Comments for Climate Etc.

You were correct in identifying the word “plausible” as an issue in this type of analysis. However, “possible” may not be correct either. The phrase we always used in doing strategic analyses was “reasonable worst case scenario”. For example, a 100′ rise in sea level might be possible by the turn of the century, a 20′ rise is plausible, but a 1′ or 2′ rise might be reasonable.

Turning into Venus.

If they were equal, it would cool. It hasn’t come remotely close to cooling since 1940 to 1952.

Impact Sources:
Energy, transport, industry, food production, forestry and general landuse changes.
Known Impacts:
Air pollution, water pollution, habitat destruction.
Potential Impacts:
Sea level, drought, flood, heat.
Prioritize Mitigation
Known Impacts using existing tech
Unknown Impacts using adaptation, low-hanging fruit, reduce impact uncertainty
Recommended Actions:
Kill coal with CH4, increase nuclear power, electric cars, increase industrial air pollution controls, increase pollution prevention, reduce monoculture, reduce over fertilization, reduce pesticide use, increase ground and surface water storage, runoff control, erosion control, sustainable forestry, sea walls, air conditioning

<blockquote>To me, the very worst case scenario is implementing plans formulated by people with long faces, a deep frown, and a propensity to exaggeration.</blockquote> Well said, pithy.

What about asking how good it can get?

There are great benefits to a warmer planet with an atmosphere richer in CO2.

Sea level rise is 3mm per year, not accelerating and not a big problem if it stays that way. That’s one foot per century. Hansen’s wild claim is that this rate will somehow grow to ten times the current rate “real soon now”.

That non-problem needs to be adequately weighed against a planet that is measurably getting greener as CO2 increases and a human condition that is vastly improved through global industry, transportation, and agriculture made possible by inexpensive fossil fuel energy.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden/

That should include a link:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/10/12/204793/memo-to-deniers-delayers-disinformers-when-i-propose-a-sucker-bet-the-only-conclusion-you-can-draw-is-that-im-looking-for-suckers/

“if my calculations are correct”

Surprisingly enough, they are!

Links

Tom in case you missed it.

Remember Will?

Coal speaking: “The report of my death was an exaggeration”

I think that calling its creation “scientific fraud” is quite unfair to Riahi et al. You should go read their paper that describes its construction – Riahi et al “RCP 8.5 — A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions” (2011).

Without going into the detail in their paper they describes RCP 8.5 as “the upper bound of the RCPs” and “a relatively conservative business as usual case”.

I would add that the term “business as usual” isn’t used to describe RCP8.5 in either of the relevant IPCC AR5 WG1 Chapters (1 or 8).

The problem comes with those that come later.

[…] door Judith Curry, Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen en Paul C. Knappenberger. Zie hier. Maar hieraan werd geen aandacht geschonken in het […]

Most of us don’t live better than kings and queens from 200 or more years ago. Get serious. Some had seriously hedonistic lives of leisure that the vast majority cannot afford today. Wine, women, and song have been around a very long time and were as good then as now. Lifespans of royalty have never been particularly short either. Good genetics, no stress, always warm and well fed.

I thought you said you were no longer in SF, Mosher.

You need to learn how to read, yimmy. The EPA Admin cannot disagree that the Obama decreed measures will only reduce da heat by one one-hundredth of a degree. How does that get the ball rolling for meaningful global mitigation, yimmy? Try to be honest and realistic for once, yimmy.

Agree with this. In New Zealand we face possible issues around coastal erosion in the face of sea level rise, but we also need to be worried about Tsunami, siesmic risks and volcanoes (we don’t have snakes).

The good thing that people forget about the risks of climate change is that they are progressive and emerge slowly. Even the discontinuities that people worry about (eg Antarctic sea ice collapse) are functions of the gradual increase in temperature.

So in risk management we have the option of doing nothing. Real options analysis of these kinds of risks often come back and tell us that is the best option.

And one needs to add that the consequences of a decent Tsunami, earthquake or volcanoes down here are likely to be much greater than the built environment retreating over 100 year time spans or our primary industries adjusting to different environments (all on the assumption that the extreme projections are valid). Anyone who has seen the marine terraces created around our capital city Wellington will get things in proportion.

Easy for you, difficult for them.

Come on yimmy, show us what you got. You say that Congress is in a cocoon, but the difference in what they are willing to do about CO2 mitigation and what the Obama regime has produced in six years in power is one one hundredth of a degree. If I were a little greenie Chicken Little fearing 4C (!) by 2100, I would be apoplectic over this Obama crap. He said he was going to take care of this existential problem, back in 2007. WTF is he doing to you, yimmy?

@cd: If you have a boiler operating at 462 C, the radiant heat loss is often negligible at one atmosphere in a standard atmosphere. Adding standard insulation to inhibit convection would reduct the majority of the heat loss and then a radiant barrier with low specific heat capacity can add to that. If your radiant barrier has a high heat capacity, it just gets hot. What do you estimate the R-value of a super-critical CO2 insulation blanket to be?

Say, cd, why don’t you and David Springer come to some agreement and then get back here? Right now you and he are so far apart on what CO2 does on Venus that arguing with the two of you in tandem is like the Mexican police trying to reconcile sparring druglords.

In the real world plausible equals actionable.

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