Sunday, August 23, 2015

Open Thread - Meta Climate Division

Some things which caught Eli's Eye, but, it being summer, only a few comments from the meadow are likely.

- Andy Revkin don't take criticism lightly and is not above manipulating a few words to benefit his self image.  As the bunnies may remember, Andy blog posted an unsolicited review of the Hansen, et al we (or at least our grandkids) may die unless we do something paper, and both Eli, and Hansen, et al, had some comments on Andy's review.   

We were aware of those papers but included in our discussion only those mechanisms that could plausibly account for the relevant geological features. Our overall objective, improved insight about the threat of sea level rise and storminess posed by global warming, requires integrated analysis of information from paleoclimate and geologic studies, global modeling, and observations of modern climate change – together constituting a substantial undertaking. Thus we limited marginally pertinent material to avoid an unacceptably long paper. 
Which pretty much aligns with dsquared's comment on Twitter:  "devastating critique" is my word for when half-bright self-appointed science police get on the case of actual researchers.  Not that there aren't issues with this paper.  Hansen's POV is that Weitzman was right and what bunnies should be concerned about are the outliers, and here they are.  One may argue that he doesn't balance enough (on the other hand, that maybe Gentleman Jim is leaving this for others like Matty Hoerling).

Of course, Andy Revkin is defined by his control of NYTimes real estate, and he is not one to leave sleeping bunnies lie on the the beach when he can control the dialog.  In a rather meandering apologia he highlights his piece, buries the first submitted solicited review from David Archer, in the 10th paragraph or so, and highlights in the first a later, more critical review from Peter Thorne in the first paragraph.  Make, no mistake, both the Archer and Thorne reviews were professional and useful to both the handling editor, the authors and current and later readers of the paper.

Archer's bottom line is that there are warts, but "This is another Hansen masterwork of scholarly synthesis, modeling virtuosity, and insight, with profound implications".  Both Archer and Thorne have problems with the sprawling nature of the paper.  Archer concludes " Due to its important conclusions, primarily about the ice sheet melting climate feedback, I expect this paper will be widely read, but it will make its readers work for it".  Thorne, OTSH is really uncomfortable with the food fight that broke out and the length of the paper "The paper is of inordinate length closer to a thesis than a scientific paper in nature", and really really uncomfortable with the voice of the paper and the blog post like advocacy that he sees.

Both reviews, as well as the paper, deserve serious discussion.  On balance (there Eli goes again), Thorne has a strong argument that the paper may fit Climate of the Past better.

But the best part of Andy's review of the review, is his "re-outing" tamino and walking it back
One last thought. Perhaps Tamino can step out from behind the shield of anonymity (which too often fuels vitriol) and confirm if he is indeed Grant Foster (quoted on Climate Central).* Foster has published quite a bit on climate, including with Stefan Rahmstorf, a leader of that 2014 review of experts on sea-level rise that is a far cray from what the new paper is projecting. 
And we are both musicians, it seems. Although that perhaps doesn’t go well with the rigor “Tamino” requires in paper reviewers. 
Footnote, July 30, 11:30 p.m. | * I added a link to an Open Mind post in which the blogger known as Tamino acknowledges he is Grant Foster.
From this Eli concludes that Andy Revkin will defend his position in the nomenklatura to the last barrel of ink.

87 comments:

Anonymous said...

What made you include an image of the Fomalhaut b system in this post?

EliRabett said...

It's a visual pun, you know Eli

Unknown said...

Love it Eli but would have totally missed it if not for attp. Great image

Anonymous said...

you know Eli
Ahhh, I should have guessed.

Bernard J. said...

"... really really uncomfortable with the voice of the paper and the blog post like advocacy that he sees."

The short of it is that we're well past the time when scientists actually need to put forward more than a dry 6-8 page paper with no emotion. Nothing else has registered sufficiently on the global radar to keep on an even future keel the edifice of civilisation and the pursuit of knowledge. It's one thing to be objective and impartial, but it's another to go down with the Titanic without even taking a deep breath.

The very future of the only biosphere in the known universe is at stake. If that means the traditional publication formats needs a bit more reinforcement, scientists in general should ponder on why matters have reached the stage where this is necessary and policy makers too should ponder the very same thing. Rather than pinging Hansen et al they should be asking what their own messages and advice lack.

Revkin? Well, he's sat on the fence long enough in order to hedge his bets for a few more $, or attention, or whatever is his personal motivation, and he's cemented his place in history as having allied with something other than the pressing underlying facts. Curry-lite. Redundant fluff. A road-block. Time to go... Andy.

Tom said...

The future of the biosphere is at stake?

And yet some object to the use of the term 'alarmist.'

luminous beauty said...

Tom:

"Alarmist" is commonly construed to mean an outcry of alarm where little or no threat exists. If you can show irrefutable evidence that 2C or more of global warming represents an insignificant threat to the biosphere, we'd all love to see it.

Anonymous said...

Let's generalize:

The future of big thing B is at stake? Yet some object to the use of the descriptor D.

Replace "D" by all the words Groundskeeper Willie has ripped off his shirt over on a daily basis.

Victor Venema said...

We need a better quality of mitigation sceptics.

Tom, an alarmist is someone who habitually raises alarm. Here we have a real problem at hand.

(A problem that is perfectly solvable, but that some do not want to solve. It is the latter that is cause for alarm.)

jgnfld said...

VV...You mean like: "If we do anything about the climate the economy will be immediately destroyed?"

Victor Venema said...

John Garland, yes there is much alarmism in the fear-based community.

Susan Anderson said...

Others have noted that Tom identifies the form rather than the content as matter for criticism. The attitude of alarm is a response to alarming facts, and the truth is a fine defense.

I put the comment I meant to include in the earlier article, so will only link it here. I've been having a personal war with Revkin on the issue at hand, exacerbated by the fact that the NYTimes has no other coverage of the Hansen material, which deserves not to be annexed to Andy's hobbyhorse and opinions.

Revkin Steals Hansen to Make His Own Point

Barton Paul Levenson said...

The biosphere is not in danger, in the sense that some form of life will very likely survive the coming catastrophe, and eventually (say, in ten million years) we'll have a verdant world and much animal life again. But "a biosphere that can support our civilization" is very much in danger.

Aaron said...

I am not an "alarmist", I just tell the truth too soon.

The Ice Sheet- Sea Level - Water Vapor System is not just a non-linear feedback system, it is for some practical purposes, discontinuous. As in, I once stepped onto a small glacier, and it slide out from under me, leaving me hanging from my belay. In minutes, it had slide down the valley, over a cliff and landed in a pile in the valley far below. It had been a block of ice, but in the summer of 1998, it behaved like a large slab avalanche. Navier-Stokes equations cannot predict such behaviors. Big ice can do the same thing, only the valley below is the ocean. It is just a matter of having enough energy in the ice to allow stress fractures to extend.

Hansen's geologic SLR events occurred under lesser and slower forcing, and now we have greater and faster forcing. Discontinuous processes are devilishly hard to scale to changes in both magnitude and time scale of forcing. I admire Hansen's group. They are optimists.

The only thing that I would suggest is that their group needs a few structural engineers, and maybe a couple of old Alaskan mine engineers.

Blogger profile said...

"If you can show irrefutable evidence that 2C or more of global warming represents an insignificant threat"

Hell, the retarded little clown would ALSO have to show that we are capable of stopping it at 2C as well.

So far, fuck all done to stop. The screeching from deniers is getting even more ridiculous to make it painful for anyone to do anything about it, since even discussion is drowned out by the frothing maniacs.

Everett F Sargent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bernard J. said...

Tom, what Barton said.

I'm an ecologist and I think in terms of ecosystems. A 5 °C warming of the planet will FUBAR the biosphere as we know it, will cause the 6th (identified) "great extinction" event, and lead to a biodepauperate Earth for many millions of years.

In a 5 °C world there will certainly be no place for a globally-dominant human civilisation, nor indeed for much more than a few localised foci of humans living at a level much less than we enjoy today. Between the loss of the low hanging fruit of energy resources, the destruction of ecosystem functions (including agricultural functions), the perturbation of population location (ie, migration of climate refugees), the spread of disease to naïve locations/populations of humans/economic species, and other such phenomena, the complexity on which our Western civilisation is predicated will fail.

Sustained technological civilisation is thermodynamically like space travel. It has basically a single chance of happening across the evolutionary life of an intelligent species. A healthy global ecosystem and abundant, easily-sourced energy are the reactants and ingenuity is the catalyst. With these we have overcome the activation energy required to shift from a pre-technological society X to a technological one, Y. However we have removed from the system - or are a large part of the way to doing so - the two essential reactants in the equilibrium. Without these the energetic jolt provided by the counterveiling chaos (2nd law) of a disintegrating system will shift the equilibrium from Y back to X, but without the chance of going back to Y because of the absence of the essential initial reactants. Reactants that will not regenerate within the evolutionary lifespan of this partiuclar 'intelligent' species.

So, I'm talking about the world in which we live, and its future. We're kicking 7 colours of snot out of it, and the results will be alarming, to say the least, if we continue on that trajectory. And I have no problem at all with sticking my neck out and saying so.

If you want to make a thing out of me doing so feel free to, but please provide your reasoning for why I am wrong, rather than just using your (ironically) scare quoted "alarmist" meme in an attempt to discredit my message - your use of such is simply the employment of a logical fallacy.

Tom said...

You people feed off of each others' statements and whip yourselves into a (very polite, in Susan's case) frenzy.

Bernard J, anthropogenic contributions to climate change are far too recent to be a significant cause of the very real disruptions to biodiversity. If we wreck the planet's ecosystem it will be via habitat disruption, pollution, introduction of alien species and over-fishing/over-hunting. Species the world over are reacting to current climate change (no matter the cause) in the same way they have reacted to previous period of climate change--by adapting their migratory and breeding patterns. To say otherwise is to do violence to the evidence produced on a daily basis by your colleagues.

BP--don't ever change.

BPL--you're hysterical. The IPCC says that 4.5C of climate change is set to cost up to 5% of GDP. The worst case predictions of forced relocation due to climate change are about 3% of projected population. Compare that to the 8% who were dislocated by WWII. The mechanical dissolution of WAIS may indeed be accelerated by a couple of decades if the water lapping at its shores continues to warm. But it will still play out over a two-century timescale. During all of this, ecologists, biologists, demographers and other scientists working with the IPCC continue to project growth of global population and GDP.

Our mission is to quit destroying the habitat by conventional measures while we convert to cleaner fuel sources.

Your raving hysteria does not help.

Nobody--outside of blog comment deliria--is anticipating the destruction of the world's biome or its human population due to human-caused climate change.

Quite being silly and grow up.

Anonymous said...

Tom,
Some kind of link illustrating where the IPCC says the cost will be up to 5% of GDP for 4.5C of warming. All I can find is

With these recognized limitations, the incomplete estimates of global annual economic losses for additional temperature increases of ~2°C are between 0.2 and 2.0% of income (±1 standard deviation around the mean) (medium evidence, medium agreement). Losses are more likely than not to be greater, rather than smaller, than this range (limited evidence, high agreement). Additionally, there are large differences between and within countries. Losses accelerate with greater warming (limited evidence, high agreement), but few quantitative estimates have been completed for additional warming around 3°C or above. Estimates of the incremental economic impact of emitting carbon dioxide lie between a few dollars and several hundreds of dollars per tonne of carbon (robust evidence, medium agreement). Estimates vary strongly with the assumed damage function and discount rate.

which does not appear at all consistent with what you've said.

Anonymous said...

Since Tom thinks the IPCC is the ultimate authority, here's what it says about mitigation

Under these assumptions, mitigation scenarios that reach atmospheric concentrations of about 450 ppm CO2eq by 2100 entail losses in global consumption— not including benefits of reduced climate change as well as co-benefits and adverse side-effects of mitigation — of 1 % to 4% (median: 1.7%) in 2030, 2% to 6% (median: 3.4%) in 2050, and 3% to 11% (median: 4.8%) in 2100 relative to consumption in baseline scenarios that grows anywhere from 300 % to more than 900 % over the century. These numbers correspond to an annualized reduction of consumption growth by 0.04 to 0.14 (median: 0.06) percentage points over the century relative to annualized consumption growth in the baseline that is between 1.6 % and 3 % per year.

Tom said...

Venemous Victor,I posted a very polite and on point description of why I was not a mitigation skeptic at your weblog some time ago. You didn't see fit to post it and you continue to use the same label for me.

So bugger off.

Anonymous said...

Venemous Victor

I posted a very polite

So bugger off.

Just saying.

Blogger profile said...

"You people feed off of each others' statements and whip yourselves into a frenzy."

It's always projection with the denier morons, isn't it.

Tom said...

https://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/on-climate-change-vox-populi-is-not-vox-dei/

Blogger profile said...

"which does not appear at all consistent with what you've said."

Of *course* not, Tom is *lying*.

Right out of his ass. Which is conveniently (for him) located on his shoulders.

Blogger profile said...

"Just saying."

Remember: it's always projection with denier idiots.

Blogger profile said...

"thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com"

And now shilling for your denier blogroll. Classy.

And cod latin too? Tell me, do you have Graves as well?

And here's something you morons never understand: reality will lead to consensus on what exists.

If you do not want to understand consensus, then read the IPCC and accept their conclusions BASED ON ALL THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE.

Blogger profile said...

"BP--don't ever change."

I've already stayed the same as you requested.

However, you don't seem to understand that you haven't, despite my request.

PS I am unclear as to why you exhort me not to change. Since you don't change yourself, this must be some laudatory exclamation that you feel compelled to make to thank me for my cogent and accurate statements when they are so frequent and on the point.

I am quite happy that you feel I should continue to be concise, accurate and helpful, but you do not need to continue to request I do so. It is already being done

Blogger profile said...

"RC3: It's the Titanic of climate science papers,"

Well I figure your diseased and broken mad mind considers this in the light of the accident, but you feel unable to remember that this was a catastrophe, and this doesn't really gel well with your denier canard of "There's no CAGW!!!!", especially wrt Hansen (whose 1988 paper was, despite all denier cherry picking and lying about was really very accurate indeed).

You also don't seem to be aware that it was ENGINEERS who designed it, not scientists. You know, engineers, who comprise most of the "PhD" and "scientists" of your denier pay pals.

And that this was a marvel of engineering destroyed by human failure to change course when there was a risk of catastrophe.

So all in all your use of Titanic here is appropriate but in the complete opposite direction you probably thought of.

Typical denier full-bore bore boring into their own foot.

Bernard J. said...

"Bernard J, anthropogenic contributions to climate change are far too recent to be a significant cause of the very real disruptions to biodiversity. If we wreck the planet's ecosystem it will be via habitat disruption, pollution, introduction of alien species and over-fishing/over-hunting."

Tom Fuller, I've had this discussion with you on more than one occasion, so the fact that I am having it again indicates that we're both hard of learning - you of the scientific facts, and me of the simple truth that you will never listen to science.

I've repeatedly told you myself that those other factors are profound threats. I listed them for you years ago on one of Bart Verheggen's threads, and elsewhere prior to that. Jeff Harvey entered the fray on the subject too. The problem is that climate change is a game changer - the other pressures are local, or more targeted, or at least partly reversibly, but global warming is an assault that will profoundly compound the effects of the other factors, and in many cases simply overwhelm them in its magnnitude of effect.

Also, it's worth pointing out that you've just engaged another* logical fallacy. The issue wasn't about the current threats to biodiversity, but the separate insipient challenge of climate change, which steps thing up by orders of magnitude. But nice go at muddying the waters.


[*It wouldn't be a real Tom Fuler post if a logical fallacy of one sort or another wasn't paraded...]

Tom said...

Bernard J, the fact that we're having this discussion again is proof only that you are committed to your cause and won't allow anything like facts get in your way.

There is no way that over the course of this century climate change will have a larger impact on biodiversity than the other devastating acts of carelessness and selfishness we are committing now and will continue committing in the future as the population rises.

Your misplaced emphasis on climate change sucks energy out of what should be the focus of all those who care for this planet--reducing the impacts of habitat loss, pollution, introduction of alien species and over hunting and over fishing.

You continuously whine your selfish whine 'My hobby horse must come first' even though it is an asterisk in current events. It is now that we should be mitigating our other actions.

If you idiots get your way there will be no biosphere left to save by the time climate change actually does roll in.

cRR Kampen said...

There's one Tom, walking over the dead Fertile Crescent (ha, ha) bodies crying heaven.

But I must say the IPCC is almost with him. Not recognizing the million or more climate change dead already realized, the millions fleeing the Fertile Crescent (-40% precip structurally plus hyperdroughts), the tens of millions moving up, homeless, from the Bangladeshi coast, the millions that have begun moving away from the Sahel.
Sao Paulo is next, then California.

IPCC, "... but few quantitative estimates have been completed for additional warming around 3°C or above. Estimates of the incremental economic impact of emitting carbon dioxide lie between a few dollars and several hundreds of dollars per tonne of carbon (robust evidence, medium agreement). Estimates vary strongly with the assumed damage function and discount rate."
doesn't realize at all, with it happening in plain sight right now even, how increasing stress on a connected system results in unpredictable but sudden, total failure of such a system. In this case, the global society, as globally connected it has become entirely.

Mediterranean refugee troubles, just a small beginning, ain't seen nothing yet. But it's easy to guess what kind of near future is in store.

BBD said...

WRT ecosystem impacts of climate change, Tom F gives us another masterclass in denialism.

Bravo, Tom.

Has it ever occurred to you that the ecologists (the experts) might know what they are talking about and you might have your head up your backside? Because if not, now might be a suitable moment for reflection.

BBD said...

There is no way that over the course of this century climate change will have a larger impact on biodiversity than the other devastating acts of carelessness and selfishness we are committing now and will continue committing in the future as the population rises.

How do you know, Tom? You are a layman and a layman in denial at that. Your absolute certainty is built on nothing at all.

Your misplaced emphasis on climate change sucks energy out of what should be the focus of all those who care for this planet--reducing the impacts of habitat loss, pollution, introduction of alien species and over hunting and over fishing.

Ah, The Lomborgian false dilemma. Now, what did Bernard J write above and you totally ignore? This:

The problem is that climate change is a *game* changer - the other pressures are local, or more targeted, or at least partly reversibly, but global warming is an assault that will profoundly compound the effects of the other factors, and in many cases simply overwhelm them in its magnnitude of effect.



Anonymous said...

Furthermore, according to the IPCC (Tom's font of all knowledge) mitigation of climate change might reduce consumption growth by 0.14%. Is Tom really suggesting that we can address all these other issues (which are important, I agree) in a world growing at 3%, but not in a world growing at only 2.86%? Maybe that small difference is crucial, but it seems rather unlikely to me.

Barton Paul Levenson said...

Tom: The IPCC says that 4.5C of climate change is set to cost up to 5% of GDP.

BPL: Then the IPCC is wrong.

Tom: Your raving hysteria does not help.

BPL: Nor does your contemptuous dismissal of real science.

Tom: Nobody--outside of blog comment deliria--is anticipating the destruction of the world's biome or its human population due to human-caused climate change.

BPL: Neither am I. I do, however, expect the destruction of global civilization, a somewhat lesser threat, but still worrisome.

Tom: Quite [sic] being silly and grow up.

BPL: Quit being a fatuous blog poster and study some climate science so you can comment intelligently on it. I'd suggest you start by getting a copy of J.T. Houghton's "The Physics of Atmospheres" or Grant Petty's "A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation." Both would be ideal. Read through them and work all the problems. Then come back and give us your views.

Tom said...

CRR Kampen, 1 million climate dead? Citation, please. As for migration, https://thelukewarmersway.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/zombie-climate-scare-stories-37-and-38-mass-migration-and-syrian-drought/. Come back when you're numerate.

BBD, it's funny how you try and change when you're away from the Dulltoid cesspit. Too bad the stench doesn't go away.

ATTP, I guess Danny Thomas hasn't been occupying enough of your time. I 'struggle to understand' your desire to even engage with the likes of him or me. You so often complain that you are tired of it.

Too bad (if too typical) that you miss the entire point. I'm not suggesting we lack the resources to do 'all of the above.' I'm stating that you are misdirecting and misallocating resources. President Obama said that in his presidency the seas would stop rising. He didn't say anything about the rivers getting cleaner. His chosen horse to lead the climate charge did pretty much exactly the opposite of cleaning rivers, sadly.

Everett F Sargent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cRR Kampen said...

No citation, Tom - I do not do work for climate revisionists only to get abused for it. You are thugs and you exist for my amusement only - esp. that day when I will kick you back into the floodwaters you helped create.

You can look it all up yourself.

BBD said...

Tom

Stop being evasive please.

Where is the expert basis for your certainty?

Eg:

I'm stating that you are misdirecting and misallocating resources.

And who the heck are you, Tom, to be doing all this stating?

Everybody else understands that climate change is the force-multiplier of ecological problems and so in absolute terms, the most important fundamental that needs to be addressed.




BBD said...

Anyone else here think that Tom's claim above is both false and self-serving?

Your misplaced emphasis on climate change sucks energy out of what should be the focus of all those who care for this planet--reducing the impacts of habitat loss, pollution, introduction of alien species and over hunting and over fishing.

Anyone know of any conservation projects actually halted or cancelled because of an 'emphasis on climate change'?

I certainly don't. Perhaps Tom is just bullshitting us again.

Blogger profile said...

"Where is the expert basis for your certainty?"

Himself.

Really, that's all he has: he thinks it, says it, it must be true. Otherwise the world is a scary place and the people he hates were right. And that CANNOT be right.

Blogger profile said...

"Anyone else here think that Tom's claim above is both false and self-serving?"

Anyone NOT think that?

Blogger profile said...

Tom F, the fact that we're having this discussion again is proof only that you are committed to your cause and won't allow anything like facts get in your way.

As, for example, the fact that you've been proven wrong on your claim of what the IPCC report says on the cost of warming.

Blogger profile said...

"Actually, the Titanic is an apt metaphor, for a "scientist" who makes ad hoc curve fitting "engineering" assumptions"

Such as Lomborg, Wegman, M&M, Watts, Monckfish, and every denier who proclaims that "it's all natural cycles" "proven" by ad hoc curve fitting "engineering" assumptions.

Not the IPCC or the papers that are the basis of the proof of AGW and the size of its effect. These all use GCMs which are absolutely the opposite of curve fitting.

Didn't you know that, "Serge"? What did you think the models were? Curve fitting, because that's what your denier pals use and you don't know any better? Did you come to a conclusion WITHOUT EVEN BOTHERING TO CHECK? Hell yes, of course you did. Because you are a gullible moron and will believe anything that keeps the world the way you think it is.

Because change is scary and you're a wailing little brat complaining that there are monsters under the bed because you're afraid to look.

Just as well you're wearing incontipants for your old age problem.

Anonymous said...

Tom,
I 'struggle to understand' your desire to even engage with the likes of him or me. You so often complain that you are tired of it.
Well, yes, but sometimes I do do things that I regard as a waste of time.

Too bad (if too typical) that you miss the entire point.
No, I don't think I do, but I'm pretty sure you do. For example, you stated something about what the IPCC said without providing any evidence. The only thing I could find appeared to contradict what you'd said. You seem to have moved on without clarifying. Given that you probably won't get my point, I'll explain it. You appear to base your views on completely incorrect and made up information. How can anyone take you seriously when you do that, even if not all that you say is nonsense.

You also appear to spend a lot of time being rude while claiming to have been polite. This is a remarkable level of lack of self-awareness. You'd go up in my estimation of you owned your behaviour, rather than contradicting yourself in a single comment.

I'm stating that you are misdirecting and misallocating resources.
Since I'm not directing or allocating any resources (apart from my own) this is clearly nonsense. You seem to be proving my point, intentionally or not.

Hank Roberts said...

> "a far cray"

Typo, quoted or mis-transcribed, unless Eli bought an antique supercomputer.

> Tom and Luke

When the rodeo clown is leaping and fluttering about the bullring, you can be sure the matador is flat on his ass in the dust cloud somewhere and needs the distraction to get back on his feet.

Pity it's so very easy to get distracted from the real target.

Hank Roberts said...

PS for Eli: know any scientists who may find they have any leverage with the reCAPTCHA people?

reCAPTCHA should use "recognize the bogus claims" as a challenge, on science-based blogs.

Inspired by Greg Laden: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/wp-content/blogs.dir/472/files/2014/02/Watts_v_Galileo_not_the_same-150x150.png

BBD said...

Hank Roberts

reCAPTCHA should use "recognize the bogus claims" as a challenge, on science-based blogs.

I think that's a cracking idea, but certain parties will characterise their inability to pass the entry test as 'censorship' rather than 'failure'.

Giving a hoot about the moaning is of course an entirely personal matter ;-)

Everett F Sargent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
EliRabett said...

ATTP, at times like this Eli reminds himself that agitating a bag of wind is good sport

EliRabett said...

Hank, Mashey 1 sits quietly in the basement churning out new papers.

Victor Venema said...

Tom Fuller said in his incomparable polite way: "Venemous Victor,I posted a very polite and on point description of why I was not a mitigation skeptic at your weblog some time ago. You didn't see fit to post it and you continue to use the same label for me.

So bugger off.
"

Yes, that was you, sorry forgot about you. A better argumentation quality would still be an asset.

The comment was off topic. The topic of the blog post was not the political preferences of the blogger Thomas Fuller. If someone here is interested, the comment is plastered all over the internet. For example here:

http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/21/raw-politics-of-climate-change-in-the-u-s/#comment-667026

Barton Paul Levenson said...

Tom: President Obama said that in his presidency the seas would stop rising.

BPL: Where and when did he say this? Can you provide a primary source?

Everett F Sargent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Barton Paul Levenson said...

Tom: If you idiots get your way there will be no biosphere left to save by the time climate change actually does roll in.

BPL: It already is rolling in, idiot. Ask the Australians, or people in California, or Brazil, or Bangkok, or Syria, or anyplace else suffering the effects of climate change NOW.

Blogger profile said...

"Tom: If you idiots get your way there will be no biosphere left "

Does tommyrot here have any mechanism by which this result would happen? Is there some unheard of IPCC report requiring that we burn everything to the ground, or is this retard making shit up again?

It's the latter, isn't it.

Blogger profile said...

I don't know, "Serge", it seemed accurate and not misquoted at all. The IPCC models don't curve fit, yet the dozens of "models" proposed by denier idiots you fawn over do this all the time.

I corrected your ranting to something close to reality. You should visit it some time.

As to ice melt, did you not learn that ice melts when it's over 0C? Try it yourself, it's super effective.

Blogger profile said...

"BPL: Where and when did he say this? Can you provide a primary source?"

Of course he can't. You can't see him reach into his pants and lift the "evidence" out.

Have you not noticed yet? Tommyrot here just makes shit up, pulling it from the appropriate place, and proffers it as truth by proclamation.

By making it all up, he saves much effort in looking for proof.

Everett F Sargent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BBD said...

@ Everett

Well, I *did* warn you that being arsey about Hansen would get you mistaken for a denier.

You seemed to think I was calling you one, but I wasn't. I do however think that you are still misrepresenting what is actually done in H15 and I also think that you are too sanguine about the possibility of multi-metre sea level rise happening much more rapidly than currently expected.

The problem arises because existing ice sheet modelling is simply not very good and in all probability greatly underestimates the speed at which real ice sheets will collapse. We are entering uncharted territory in the physical world with nothing more than obsolete and simplistic ice sheet modelling as a guide.

Rather than being dismissive about H15, I'd be open-minded.

Blogger profile said...

Oh, no BBD, he doesn't deny anything, he just makes up "problems" with the IPCC or AGW or their scientists or their conclusions. Totally not like a denier.

Misrepresentations and falsehoods abound in his screed.

"Serge" is Denier In Method. DIM.

Everett F Sargent said...
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Blogger profile said...

"And in that regard H15 does the exact same thing, they prescribe as part of their INPUT data, the assumed time series of freshwater inputs for both Antarctica and Greenland. What part of that don't you appear to understand?"

A flow model. Not curve fitting.

Do you know what "Curve fitting" is, or are you just making that claim up out of hope and change?

"I have no doubt that AGW is very real"

Yeah, it's just all the conclusions and models you think are wrong! Totally different!

Blogger profile said...

"It does happen all the time though, so I've sort of gotten use to the DENIER tag."

Shoe fits, walking and quacking, "Serge".

If you don't want to appear a denier, how about not making shit up in the first place, hmm?

Everett F Sargent said...
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BBD said...

From H15, 7.3:

The Antarctic situation, in contrast, is more threatening than suggested by continental mass loss. Net mass loss combines mass loss via ice streams and regions of net snow accumulation. Queen Maud Land is gaining 63 ± 6 Gt/year, accelerating 15 ± 1 Gt/year/year, but this mass gain may be temporary. Our simulations with increasing freshwater input indicate that circum-Antarctic cooling and sea ice increase eventually will limit precipitation reaching the continent.

Amundsen Sea glaciers are a gateway to West Antarctic ice with potential for several meters of sea level. Mass loss of the Amundsen Sea sector was 116 ± 6 Gt/year in 2003-2013, growing 13 ± 2 Gt/year/year (Velicogna et al., 2014; Rignot et al., 2014; Sutterley et al., 2014).

Totten glacier in East Antarctica fronts the Aurora Subglacial Basin, which has the potential for ~6.7 m of sea level (Greenbaum et al., 2015). Williams et al. (2011) find that warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water is penetrating the continental shelf near Totten beneath colder surface layers. Details of how warmer water reaches the ice shelf are uncertain (Khazendar et al., 2013), but, as in West Antarctica, the inland sloping trough connecting the ocean with the main ice shelf cavity (Greenbaum et al., 2015) makes Totten glacier susceptible to unstable retreat (Goldberg et al., 2009). Cook glacier, further east in East Antarctica, also rests on a submarine inland-sloping bed and fronts ice equivalent to 3-4 meters of sea level. The Velicogna et al. (2014) analysis of gravity data for 2003-2013 finds the Totten sector of East Antarctica losing 17 ± 4 Gt/year, with the loss accelerating by 4 ± 1 Gt/year/year, and the Victoria/Wilkes sector including Cook glacier losing 16 ± 5 Gt/year, with a small deceleration (2 ± 1 Gt/year/year).

Ice mass losses from Greenland, West Antarctica and Totten/Aurora basin in East Antarctica are growing nonlinearly with doubling times of order 10 years. Continued exponential growth at that rate seems unlikely for Greenland, and reduced mass loss in the past two years (Fig. S20) is consistent with a slower growth of the mass loss rate for Greenland. However, if GHGs continue to grow, the amplifying feedbacks in the Southern Ocean, including expanded sea ice and SMOC slowdown likely will continue to grow and facilitate increasing Antarctic mass loss.

Everett F Sargent said...
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BBD said...

Everett

What do you see as a plausible upper bound for SLR by ~2100?

Kevin O'Neill said...

EFS: I'm not sure I understand you. It seems you're saying that rapid climate change cannot happen. This is a view distinctly out of the 1950's.

As Spencer Weart wrote: "Swings of temperature that in the 1950s scientists had believed would take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s thousands of years, and in the 1980s hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades. Ice core analysis by Dansgaard's group, confirmed by the Americans' parallel hole, showed rapid oscillations of temperature repeatedly at irregular intervals throughout the last glacial period. Greenland had sometimes warmed a shocking 7°C within a span of less than 50 years. For one group of American scientists on the ice in Greenland, the "moment of truth” struck on a single day in midsummer 1992 as they analyzed a cylinder of ice, recently emerged from the drill hole, that came from the last years of the Younger Dryas. They saw an obvious change in the ice, visible within three snow layers, that is, scarcely three years! The team analyzing the ice was first excited, then sobered — their view of how climate could change had shifted irrevocably. The European team reported seeing a similar step within at most five years (later studies found a big temperature jump within a single year). "The general circulation [of the atmosphere] in the Northern Hemisphere must have shifted dramatically," Dansgaard’s group eventually concluded."

We see to some degree a similar evolution regarding sea level rise. There are numerous scientific reports of rapid sea level some reaching meters per decade levels.

The notion that everything is on a nice slow continuum is simply contradicted by historical evidence. It seems much more akin to punctuated equilibrium. As I've mentioned before, the MIS 5e records seem to show pulses of sea level rise; not a steady increase.

BBD said...

Kevin O'Neill

As I'm sure you know, the YD seems likely to have been the response to a large freshwater flux at high NH latitude. Abrupt drainage of proglacial lakes is all very last deglaciation, but still food for thought when considering H15 :-)

Everett F Sargent said...
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Blogger profile said...

"It's not like I was a research hydraulic ENGINEER or anything"

Yeah, right, and your momma was a spy during WW2. Right.

Then again, what little engineers have proposed on climate shows that they are almost without fail, proclaiming false authority.

It sure as hell isn't "curve fitting" and only an ignorant moron or someone with a REALLY BIG axe to grind would even consider uttering it.


That would you, "Serge".

Which rather puts the kybosh on your claims that it isn't a flow model.

As in "Glaciers flow in surges" which is entirely congruent and indicated with paleo data, despite earlier protestations from you that the paper is all unsupported by evidence...

Blogger profile said...

"The very minimum that I myself would use would be one meter in 2100"

And the minimum height of a mountain is 1 meter too. You won't find any mountains smaller than that!

Everett F Sargent said...
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BBD said...

Everett

There are no hard and fast rules at this point in time.

Amen to that.

The very minimum that I myself would use would be one meter in 2100 (for port infrastructures).

Perhaps therefore building for ~2M would be a prudent margin for engineers building port infrastructure?

And what of the next century? Try as I might, I cannot reconcile very narrow interpretations of H15 (eg. 69mm/y by 2068 in your numbers) with the dismissive approach you take to this study.

Every indicator we have suggests that we are underestimating the rate of SLR later this century and beyond, which is the take-away from H15, which is, after all, a discussion paper.

Everett F Sargent said...
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BBD said...

Everett

H15 used one of those olde timey flexible rulers (four year of HS technical drafting comes to mind) and they just happened to find an exponential fit.

And ice mass loss from the WAIS and sectors of the EAIS will *not* be exponential why, exactly?

This is all about ice sheet dynamics under sustained forcing on a centennial scale. Why/how can you be so certain *now* that this will not happen? Especially in the light of our nascent understanding of how potentially unstable the WAIS and eg. Totten / Aurora basin in the EAIS may well be?

Everett F Sargent said...
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Everett F Sargent said...
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Blogger profile said...

"And ice mass loss from the WAIS and sectors of the EAIS will *not* be exponential why, exactly?"

Because then "Serge" would be wrong and that's not allowed. Remember, accepting uncertainties is only for scientists not engineers.

It's like Serge here has never seen video of ice calving off and therefore thinks that ice mass will melt like an ice cube melts out of the fridge...

Blogger profile said...

Serge,
Your kiddiegarden prattle ... is .... just ... that.

Your insistence that H15 is wrong is merely based on your lack of knowledge allied with a DK error.

Blogger profile said...

"I'm kind of thinking what would the CMIP6 modellers do with respect to ice sheet discharge"

Why is that correct, though, and why H15 wrong?

"it certainly seems that H15 is one way to do it."

There may be some hope yet. Was this admission merely weasel words, though? Is this a "This is one way to do it WRONG!" or is this a "Well, I suppose the method may be sound"?

Hank Roberts said...

"Footnote, July 30, 11:30 p.m. | * I added a link to an Open Mind post in which the blogger known as Tamino acknowledges he is Grant Foster."

Pathetic, knowing most readers won't bother to click and notice that "acknowledgement" happened back in 2013. On the face of it, Revkin makes it sound like Revkin forced Foster to "acknowledge" who he is, by challenging him this July.

A halfway (sic) honest footnote would have been, say, "My bad, Foster hasn't been hiding behind the pseudonym since back in 2013"

And an honest footnote could have been "I was wrong, he hasn't been hiding, a pseudonym is not anonymity (see, e.g., the American Revolution). I apologize."

Not holding my breath here.

William M. Connolley said...

> re-outing

So, Revkin joins RP Sr in the tosser league (http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/04/27/rp-sr-is-a-tosser/). I'm surprised.

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

Tosser?

While you're up, get me a Grant and a Fosters.

Blogger profile said...

No, it'll play havoc with your colostomy bag, dear. Let the nurse get you your bedtime drinkies.