Vox Runs a “Climate Denier” Piece
Yes I’m being tongue-in-cheek, but I’m also serious. Look at how David Roberts at Vox describes what these climate scientists are doing. The following are *his* words:
Climate scientists, Geden says, feel pressure to provide the good news. They’re worried that if they don’t, if they come off as “alarmist” or hectoring, they will simply be ignored, boxed out of the debate. And so they construct models showing that it is possible to hit the 2°C target. The message is always, “We’re running out of time; we’ve only got five or 10 years to turn things around, but we can do it if we put our minds to it.”
That was the message in 1990, in 2000, in 2010. How can we still have five or 10 years left? The answer, Geden says, is that scientists are baking increasingly unrealistic assumptions into their models. [David Roberts, bold added.]
I warned the alarmists over ten years ago that if the sky didn’t actually fall, it would start to discredit the entire movement.
Okay so I am a climate change denier. Which is odd because I fully agree that climate changes and that Humans can effect the environment on a global scale. What I have issue with is anyone who suggests we have a clear understanding beyond the physics understanding of what an increase in CO2 will do to this world in a positive or negative way. From a physics point of view a doubling of CO2 should increase the temperature what, an additional .3 – .7 degrees? If there are no negative or positive feedback loops. This increase should not manifest itself so much as ‘higher highs’ but as a more stable temperature. Much like the difference between a desert versus someplace highly humid. Say Utah, which has a temperature difference of around 20+ degrees between nighttime and daytime temperatures and San Francisco which fluctuates more like 12 degrees.
Anyway, I have been reading and watching this narrative since Hansen did his first trick in the 80’s ( was it 1988? ) and have gone from concerned to worried, to accepting , to not worried.
Course if the facts change I give myself permission to change my mind.
Water is the stabilizer, dry places display large temperature swings, while damp places do not. Most stable of all are tropical places which are always humid. I’m counting frozen regions as dry, because although the water is there, when frozen it can’t do much and the air remains dry.
I agree with you that we see large natural short-term temperature swings and we aren’t terribly bothered by it. We also have found evidence of large natural long term temperature swings (on the 100k year time scale) that probably would bother us if it happened tomorrow but somehow ecosystems survived many of those cycles already. It does seem contrived that we must become so hand wringy about medium term temperature swings that aren’t in the scheme of things particularly significant.
From a physics point of view a doubling of CO2 should increase the temperature what, an additional .3 – .7 degrees?
More like 1C. And of course, the increased temp from CO2 means more water vapor to the air, which itself has a warming effect.
What trick are you referring to in 1988? Hansen’s predictions were pretty accurate – he got the climate sensitivity a bit wrong, but basically his 1988 paper was as good as anyone could expect. He posed three scenarios for CO2 emissions, scenario 2 was closest to the actual emissions for CO2, and he was a bit wrong because he assumed a slightly higher climate sensitivity than we now think is correct. His model was astoundingly accurate given the knowledge at the time. I don’t see any trick there. If we include all forcings, his scenario 3 is closest., and the results are so good that some suspect coincidence. See link for more info
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/hansens-1988-predictions/
“Roberts in his Vox piece is claiming matter of factly that scientists keep tweaking their models to produce results that politicians want to hear. That’s part of the message we at IER have been telling Americans for years, and yet when we say it, we are called “deniers” who reject the “scientific consensus.”
There is an important distinction between the optimistic inclusion of mitigation into your model and the denial of the science. The former accepts the science of the models, and then correctly says that IF you do this, you WILL get that. The latter denies the science of the models, and says that IF you do this, you WON’T get that.
A good example is the use of biomass and carbon capture BECCS- which is used in the Vox article to illustrate what he means. The use of BECCS would possibly allow us to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, so including it as a possibility still allows only 2C rise with greater emissions. It is a scientific possibility, but it is unlikely to happen because of costs. This is the sort of tweak that is being included to suggest 2C is still possible. It fits quite well with the narrative. 20 years ago all that was needed was modest reductions in emissions. Now we need to start sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere.
“Now policymakers are being told that emissions can peak in 2030 and still keep temperature rise under 2°C. To get that result in a modeling scenario, emissions have to fall 6 percent a year, even with large amounts of BECCS thrown in. To find that plausible, one has to imagine all of human society turning on a dime, beginning in 2030, deploying massive amounts of nuclear, bioenergy, wind, and solar, and doing so every year for decades.”
So it is possible to carry on until 2030, but then instead of a modest reduction in emissions, a huge change will be required. The denialist position would be that emissions carry on rising after 2030 and the temperatures do not rise. You do see the difference, don’t you?
So what the denialists have been saying for years is not actually the same at all.
I don’t know what exactly you at IER have said to be called “deniers” and “rejecting the scientific consensus”.
How about a bet to sort it out?
RCP8.5 says Co2 levels will be 415.8 in 2020. This is said to be in the top 90% of predictions, so it would be reasonable to bet at odds of 9:1 that global CO2 will be at this level by 2020.
Anyone happy to take that bet? I will put up $100. If it is above 415.8 I take $900, if below, I give you $100.
Failing that, anyone offer a different bet?
How about a bet to sort it out?
RCP8.5 says Co2 levels will be 415.8 in 2020. This is said to be in the top 90% of predictions, so it would be reasonable to bet at odds of 9:1 that global CO2 will be at this level by 2020.
No, that’s incorrect.
Most of scenarios (including those involving mitigation) are pretty similar in the short term. So if RCP8.5 has a 90% chance of being too high in 85 years, it doesn’t follow that there is anything close to a 90% chance it’ll be too high in 5 years.
You have a point. RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 both give a level higher than RCP6 in 2020. RCP6 dos not overtake RCP4.5 until 2060.
I think it would be very alarming if we did exceed RCP8.5 by 2020, and would indicate a significant acceleration in emissions. The recent annual increase would put us on 411.2.
Roberts was always in line with my understanding of the IPCC – that carbon rationing isn’t going to lower temperatures materially over the next 50+ years.
Given that, the question is whether you think we’re headed for medium-term disaster or not. If not, let’s hold off, invest in some energy and climate engineering research and let technology address the problem in 20-30 years. If you think we’re headed for disaster, then we need to research climate engineering aggessively.
As Roberts says, carbon rationing won’t prevent the apocalypse (if any) – it’s giant space mirrors or nothing.