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Comment on Week in review – science edition by Vaughan Pratt

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@vdv: <i>Doubling the volume of CO2 in Venus’s atmosphere would double the troposphere’s height? Please explain.</I> That was based on the naïve idea that if you had 3 oz of fluid in a container and added another 3 oz, the height would double. I eagerly await your more sophisticated analysis.

Comment on Week in review – science edition by Vaughan Pratt

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@Ragnaar: <I>What I want is the climate forecast for Southwest Minnesota.</I> I've been starting to realize that's all David Springer wants too, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>. The IPCC assessment reports probably don't have much to offer either of you there. What you want is just too granular for climate science to be of much help.

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by climatereason

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From the Independent of 2007

“Record summer heat waves, melting glaciers, and droughts offer compelling evidence that rapid climate change is happening, and media attention on the subject of global warming has been extensive for the past couple of years, from Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth to the report published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this spring. However, a group of six American scientists-including UCSB paleoclimatology professor David Lea(pictured above, left, with NASA’s James Hansen) -recently published a paper stating that the IPCC’s sea-level rise estimate of approximately 16 inches during the next century is too conservative.

The group-led by James Hansen, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies-predicts a sea rise of about 20 feet by 2100. The paper-which references nearly 100 scientific articles, publications, and statistical reports-unequivocally states that “recent greenhouse gas emissions place Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures.”

The 29-page paper was published in the July 15 issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A-the oldest English-language scientific publication in existence. This is the second paper Lea and Hansen have collaborated on together. The first paper focused more on global temperature change, while this one scrutinizes sea-level rise specifically-a pertinent issue in coastal communities like Santa Barbara.”

tonyb

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by HAS

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Our hostess:

“If the worst case scenario isn’t very bad, then you don’t need a complete risk analysis. If the worst case scenario is ‘ruin’, you are playing a different game. Right now we have no idea what the plausible worst case scenario is.”

I think this highlights the problem I have with this post and the paper that is its subject.

If we don’t know if we face a plausible ruinous risk what should we do? Should we plan for it or wait and see what happens (and focus our actions meanwhile on what we actually know)?

From a public policy POV we should expect science to do its best to elucidate what’s going on. There is no place in this for precautionary principles or focusing exclusively on extreme outcomes. We (the public and the policy makers) want to know what’s likely, unlikely and unknown, not have the science used to support forecast of “possible/plausible” ruinous futures by scientist advocates.

What should the policy maker do with this information?

Well the first thing in a property owning democracy is to realise that private individual are in the front line of managing most of these risk, and their view of the risks (likelihoods and consequences) will be idiosyncratic. We expect our governments to help us to understand what we are facing but if collective ruin is unknown then let the effected individuals take a position. Coercion is well down the list. Remember we don’t know if ruin is upon us so protecting the powerless in ruin’s name is hard to argue.

There will then those who believe the worst. They should be free to head for the hills, decarbonise their lifestyles and advocate for their beliefs. They should be equally free to leave out the first two actions.

If the ruinous future is truly unknown where does that leave a government thinking about collective action? To the extent that any future is judged likely it is reasonable to act accordingly, but as the future becomes less well known any government needs to balance this uncertainty against the known adverse impact of regulation.

Under these circumstances the political calculus ends up doing a bit here and a bit there in response to those that are worried but not too much to frighten the horses when it comes to those who remain unconvinced.

And I personally think that response is about right for the situation we find ourselves in. No doubt the pendulum will shift as life goes on.

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by thomaswfuller2

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Thanks, Canman. Romm is even funnier with a few year’s perspective.

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by beththeserf

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One is reminded of H.L. Mencken’s ‘whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and
clamorous to be led to safety, by measuring it with
an endless series of hobgoblins …’

And one is reminded of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for
Radicals, namely Rule 3 ‘ Look for ways to increase
anxiety and uncertainty,’ and Rule 9 , ‘The threat is
usually more terrifying than the thing itself.’

Given the IPCC Models predictions failure to match
observation and frantic political advocacy as cited
above, let us not be stampeded by panic merchants.

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by mosomoso

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http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/regional-sea-level-time-series
Above is a link where one can view a sea level history for Manhattan over past decades.

This is a link to the 2001 Salon (eyeroll) interview which relates Hansen’s late 80s predictions to Bob Reiss of the WaPo (eyeroll again). There is some “uncertainty” over whether Hansen told Reiss 20 or 40 years for the period of prediction. I think all parties would now like 40. We all need a little time.
http://www.salon.com/2001/10/23/weather/

Would I put much trust in anything Hansen told me? Well, he’s the type to own an expensive chronometer, so maybe I’d take the time of day from him. Maybe.

Btw, Hansen repeated his 5 metre prediction in a 2007 interview with the Australian ABC (eyeroll again). Of course, it came along with various conditional clauses by way of qualification…but Big Jim got his 5 metres in for the ABC (final eyeroll).

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by climatereason

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mosomoso

Knowing how bad Nasa is with the metric system perhaps Hansen thought 5 metres was 8 inches?

tonyb


Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by beththeserf

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Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by genghiscunn

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First comments: the CCARA authors seem to make assumptions which are contestable, e.g.: “Climate change fits the definition of a risk because it is likely to affect human interests in a negative way;” current and expected policies will keep emissions “on a moderate trajectory, still far in excess of what is required to limit the impacts of climate change below a harmful level.” These possible impacts are part of the unknowns, there may be net benefits from a warmer Earth.

Judith says that “The appropriate focus is the plausible worst case scenario.” I disagree that policy should be driven by the worst plausible warming scenario. What about the worst plausible scenarios for nuclear war, epidemics, asteroid strikes etc, etc? We could easily devote all resources to futile attempts to deal with scenarios which might, and probably will, never eventuate. And what about offsetting them with “best plausible scenarios,” e.g. through cheap energy breakthroughs, genetically modified crops etc? At the risk of being boring, I repeat that we should adopt policies which give us the capacity to deal well with whatever future eventuates.

Faustino

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by beththeserf

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by edbarbar

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That’s not what I said. Obviously the models are wrong, but you don’t know if it’s the Anthro part of the global warming or some other part. You can’t know until you map out all man made and natural contributions to global warming. You can never know if you have mapped out all contributions to global warming. That’s why this approach is not “Falsification.”

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by genghiscunn

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HAS, good take on this, adding to some good comments which undermine the “worst plausible scenario” approach. Faustino

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by genghiscunn

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Ed, HAS, yes, I made a similarly point briefly before reading other posts. Faustino

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by genghiscunn

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My argument for many years too: a strong economy is the best preparation for whatever, and we don’t know what the “whatever” will be. Faustino


Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by genghiscunn

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by genghiscunn

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Can’t argue with that, beth!

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by cerescokid

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What do we know about SLR? Well, there is the CU data and NOAA tide gauge charts. Nice. But what do we really know about WHY the rates of rise are as they are? Some wonderful papers suggesting and hypothesizing about why the increase. So there are estimates that Groundwater Abstraction makes up 25% of the rise.
But could it be 30 or 35%. Hydrothermal vents could be contributing a little heat from the unknown thousands. But do we really know? How much more from the non-Antarctic glaciers as they dwindle in size. How much of the West Antarctica peninsula glaciers loss is from geothermal activities? Some papers make estimates but do they really know? There are still too many unanswered WHY questions.

Sometimes doing our best is still not good enough.

Comment on Week in review – science edition by ulriclyons

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To recap, in the last 2000 years, GISP2 shows Greenland at its coldest, and proxies show that Europe was at its warmest, simultaneously through the 8th century.
GISP also shows Greenland during the cold Dark Ages period of the 4th to early 6th centuries, being as warm as around 1000 AD.

Staring you in the face there is the evidence that convention has the polar see-saw effect upside down, and leads to the conclusion that increased forcing of the climate cools the Arctic region through the Holocene, at all scales.

That’s a big embarrassment for AGW central, but virtually every sceptic in sight would rather defend the illusion that temperatures of the northern frigid and temperate zones move in unison. That’s a tragicomedy of epic proportions.

Comment on Risk assessment: What is the plausible ‘worst scenario’ for climate change? by mosomoso

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He still needs a few hundred more runs.

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