Climate Change - The Scientific Debate (Vol. II)

Climate Change - The Scientific Debate (Vol. II)

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Discussion

ludo

5,308 posts

205 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
kerplunk said:
Kawasicki said:
ludo said:
Kawasicki said:
The science is quite clear. We are living in a relatively cool interglacial period, and the highest quality data we have indicates that the current rate of change of temperature is unremarkable.

Unless anyone can provide data to the contrary.
Human civilisation and agriculture didn't exist in previous interglacials, so what is the relevance of previous interglacials being warmer?
What is the relevance of your question? Humans live on planet earth. We should expect our climate to have periods of extremely rapid change, over large temperature amplitudes.

We evolved in previous interglacial periods. When life was tough, and much warmer than today.

Do you expect a constant climate?
We should expect our climate to rapidly change if we continue pumping GHGs into the atmosphere like we are doing.

Ironically, the reason we're able to do that is highly likely connected to the fact the climate has been relatively stable for the last few thousand years enabling human civilisation to flourish.
Absolutely, I agree with you. But I would add that we should also expect the climate to change if we never pumped GHGs into the atmosphere.
Straw man, nobody says otherwise. That doesn't mean that the GHGs we are pumping into the atmosphere will not cause problematic climate change that we would do well to mitigate against today.

LoonyTunes

3,362 posts

76 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
Building Design and Earthquakes?

Logical fallacy: False equivalence.

You say we evolved in previous interglacial periods and that life was "tough". It was, the morality rate was horrific and the average life span would have been about a third of today's lifespan in the western world.

Well that's what we are trying to guard against, life becoming "tough" again. I've no doubt that the human race will survive but the implications for the poorer societies around the globe are far more profound than they are for the West although there will almost certainly be huge upheavals here as well.

As just one example, as people attempt to migrate away from the areas that are hit by more and more frequent drought they will gravitate towards the less affected areas like Europe and North America.

A few hundred refugees at Calais sends the rabid-right of this country into a frenzied melt down so what's going to happen when serious migration from Africa and other parts of the globe where the crops fail year after year and starvation puts it's serious pants on and gets into full swing? Not to mention the uptick in disease. Mosquitos for one love warm and wet you know.

Deniers will be the first to call for a Trump wall to be built at Dover. Emigration is just one issue but there are so many other downsides to global warming that whilst not including the end of humanity will certainly make things a he'll of a lot "tougher".

It's almost irrelevant what has happened in the past it's what will happen to our society if it happens now, there is no comparison to be made with previous interglacial periods in this respect.

ETA: Sorry ludo, by the time I had typed my reply out and hit post you'd already addressed this.

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
Ludo And LoonyTunes

You both seem to be missing my point. Maybe that is my fault.

The earth, as we know it, has a history of rapid climate change. That is a risk we need to accept if we live on this planet.

You seem to think because we are now so numerous that we are more susceptible to climate change. That is true, though I don’t understand why it is relevant, it doesn’t take away anything from my point above.

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
LoonyTunes said:
It's almost irrelevant what has happened in the past it's what will happen to our society if it happens now, there is no comparison to be made with previous interglacial periods in this respect.
Totally disagree with this. Learning from what happened in the past is key to being prepared for the future.

LoonyTunes

3,362 posts

76 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
LoonyTunes said:
It's almost irrelevant what has happened in the past it's what will happen to our society if it happens now, there is no comparison to be made with previous interglacial periods in this respect.
Totally disagree with this. Learning from what happened in the past is key to being prepared for the future.
I'm baffled. You're trying to compare they impact of climate change on human society now with its impact on what passes for a human society back in the last interglacial?

I'm out for a while.

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
LoonyTunes said:
Building Design and Earthquakes?

Logical fallacy: False equivalence.
Disagree also.

My point was that just because there were no humans around to suffer from the strong earthquakes, doesn’t mean that building design should only take account of the recent weaker earthquakes.



Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
quotequote all
LoonyTunes said:
Kawasicki said:
LoonyTunes said:
It's almost irrelevant what has happened in the past it's what will happen to our society if it happens now, there is no comparison to be made with previous interglacial periods in this respect.
Totally disagree with this. Learning from what happened in the past is key to being prepared for the future.
I'm baffled. You're trying to compare they impact of climate change on human society now with its impact on what passes for a human society back in the last interglacial?

I'm out for a while.
No. My earthquake analogy explains my point. We should prepare for and expect massive disturbances/disasters...it is part and parcel of living on this planet. Expecting constant, benign climate change is not supported by the historic data.

robinessex

11,081 posts

182 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
LoonyTunes said:
Kawasicki said:
LoonyTunes said:
It's almost irrelevant what has happened in the past it's what will happen to our society if it happens now, there is no comparison to be made with previous interglacial periods in this respect.
Totally disagree with this. Learning from what happened in the past is key to being prepared for the future.
I'm baffled. You're trying to compare they impact of climate change on human society now with its impact on what passes for a human society back in the last interglacial?

I'm out for a while.
No. My earthquake analogy explains my point. We should prepare for and expect massive disturbances/disasters...it is part and parcel of living on this planet. Expecting constant, benign climate change is not supported by the historic data.
Which basically means planet earth has its own agenda, and us humans are an inconsequential, minute entity, that whatever we do, won't have any significant effect.

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
robinessex said:
Kawasicki said:
LoonyTunes said:
Kawasicki said:
LoonyTunes said:
It's almost irrelevant what has happened in the past it's what will happen to our society if it happens now, there is no comparison to be made with previous interglacial periods in this respect.
Totally disagree with this. Learning from what happened in the past is key to being prepared for the future.
I'm baffled. You're trying to compare they impact of climate change on human society now with its impact on what passes for a human society back in the last interglacial?

I'm out for a while.
No. My earthquake analogy explains my point. We should prepare for and expect massive disturbances/disasters...it is part and parcel of living on this planet. Expecting constant, benign climate change is not supported by the historic data.
Which basically means planet earth has its own agenda, and us humans are an inconsequential, minute entity, that whatever we do, won't have any significant effect.
No, I don’t mean that. Those statements are pretty ridiculous.
How can a planet have an agenda?
Of course humans are not an inconsequential entity, we can and do have an effect.

My point is, for the nth time, is that we live on this planet...we need to accept that rapid, dangerous climate change is not an abnormal situation. Anything that is happening now, has happened multiple times in the past, and it is not particularly important whether that happened before the human population expanded. Alarmism about natural variability is not very logical, or scientific.

Hoping or planning to stabilize our climate is daft, whether there are 1 million or 10 billion human inhabitants. Stating that 2018 is the warmist since records began is alarmist politics, backed up by advocacy science. An honest scientist would show the whole picture for the past 10,000 years, which in terms of our climate is still an incredibly short timeframe.

Stating that we are only interested in the past 150 years is cherry picking in the extreme, and justifying that by saying that we are only interested in that period, because that is the period in which we have become vulnerable is nonsense.

kerplunk

7,080 posts

207 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
The earth, as we know it, has a history of rapid climate change.
Not in the Holocene it hasn't and you've already agreed that's the case.

Ex of AGW there's no good reason that I'm aware of to expect rapid climate for millennia - the current interglacial is expected to continue for a good while yet and the transition from interglacial to glacial is slow not rapid.

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
kerplunk said:
Kawasicki said:
The earth, as we know it, has a history of rapid climate change.
Not in the Holocene it hasn't and you've already agreed that's the case.

Ex of AGW there's no good reason that I'm aware of to expect rapid climate for millennia - the current interglacial is expected to continue for a good while yet and the transition from interglacial to glacial is slow not rapid.
Actually the Holocene has had both warmer periods and faster rates of temperature change than we are currently experiencing, so no, you’re wrong.

I can give you a great reason to expect rapid climate change...it is normal.

kerplunk

7,080 posts

207 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
kerplunk said:
Kawasicki said:
The earth, as we know it, has a history of rapid climate change.
Not in the Holocene it hasn't and you've already agreed that's the case.

Ex of AGW there's no good reason that I'm aware of to expect rapid climate for millennia - the current interglacial is expected to continue for a good while yet and the transition from interglacial to glacial is slow not rapid.
Actually the Holocene has had both warmer periods and faster rates of temperature change than we are currently experiencing, so no, you’re wrong.

I can give you a great reason to expect rapid climate change...it is normal.
err no we've already established global temperature reconstructions don't have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Even using regional proxies you had to go back 8000 years to find something

If the planet warms 2-3C in a couple of centuries you can be pretty sure that would be well outside the range of anything that's occured for thousands of years.

The last transition from glacial to interglacial, when global temps increased by about 5C, is referred to as 'rapid' but still took a few thousand years - about 20 time slower than the 20th century rate according to the IPCC.

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
kerplunk said:
err no we've already established global temperature reconstructions don't have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Even using regional proxies you had to go back 8000 years to find something

If the planet warms 2-3C in a couple of centuries you can be pretty sure that would be well outside the range of anything that's occured for thousands of years.

The last transition from glacial to interglacial, when global temps increased by about 5C, is referred to as 'rapid' but still took a few thousand years - about 20 time slower than the 20th century rate according to the IPCC.
You seem confused.

Within one post you state that we don’t have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Ok, that’s your opinion, but then in the next paragraph you proceed to make rate of warming comparisons.

Very odd.

kerplunk

7,080 posts

207 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
kerplunk said:
err no we've already established global temperature reconstructions don't have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Even using regional proxies you had to go back 8000 years to find something

If the planet warms 2-3C in a couple of centuries you can be pretty sure that would be well outside the range of anything that's occured for thousands of years.

The last transition from glacial to interglacial, when global temps increased by about 5C, is referred to as 'rapid' but still took a few thousand years - about 20 time slower than the 20th century rate according to the IPCC.
You seem confused.

Within one post you state that we don’t have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Ok, that’s your opinion, but then in the next paragraph you proceed to make rate of warming comparisons.

Very odd.
Really - you can't see the difference between the warming to-date and warming that continues for another couple of centuries? Weird

Edited by kerplunk on Sunday 17th March 15:25

Kawasicki

13,111 posts

236 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
kerplunk said:
Kawasicki said:
kerplunk said:
err no we've already established global temperature reconstructions don't have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Even using regional proxies you had to go back 8000 years to find something

If the planet warms 2-3C in a couple of centuries you can be pretty sure that would be well outside the range of anything that's occured for thousands of years.

The last transition from glacial to interglacial, when global temps increased by about 5C, is referred to as 'rapid' but still took a few thousand years - about 20 time slower than the 20th century rate according to the IPCC.
You seem confused.

Within one post you state that we don’t have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Ok, that’s your opinion, but then in the next paragraph you proceed to make rate of warming comparisons.

Very odd.
Really - you can't see the difference between the warming to-date and warming that continues for another couple of centuries? Weird

Edited by kerplunk on Sunday 17th March 15:25
Yes, I can see that difference. I didn’t mention anything about it though because I was surprised by how incoherent/inconsistent the rest of your post was. You can hardly blame me.

kerplunk

7,080 posts

207 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
kerplunk said:
Kawasicki said:
kerplunk said:
err no we've already established global temperature reconstructions don't have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Even using regional proxies you had to go back 8000 years to find something

If the planet warms 2-3C in a couple of centuries you can be pretty sure that would be well outside the range of anything that's occured for thousands of years.

The last transition from glacial to interglacial, when global temps increased by about 5C, is referred to as 'rapid' but still took a few thousand years - about 20 time slower than the 20th century rate according to the IPCC.
You seem confused.

Within one post you state that we don’t have the resolution to make rate of warming comparisons. Ok, that’s your opinion, but then in the next paragraph you proceed to make rate of warming comparisons.

Very odd.
Really - you can't see the difference between the warming to-date and warming that continues for another couple of centuries? Weird

Edited by kerplunk on Sunday 17th March 15:25
Yes, I can see that difference. I didn’t mention anything about it though because I was surprised by how incoherent/inconsistent the rest of your post was. You can hardly blame me.
You've lost me now - where is the inconsistancy?

wc98

10,464 posts

141 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
ludo said:
I'm afraid a lot of genuine skeptics would agree with what LoonyTunes said, as pointed out by Fred Singer in his article "Climate Deniers are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name". If you really want to marginalise climate skeptics from having any real influence on the debate, then you could do no better than to cling on to the scientifically illiterate canards that continually circulate in forums like this (even after they have been shown to be wrong, on numerous occasions, e.g. residence time), and then bluster back to politics and conspiracy ideation when the science gets too tough.
good to see you have run out of better things to do and returned. nice try on the residence time, only works if you ignore subsequent posts on the topic. i will see your residence time and raise you rate of warming as evidenced by ice core records, though i think it is better to try and avoid going over old ground.

wc98

10,464 posts

141 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
Kawasicki said:
No, I don’t mean that. Those statements are pretty ridiculous.
How can a planet have an agenda?
Of course humans are not an inconsequential entity, we can and do have an effect.

My point is, for the nth time, is that we live on this planet...we need to accept that rapid, dangerous climate change is not an abnormal situation. Anything that is happening now, has happened multiple times in the past, and it is not particularly important whether that happened before the human population expanded. Alarmism about natural variability is not very logical, or scientific.

Hoping or planning to stabilize our climate is daft, whether there are 1 million or 10 billion human inhabitants. Stating that 2018 is the warmist since records began is alarmist politics, backed up by advocacy science. An honest scientist would show the whole picture for the past 10,000 years, which in terms of our climate is still an incredibly short timeframe.

Stating that we are only interested in the past 150 years is cherry picking in the extreme, and justifying that by saying that we are only interested in that period, because that is the period in which we have become vulnerable is nonsense.
good summation of the situation imo. there are plenty of things we do to the planet that are not good for it or us. many are causing problems right now that could be addressed right now.
at some point in the future another ice age will have to be addressed if humans are still around, i suspect raising taxes won't cut it in that situation.

kerplunk

7,080 posts

207 months

Sunday 17th March 2019
quotequote all
wc98 said:
Kawasicki said:
No, I don’t mean that. Those statements are pretty ridiculous.
How can a planet have an agenda?
Of course humans are not an inconsequential entity, we can and do have an effect.

My point is, for the nth time, is that we live on this planet...we need to accept that rapid, dangerous climate change is not an abnormal situation. Anything that is happening now, has happened multiple times in the past, and it is not particularly important whether that happened before the human population expanded. Alarmism about natural variability is not very logical, or scientific.

Hoping or planning to stabilize our climate is daft, whether there are 1 million or 10 billion human inhabitants. Stating that 2018 is the warmist since records began is alarmist politics, backed up by advocacy science. An honest scientist would show the whole picture for the past 10,000 years, which in terms of our climate is still an incredibly short timeframe.

Stating that we are only interested in the past 150 years is cherry picking in the extreme, and justifying that by saying that we are only interested in that period, because that is the period in which we have become vulnerable is nonsense.
good summation of the situation imo. there are plenty of things we do to the planet that are not good for it or us. many are causing problems right now that could be addressed right now.
at some point in the future another ice age will have to be addressed if humans are still around i suspect raising taxes won't cut it in that situation.
No that's an assumption based on historic cycles that have no massive injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - we're in new territory now. Unless of course you're on the rather 'faithy' based humans-are-too-puny-to-affect-the-climate sofa.




Edited by kerplunk on Monday 18th March 00:43

deeps

5,393 posts

242 months

Monday 18th March 2019
quotequote all
kerplunk said:
wc98 said:
Kawasicki said:
No, I don’t mean that. Those statements are pretty ridiculous.
How can a planet have an agenda?
Of course humans are not an inconsequential entity, we can and do have an effect.

My point is, for the nth time, is that we live on this planet...we need to accept that rapid, dangerous climate change is not an abnormal situation. Anything that is happening now, has happened multiple times in the past, and it is not particularly important whether that happened before the human population expanded. Alarmism about natural variability is not very logical, or scientific.

Hoping or planning to stabilize our climate is daft, whether there are 1 million or 10 billion human inhabitants. Stating that 2018 is the warmist since records began is alarmist politics, backed up by advocacy science. An honest scientist would show the whole picture for the past 10,000 years, which in terms of our climate is still an incredibly short timeframe.

Stating that we are only interested in the past 150 years is cherry picking in the extreme, and justifying that by saying that we are only interested in that period, because that is the period in which we have become vulnerable is nonsense.
good summation of the situation imo. there are plenty of things we do to the planet that are not good for it or us. many are causing problems right now that could be addressed right now.
at some point in the future another ice age will have to be addressed if humans are still around i suspect raising taxes won't cut it in that situation.
No that's an assumption based on historic cycles that have no massive injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - we're in new territory now. Unless of course you're on the rather 'faithy' based humans-are-too-puny-to-affect-the-climate sofa.




Edited by kerplunk on Monday 18th March 00:43
In terms of causing problems right now, i agree with wc98.

One of the silliest things we are doing (in the UK - I doubt any other country is so PC gullible) is closing our reliable coal power stations to instead chop down trees in Canada and the USA, transport them across the Atlantic via diesel power, chip them and burn them instead of coal. How insane is that? Then to add insult to injury, the entire process is classed as carbon neutral (hence it meets UK emission reduction targets - hence why it exists) even though it actually produces more end to end CO2 emissions than the original coal plants. A sign of the crazy alarmist climate era we live in.

On the second point, kerplunk is partly correct IMO, in that we don't know that Earth will definitely incur another glacial period, nothing in the future can be known with certainty, but looking at what we know as a successful betting man I would make it at least 100/1 odds on of a new glacial within the next 1 to 20,000 years, a short term in the grand scheme of climate.

I will offer anyone a bet at those odds, please message me and I will forward my bank details. smile