about explaining. predicting is mostly pseudo science. that's running the numbers and hoping that extrapolating patterns in the historical data will predict the future. Which is fine and all, but just like in 2007, it matters a lot which data you're using and how much history you take into account. there's no guarantee a model made on 2000 years worth of data will be useful the make any predictions. especially when the underlying causality is still not understood enough. That's not to argue greenhouse gasses aren't important. That's to argue we don't know how important. Because of the complexity. 

the greenhouse gas principle is not controversial. it's kind of like arguing that putting another blanket on won't make you more warm. certain political factions (i won't name who) are manipulating people's lack of scientific experience, so they can continue getting financed by the oil people.

 

99% of scientists are saying this is a catastrophic emergency like humanity has not faced in recorded history. they reason up from the data. are you sure you want to reason backward from "who knows," while baselessly discounting the loud chorus from experts in the field, saying "there's not really any uncertainty, we know."

Edited May 26, 2019 by very honest

[goDel]

2 minutes ago, very honest said:

i think you've got some strawmen going on there.

• climate activists do not believe that all changes to climate are caused by greenhouse gas concentration
• scientists do not deny that other things affect climate

goDel, we are techno forum friends. it's ok to admit that maybe the global scientific community is correct when it continues to affirm, after long-enduring scrutiny, that the scope of increased greenhouse gas concentration would be expected to result in global temperature changes, like we are seeing.

look at the paris agreement. it's not a strawman to look at a global commitment to reducing co2 levels within the next x years in order to reduce global temperatures.

Quote

The Paris Agreement's long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels; and to limit the increase to 1.5 °C, since this would substantially reduce the risks and effects of climate change.

it's fine to do common sense stuff wrt to energy policies. i support those in a heartbeat. but the climate part of the agreement makes no sense to me, however. sorry. the idea humanity can limit the growth of the global average to 2C is just silly. that's not going to happen. regardless of the policy. which, i'd argue, is also way beyond what the science community says.

[goDel]

1 minute ago, very honest said:

the greenhouse gas principle is not controversial. it's kind of like arguing that putting another blanket on won't make you more warm. certain political factions (i won't name who) are manipulating people's lack of scientific experience, so they can continue getting greased by the oil people.

 

99% of scientists are saying this is a catastrophic emergency like humanity has not faced in recorded history. they reason up from the data. are you sure you want to reason backward from "who knows," while baselessly discounting the loud chorus from experts in the field, saying "there's not really any uncertainty, we know."

i think we have to be specific about what 99% (or 97%) of the science community actually says. because i believe there is a lot of confusion about that. they agree we caused a rise in co2 levels, i'm sure. greenhouse gas principle as well. and i wasn't claiming the opposite, btw. in my experience, people often say you shouldn't be sceptical because all the scientists agree. without actually knowing what they agree on. and where they don't agree. 

isn't it obvious that climate is influenced by both those milankovitch cycles and greenhouse gas principles (and perhaps some more processes)? it's not an either/or. and if that's obvious, any model explaining (or predicting) something should contain all those principles, i'd argue. a model purely based on the greenhouse gas principle is limited.

[may be rude]

26 minutes ago, goDel said:

look at the paris agreement. it's not a strawman to look at a global commitment to reducing co2 levels within the next x years in order to reduce global temperatures.

it's fine to do common sense stuff wrt to energy policies. i support those in a heartbeat. but the climate part of the agreement makes no sense to me, however. sorry. the idea humanity can limit the growth of the global average to 2C is just silly. that's not going to happen. regardless of the policy. which, i'd argue, is also way beyond what the science community says.

 

 

if the wording of that non-binding agreement did not go out of its way to acknowledge that other things affect climate too, i think you're off-base to conclude that the agreement asserts that idea. the writers of the agreement obviously considered it implicit that they were not discussing other possible causes at this time, and were discussing the known cause.

 

this is what climate deniers look like to the rest of us:

• scientists say greenhouse gas concentration increase will cause global warming
• there is greenhouse gas concentration increase
• there is global warming
• it's not caused by greenhouse gas concentration increase, because i just don't think so
• it's caused by something else

Edited May 26, 2019 by very honest

[goDel]

Quote

The aim of the agreement is to decrease global warming described in its Article 2, "enhancing the implementation" of the UNFCCC through:^[16]

(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;

(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;

(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

(d) This strategy involved energy and climate policy including the so called 20/20/20 targets, namely reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (by 20%), the increase of RES(renewables) share (to 20% on the basis of consumption)^[17] and the increase of energy efficiency, thus, saving up to 20% in the energy consumption

Countries furthermore aim to reach "global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible". The agreement has been described as an incentive for and driver of fossil fuel divestment.^[18][19]

The Paris deal is the world's first comprehensive climate agreement.^[20]

The agreement assumes a level of impact on climate change we can't predict. 

Again, I'm all for a global energy deal. And a global less-polution/improved sustainability deal. A global climate deal, no. If that makes you think I'm in the box of climate change deniers, or that strawman/stereotype you mentioned, well, that's sad. As that's not a good representation of my thinking. But if you want to stereotype me that way, the joke's on you, I guess.

I do think however, this way of thinking is part of why people are more and more going into extreme groups in the political sphere. Just put a label on the other side of the argument, and voila. We've won the argument.

Nothing against you, mr very honest. I just hope it's OK that i'm a bit of a sceptic wrt climate policies. 

 

[may be rude]

23 minutes ago, goDel said:

isn't it obvious that climate is influenced by both those milankovitch cycles and greenhouse gas principles (and perhaps some more processes)?

i wouldn't be surprised if the milankovitch cycles affect temperature. you can kind of see the 100k year periodicity in the second section from the right, below.

 

so, sure. i will concede to you that, over the course of a hundred thousand years, we will need to be aware of that cycle that could vary temperatures by 5 - 10 degrees fahrenheit.

 

now, look at this chart of the last two thousand years:

 

 

what does that sudden spike at the end remind you of? does it fit the pattern of the milankovitch cycles? no. it fits the greenhouse gas concentration chart

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by very honest

[may be rude]

6 minutes ago, goDel said:

The agreement assumes a level of impact on climate change we can't predict. 

Again, I'm all for a global energy deal. And a global less-polution/improved sustainability deal. A global climate deal, no. If that makes you think I'm in the box of climate change deniers, or that strawman/stereotype you mentioned, well, that's sad. As that's not a good representation of my thinking. But if you want to stereotype me that way, the joke's on you, I guess.

I do think however, this way of thinking is part of why people are more and more going into extreme groups in the political sphere. Just put a label on the other side of the argument, and voila. We've won the argument.

Nothing against you, mr very honest. I just hope it's OK that i'm a bit of a sceptic wrt climate policies. 

 

 

hehe. i didn't call you a climate denier. you're right, your view is more nuanced than my description of a climate denier. i appreciate you hashing out the issue with me

[goDel]

10 minutes ago, very honest said:

i wouldn't be surprised if the milankovitch cycles affect temperature. you can kind of see the 100k year periodicity n the second section from the right, below.

 

so, sure. i will concede to you that, over the course of a hundred thousand years, we will need to be aware of that cycle that could vary temperatures by 5 - 10 degrees fahrenheit.

now, look at this chart of the last two thousand years:what does that sudden uptick remind you of? does it fit the pattern of the milankovitch cycles? no. it fits the greenhouse gas concentration chart

First: look at the scales of the x and y axes on all the charts you've posted. the milankovitch cycles chart has different scales on the x-axis. which distorts the image and therefore what you read into it.

The hockeystick curves: in the last graph you have two different y's and both of them don't start at zero. Which is important to notice when trying to understand what you're looking at and how big the effect is. It basically makes the spike appear bigger than it is. which is unnecessary btw, as even with the y-axes starting at 0, the spike would still be visible. although less pronounced.

And wrt respect to the hockey stick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

Which is basically what the threadstarter was about as well. Apart from scientific controversy, it's a highly politicised issue. Obviously. And as such, I'm merely a sceptic. Which is based on a number of issues already explained. Apart from ignoring evidence on other factors influencing climate change (milankovitch), and starting at year 0, it looks at smaller differences as well.

So the focus is on the last 2000 years and differences of .5 degrees instead of the 5-10 F of the milankovitch cycle. You should ask yourself how fast climate has changed on average in the last 250 mln years (how many years did it take to change 5F). And than look at those other charts. Is that hockeystick noise, or evidence of an outlier. My argument would be that we actually don't know. And can't know. Simply because the differences in timescale. 

 

[goDel]

42 minutes ago, very honest said:

 

Also, this chart comes from the wiki page about the little ice age. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)

It doesn't specify the meaning of those different lines. That thick black line is that the global average temperature measured from 1800? Those other lines seem to get stuck around 0 at the year 2000. Without the black line, the hockeystick is basically gone as those other lines have returned to pre-little ice age levels. Perhaps i'm reading this wrong, but i haven't seen  a good explanation other than "different studies".

Also from that page:

Quote

Possible causes[edit]

Scientists have tentatively identified seven possible causes of the Little Ice Age: orbital cycles; decreased solar activity; increased volcanic activity; altered ocean current flows;^[76] fluctuations in the human population in different parts of the world causing reforestation, or deforestation; and the inherent variability of global climate.

Yeah, tentatively. Or in other words, we're still doing research because we don't know. (here comes that question again on what the scientific community currently broadly agrees, because it's still not clear to me, tbh.) 

If you want to continue this discussion, that's fine. But I hope you at least understand my scepticism by now. You don't have to agree with me or anything. I mean, I'm more in the I don't know camp. But that's a camp that's different to the "believe in climate policies" camp. 

With respect to the political side of the debate, I'd prefer to talk about policies about energy and the environment. If government could come to agreements on those issues I'm happy. Policies with respect to climate change however seems rather cartoon like in its understanding of climate change itself. Especially when you consider politics works in 4-year cycles. Every 4 years there's another government. 4 years. That's nothing in milankovitch cycles. Politics and climate change is a silly combination.

 

[dingformung]

 

30 minutes ago, goDel said:

we're still doing research because we don't know. (here comes that question again on what the scientific community currently broadly agrees, because it's still not clear to me, tbh.) 

The scientific community broadly agrees on the existence of a human-caused global warming. Glad I could help

[Enthusiast]

34 minutes ago, goDel said:

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Going to stick with the 97% of climate scientists on this one.

[Braintree]

Lone Man On Internet Proves World's Leading Climate Scientists Wrong

[goDel]

yeah. great work guys. critical thinking is big around here. ;)

[Brisbot]

I don't try to think too hard about it. If a great majority of the people who study the climate say human induced global warming is going to be the end of us  is a thing then I'll believe them. Scientists also brought me this smart phone that mostly wastes my time and (directly and indirectly) brought us the wonderful world of nuclear weapons and the constant fear of nuclear war.. and airplanes.... and wireless drills. So I figure they're good for it when it comes to their consensuses.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Brisbot

[chenGOD]

I’m just gonna post this and run as I’m driving back from Detroit. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/?redirect=1

[auxien]

[Brisbot]

1 hour ago, chenGOD said:

I’m just gonna post this and run as I’m driving back from Detroit. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/?redirect=1

That's what you get i guess when a bunch of borderline sociopathic 50-90 year old  CEOs who just wanna make a lot of money before they die. Reminds me of that article from a few years back on Trump purposely building and walling up his golf courses in areas slated to be more impacted by climate change.

Quote

Experts, however, aren’t terribly surprised. “It’s never been remotely plausible that they did not understand the science,” says Naomi Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University. But as it turns out, Exxon didn’t just understand the science, the company actively engaged with it.

lol. This is one of those things people intuitively know but actual evidence from an investigations just confirms the obvious. I'm impressed with how well their propaganda works actually.

This is a bit of conspiratorial thinking on my part, but I wonder if these are the types of people behind the "No Child Left Behind"  education reform, which essentially lowers the bar and the quality of education for many kids outside of the honors courses. President Bush pushed for it and got it through congress, so it makes sense to me.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Brisbot