Facts about global warming that you should keep for yourself
lemire.me
lemire.me
How much less than 0.2C was it? 0.3 +/- 0.1 means it can be anywhere from 0.2 to 0.4, so unless it was grossly under 0.2, it wasn't flat wrong.
"there are alternatives to banning oil production: solar radiation management. We might be able to setup space mirrors or otherwise increasing the reflectivity of our atmosphere." ... "But keep in mind that we will soon run out of cheap oil in any case."
In other words, "Fear not, for we might just come up with some miracle technology or something. It might just all work out in the end so just stay the course and don't worry!"
If you're going to call out others for poorly reasoned arguments, at least have well reasoned arguments of your own.
Some of those projections were based on very pessimistic scenarios (very high CO2 sensitivity, very high future CO2 emissions). They projected very high increase in temperature. Other projections were based on more optimistic scenarios. They projected a lower increase in temperature.
Now, the number that the author quotes (0.3C +/- 0.1C per decade) corresponds to the range for the block of projections that assumes a very high climate sensitivity - a sensitivity that turns out to be high. Since the projection was based on a scenario that did not correspond to reality, if we assume that the models were reasonably accurate then it should not surprise us that the projection didn't end up corresponding to reality, either. So there's an interesting omission. . . and an example of how what someone doesn't say can say as much about their position as what they do say.
Another omission that speaks volumes is highlighted if you compare the projections for scenarios that ended up being more representative of how those parameters did evolve over the next two decades to what global temperatures have been doing over that time period. Far from the alarmist claims of gloom and doom that the author would like to suggest were made, the projection for the scenario that ended up most closely corresponding to what actually happened slightly underestimated the actual change in temperature. But by an amount that was quite small in comparison to the error bars, so an honest and scientific analysis of the TAR projections would force us to conclude that in this particular respect the IPCC's analysis was actually dead on.
Poorly reasoned arguments are certainly unfortunate. . . but if you really want to make your position look bad, try blatantly cherry-picking the data.
Let's say that I am a "policymaker" and not a climate scientist, and I sensibly choose to defer to experts how I should plan for any potential climate change. That's the section that was written specifically to me for that purpose, by the working group--with the same numbers that this guy quotes.
Again, cherry-picking things out of context does not a compelling argument make. Unless the people you're trying to compel can be trusted to not check your sources too carefully.
And of course the corollary to that is, if the topic is controversial you should always thoroughly fact-check your sources.
(Speaking of, I couldn't find the phrase "with certainty" in either of the three FAR policymakers summaries. . . perhaps you meant "with confidence"? Regardless, it's skirting the edge of dishonesty to use the phrase "their words" to describe something that isn't their words.)
Ultimately, he advocates technological fixes. For a more critical, but highly readable, look at this subject, see Michael Specter's "The Climate Fixers" from the New Yorker this past May: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_...
Had the OP read the New Yorker article, he might also understand that his references to "forbidden thoughts" are entirely unjustified. The thoughts he expresses are actually quite conventional, and widely discussed in scientific circles.
"We might be able to setup space mirrors or otherwise increasing the reflectivity of our atmosphere. Obviously, we cannot hope to both keep pumping CO2 in the atmosphere, and correct for it afterward: this could quickly become economically infeasible."
In the context of killing the planet and the entire human race, we still mention a plan could be "economically infeasible".
Jeez.
We're not going to "kill the planet," or the entire human race. Humans adapt. That's what we do. That's why we won.
Such hyperbole endangers vital rational discourse on the subject.
That is very close to the "fine tuning" argument often employed by creationists. It is entirely possible that humans have, in fact, merely been phenomenally lucky to have survived so far, and that the fact that we find ourselves as members of such a phenomenally lucky species is easily explained by the anthropic principle.
If you take all of the intelligent critters out there in the universe that are capable of discussing their adaptability, a pretty big chunk of those critters are going to be members of civilizations that got very lucky over the ages and managed to produce large cumulative populations, while a very small proportion will be critters from short-lived civilizations. Indeed, holding constant whatever level of adaptability we actually have, it is reasonable to assume that we are among the luckier of the civilizations at that level.
So no, we can't just assume that we're going to leap over any hurdle that comes our way.
That's two risks. You can add others now which haven't previously been possible, such as disturbing your ecosystems to the point where there's another mass extinction looming, or changing the climate to the point where you spark famine, wars, lack of water, etc.
That's where all of the rational discourse backed by evidence (aka. science) is pointing.
The thing that I worry about with the economic arguments is that the climate and/or ecosystems will reach a tipping point before we get to the point where we need to do something, and that chunk will be > 100%.
Seems legit.
On the subject, be a little careful equating probabilistic models and statistical models. At least in my experience, "statistical models" generally describes statistical fits to past data. Think of a polynomial whose parameters are chosen by least-squares fit to previous observations. These fits can be used to interpolate or extrapolate (to the future, or to different combinations of inputs). However, they don't encode any domain knowledge, and they can be extremely brittle when pushed outside the regimes from which they were derived.
Most climate models, on the other hand, are deterministic, physics-based models. Some of the sub-models may have statistical fits in them, but the modeling is largely driven by some conceptual framework of how the physics drive the dynamic system (e.g., expressing conservation of mass and energy, and how spatial differences drive transport).
Those deterministic climate models can be driven probabilistically-- meaning the uncertain inputs and parameters can be sampled from distributions of likely values. Aggregating all the results gives a probabilistic prediction. A lot of climate reports take this one step further, and aggregate results across multiple models. Most computer scientists will immediately "get" this part, even if they don't understand all the physics represented in the individual packages.
I have a degree in computer science, and most of my training consisted of solving problems where there was a single outcome - e.g. "does the compiler work?" When I moved into financial modeling, I really had to shift from the idea of one answer to the idea that the real world is exceptionally complex and difficult to model. I had to get comfortable with the idea that I might have an idea of the outcome based on a model, but, as you point out, this is probabilistic outcome.
I found this article to have all the marking of someone with a similar background trying out a different profession without understanding probabilistic modeling, and, as you rightly point out, not understanding the deterministic portion of the models - the domain knowledge.
Moreover, I think he expresses doubt in any model that doesn't turn out the right answer 100% of the time - to me, not understanding the complexity of the systems that are being modeled and definitely not understanding that it is, as the name "climate science" implies, science - you experiment, you gain new knowledge from new data, etc.
The deniers don't have to be proven correct to prevent action on climate change, they just have to put out enough FUD to create doubt.
Cigarettes, seat belts, lead paint, asbestos, Linux, climate change. They've all been fought using the same tactics.
Going back, worldwide, to a pre-industrial civilisation would be a possibility. However, We're looking at 90% fatality rates to get to that point due to lack of food production. Probably would be even less than that. No chance in happening, unless forced by catastrophic event.
Another possibility is tremendous rationing. We see what having even simple healthcare is in this country. Instead, we would look at rationing everything in the world, including determining who lives and dies by how much resources they use (carbon debt). With 2 high input/output countries, good luck on this happening either.
And we have to look at all the smaller ways to handle global warming. One proposal is to dump megatonnes of lime in the ocean?! Or perhaps this carbon credits scam: it makes the rich richer (Well, where DOES the money go?). At least sources of energy like solar or wind make sense... Until you realise the amount of energy to make a solar panel is greater than the total energy you will get out of it. Bummer.
And underlying is this assumption that global warming == CO2 peak.. I've heard of this law called thermodynamics. CO2 may trap heat, but heat generated anywhere is still heat. We generate heat via our vehicles, electric grid, generators, burn piles, and other human sources of heat. Is this not a direct consideration as well?
A little googling on solar panel energy cost found, for example, these links:
http://solarbus.org/documents/pvpayback.pdf
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910
which claim that energy payback of solar panels takes about three years.
For various reasons I think we'd do better with advanced nuclear, such as integral fast reactors or molten salt reactors. Either would be safer than what we have now, proliferation-resistant, and produce a lot less nuclear waste with a much shorter lifetime. We could have a very energy-rich future without carbon emissions.
As for carbon credits, a lot of economists advocate a "fee-and-dividend" scheme. Instead of trading credits, major source emitters simply pay a flat fee per ton of carbon, passing on the cost to the rest of us. The money is divided among all citizens, equal amount per person. Most people come out ahead (since the median emissions are less than the average), but since the dividend is constant and the new cost variable, everyone has more incentive to conserve.
I've seen calculations for the contribution of waste heat and it's very minor compared to greenhouse gases. However, if our energy usage continues to grow exponentially on this planet it'll be a real problem in a couple hundred years: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...
For example, I'm in Australia. Aluminium smelting here consumes about 1/3 of the electrical energy produced. Mostly that's done with hugely subsidised brown coal. If there were a serious effort to use solar power to smelt Aluminium instead, you'd see a big reduction in the CO2 produced, and it'd likely be cheaper than the current situation.
But there isn't the political will to get it done - primarily because of idiotic arguments like yours.
Do we also need to actively "buy insurance" against meteor impacts?
The risk for very bad global warming problems (mass despeciation or crop loss, etc. in 100 years) even at 10% is a really bad consequence that requires some form of insurance.
The risk for rock impact in 100 years is about 0.0002%, and we've got people tracking a ton of near earth objects and even some NASA work on how to deflect them. That's probably about $20M in insurance - probably too low, but yes we should care about these things.
There are an infinite number of potential threats that aren't hurting us now but that we can imagine might hurt our grandkids. Only some of them will actually turn out to be a serious problem. Spending trillions or even billions of dollars of resources combatting any one such threat reduces their potential ability to address all the others.
There's nothing wrong with caring about things like global warming, but there's quite a lot wrong with trying to "fix" it now. To put it in programming terms: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
I agree that it's overhyped, but the question here in on the margin. If we could take the insurance payment and put it towards alt./nuclear energy research we'd be killing a few birds.
I don't see how our economy would be crippled by the "insurance" even at $1T in debt funding (remember how big TARP and the Treasury's loans were). Currently, we're putting far far more than this into overspend on the military ($1.5T/year) - which is defending resource and shipping interests far more than anything else. Couldn't we just solve those problems with similar funding?
They produce a nifty State of the Climate report every so often, which is pretty easy to understand. There's one just been released, in fact: http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/%7E/media...
Disclaimer: I currently work for the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne - as a programmer though, not a scientist.
Strong evidence for anthropogenic climate change exists, to the best of my understanding. However, it's roughly 3.4 gazillion times weaker than the evidence for evolution by natural selection. There are reasons why I am actively interested in helping with one fight but not the other... but the organizations that I support as proxies in the fight don't appear to understand or care. I'm not even sure how annoyed I should be about this state of affairs, frankly.