Climate Change. It's Real.

[Undertoad]

I am sorry about the novel, I truly am. This just ignited a bunch of things I've been thinking about recently.

You may feel outside the "orange-purple" debate by pointing out exaggerations on both sides, but that just leaves you supporting "team purple's" policies, whatever you say about their rhetoric.

Team Orange had a hard-on for policies years before there was any scientific consensus of any nature. At one point the science was just a twinkle in Mr. Gore's professor's eye. A consensus of a handful. Team Orange policies beat consensus by a decade.

When the science agreed it was like a perfect storm. We have gotten it right, they cheered, and said it meant they were smarter than their dumb enemies who picked the wrong side.

Meanwhile the science continues on. New information bombards us. It's fascinating.

The elephant in the room is the pause. For the last 18 years there has been, statistically speaking, no global warming; despite an ever-increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Science tells us that now a majority of the CO2 mankind has added to the atmosphere has happened since this pause began. The relationship between carbon and temperature is not so simple. (It also tells us the Team Purple theory that increased CO2 levels are due to ocean outgassing is wrong.)

Science has reacted to this with an increasing number of theories. Many of these theories have already been proven wrong, and new theories advanced. There's little consensus on the reason. (The recent paper suggesting that it doesn't exist has met with skepticism.)

Does this mean that CO2 doesn't increase warming? Does it deny all the science that has happened already? NO! - but it will eventually result in a new scientific consensus.

For example, the new consensus might be that there is a limit to the amount that CO2 can actually increase global temperature, and perhaps we've hit that limit.

We'll probably know a lot more by this time next year. El Nino should create new temp records, and after that, the temperature will fall, as it has with historical El Ninos. Will it fall to "pause" levels? Or not fall so much, because the ocean has coughed up a lot of missing heat? That will be great information for science.

Shouldn't any policy wait for this new data and the new consensuses that result? That would be really amazingly pro-science.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The elephant in the room is the pause. For the last 18 years there has been, statistically speaking, no global warming; despite an ever-increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Science tells us that now a majority of the CO2 mankind has added to the atmosphere has happened since this pause began.

The pause has not been that long. However the reasons for the pause are both scary and appreciated by math such as Fourier transforms. If this research confirms what the math suggests, this slightly less warming will be followed by a sudden increase.

Whereas some years the temperature increases will be less. And other years, more. But we know this. The trend is clearly for increasing temperatures due to what man dumps in the atmosphere. Global temperatures have only decreased where extremist pervert, misrepresent, or intentionally distort facts.


We know a direct relationship exists betweem CO2 levels and global warming. The only 'debate' is in the numbers (once we dispose of comments by wacko extremists and only listen to moderates).

We know oceans have seen a major and disturbing increase in acidity due to CO2 emissions. Again, the only debate is in which numbers (bigger or smaller) define this relationship. That also may explain why current CO2 numbers are lower than they should be.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Team Orange had a hard-on for policies years before there was any scientific consensus of any nature. At one point the science was just a twinkle in Mr. Gore's professor's eye. A consensus of a handful. Team Orange policies beat consensus by a decade.

If you're talking about anti-pollution policies, there are many more reasons to combat pollution than global warming. Easier ones to display, as well - sludge dripping from pipes and barrels being dumped are more photogenic than invisible CO2. The toxins and radiation in coal ash are a better sell than CO2 as pollution, since any high school student knows that CO2 is what plants crave. The weight of the science on global warming has pulled the environmentalists away from other arguments. In fact, it has started to create some ambivalence on nuclear power, which the pre-global-warming "team orange" would have been almost unanimously against.

The elephant in the room is the pause. For the last 18 years there has been, statistically speaking, no global warming; despite an ever-increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. ... (The recent paper suggesting that it doesn't exist has met with skepticism.)

The temperature graph has been a ratcheting zigzag, and has plenty of downturns. So far, they have all led to the next ratchet. Sure, maybe this one's different. Maybe we've hit the maximum CO2 contribution. But if a 18 year trend is an elephant, a hundred year trend is a whale.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The debate in science, as you know, happens constantly and permanently.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Shouldn't any policy wait for this new data and the new consensuses that result? That would be really amazingly pro-science.

"Delay policies until all the data is in" means "do nothing forever". The data is never all in. Chances are, little will be done before then, so we'll get that data anyway, though.

And if 2016 does come in hotter than '98, it won't be the first to do so (even if 2015 doesn't). 2005, 2013, 2010, and 2014 (in order of increasing temperature) already have.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We'll probably know a lot more by this time next year. El Nino should create new temp records, and after that, the temperature will fall, as it has with historical El Ninos.

I didn't understand how long the El Nino increase goes on; the recovery from it is ongoing. We'll know more in... I dunno, a few months. 2016 will almost certainly be another record year; 2017 will definitely NOT, we know this much now.

Pacific Northwest folks, it looks like your heatwave years are about to be over. The "blob" of hot water that seemed to be returning is now leaving, and check this shit out, as of up to two weeks ago. I love these animations.



Canada makes the whole year's anomaly available:

https://weather.gc.ca/saisons/animat...id=year&bc=sea