Climate Change. It's Real.
 

from here

We've had 3 weeks of very warm weather in June, and our temps have been above the averages for July.
This has been happening in previous years, but it this year has most everyone's attention.

My G-son works for ODFW and is doing stream/river surveys in the mid-state segments
of the Willamette River and it's tributary, the Santiam.
He says that where they would expect to see 50 - 100 salmon in the Santiam, they are now seeing only 1 or none.

The senior biologists are saying that the temp of the Willamette is too high,
so the fish are turning into the colder water of the Clackamas River,
but in that river the O2 levels are too low, and the fish are dying.

This "pre-spawning mortality" is overly affecting the females,
that usually come in later than the males.
Thus, salmon runs for the rivers in this mid-section of the State may be affected dramatically in the future.

The fish biologists are saying that removal of dams is about the only way
to keep the temps where the fish need them to be.
They have tried building massive structure to mix cold bottom-water with warmer surface water behind the dams,
but with limited releases of water, the temp starts rising again just a short way down below the dam.

Pretty safe bet it will get worse. :(

Here in KY, our climate changes about four times a year.

Speaking with other amateur mycologists, the seasons are starting much earlier and the quantities are dropping. The past few years I've seen shrooms in June/July that shouldn't be around till Sept/Oct. Dunno what it means in the grande scheme of things, but I'm sure its not good.

This will get the attention of sportsmen in the west...
It is getting very close to shutting down all sport fishing in western Oregon.

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources...willamette.asp

I heard the Willamette River rose in temperature five degrees in seven days. Not good for the fishies. They need the cooler water and by congregating in the remaining cooler and deeper pools, they become too easy to catch, unsportsmanlike.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this concept.

Too easy to catch? WhattheIdon'teven.

From here:

http://cellar.org/2015/NOAASurfaceTe...un2015_620.jpg

NOAA's surface temp disparity off average of all recorded temps, Jan-Jun 2015.

image from this climate.gov story

That big red whomp in the tropical Pacific, hitting the entire west coast and crossing over Mexico into the Atlantic is el nino. It is a big ton of warmth that was in the ocean, being spit out. Started a few months ago and is projected to continue. Along with previous global warming, this should produce record temp months and a record temp 2015.

Obviously it is already crushing the pacific northwest and according to many projections it is JUST GETTING STARTED. Although, also, you NEVER KNOW because sometimes they just peter out.

This might be the year for that big hurricane although you NEVER KNOW. It's just theoretical right now

Can't be real... I saw Senator Inhofe bring a snow ball into the Senate chambers to prove it...;)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...e-and-for-all/

The sad part is how many people believe him. :(

Been fishing off the East coast since I was 5. Where are the bluefish? Where are the Sea trout? The fishing has all but disappeared.

Also, went out this week for a couple walks... mushrooms that shouldn't be out for another 2-3 months have already come and gone.

http://cellar.org/2015/1997-2015-el-nino.jpg

What a cool graphic. They are saying 80% chance it lasts until Spring which would probably make it a record-breaking el Nino.

Oh and this is supposed to raise probability of hurricanes and tropical storms on the west coast of the Americas but lower probability in the Gulf.

At least this writer still has something of a sense of humor...


Natural World Report - 7/30/15 - Ian Lang

I say we take all the mountaintops from mountaintop mines and dump them where the ice sheet used to be.

Good Answer !

The pollution from that kind of effort would defeat the purpose.
Nationalize the refrigeration companies and recreate the ice sheet.

But DC going glub glub? You say that like it's a bad thing.
Smart people like glatt and Happy Monkey would split long before their feet got wet.

I'm at the high point of DC; my property values would probably go up.

Happy Monkey Island! I see a resort, maybe be even a major motion picture! Don't sign anything involving Kevin Costner. http://cellar.org/2012/nono.gif

In that story the author says that it is a falsehood to claim that the climate has always changed.

note he starts off saying that climate has always been changing, another line of denier baloney

It isn't denying anthropomorphic climate change to admit that earths climate has changed and will change. Is it?

If more people believe that climate changes without mankind, they will be more inclined to believe AGW is not a problem. So "climate changes without mankind" is a Team Purple fact. Phil Plait is actually team captain of Team Orange. So it's very important for him to refute that.

And he's debating a politician, not a scientist, so this is a political debate and actual scientific rigor in the debate would be inappropriate.

But there's no question about historical change. Up to about 12000 years ago, the Griff homestead was entirely covered in glacier and sea levels were much lower than they are now:

http://cellar.org/2015/nysglaciers.jpg

The last retreat of glaciers from Canada was 5000 years ago; on a geologic scale, the [surface of the] earth has been warming; this is a natural cycle. Earlier glaciers went even further south.

The matter at hand is that some recently measured increases are at a faster rate than the natural rate, and being faster, may cause additional problems for children and other living things.

The problem for everyone is how nuanced an argument all this becomes. So everyone sticks to the shorthand, which is unscientific on both sides.

What does "natural cycle" really mean ?
It's "natural" so therefore...
= acceptable ?
= unimportant ?
= uncontrollable ?
= not to be feared ?
= not of concern ?
= not fixable by society ?

Isn't "natural cycle" just a slippery way of staying climate warming
is not significant enough to waste time, resources, our traditional ways, profits, etc.

Being in my 80's, I know, intellectually, that climate warming will not actually affect me much, if at all.
... maybe not it will not even affect my adult children or youngest grandchildren.

But I am of the belief that climate warming is something that society should make an effort to alleviate.
Even if it is not completely attributable to the effects of modern man,
it very likely will be a serious problem for all of our descendents,
and something effective can be done sooner than later.

After all, what else have we got to do today that's really important ?

Then too, I may be of the "Ant Clan", not the "Grasshopper".

,

Did you see the asterisk next to "baloney"?

LL this is how the more nuanced scientific discussion is not productive to the political discussion.

Mankind has accelerated the natural trend, and it is an important matter to understand how much and why, and all this should be studied and addressed.

Yes to all of the above for the "natural cycle"
No to all of the above, for the man made acceleration of that cycle.

Like UT said, it's important to know the difference.

That was a clever way to lie.

Not a lie; a good way, in print, to answer the meat of an argument, without sacrificing the detail.

It's a common tactic of various science deniers to make a statement that is technically true, but misleading or irrelevant. If debating an honest scientist, that scientist then has to say "yes, but..." which rhetorically reads as ceding the point, even in the unlikely event that they do get the time to fill out the "but". In text, you can say no, with an asterisk.

By your reading of his statement, it was baloney because he knew she wasn't asking whether climate changes at all. Answering something that is technically true based on a strict reading of the question may be par for the course for politicians, but that doesn't mean it's not baloney.

And based on Phil Plait's reading of the statement (and he's reading it as shorthand for arguments made by ), it's baloney because of the bad science implied by it.

It's baloney on one or both of those levels. The only way it can be read as honest is if you think Huckabee had no idea what she was asking about.

It's like if a politician in a chemical plant's pocket is asked about the death rate downstream from the plant, and he answers "people die all the time". Technically true, but nonresponsive.

But Plait rolls out the "97% of climate scientists" not only sans asterisk, but doubles down on it with an opinion piece.

I hate Huckabee, but he's a politician. Plait is a science denier. He has only a passing interest in the science. He wants to play in the political. There is no reason to engage a politician if we are doing science.

If the science agrees with him he will use it. If it roughly agrees he will massage it until it seems to. This is what politicians do!!!

Real scientists don't have a side in this game because there is no SIDE in science!!! other than truth, and politics and truth are bitter enemies!!!

A link to an entire article detailing his views on the study is like a super-asterisk, not sans-asterisk.

There is reason to engage politicians if the politics are attacking the science.

Most scientists don't have the temperament or inclination to do it, which is why there appears to be a "debate".

The self-contained "pox on both their houses" attitude is what the "merchants of doubt" are going for. Just like with smoking and lung cancer, all they need is to make it seem like the jury's still out as long as possible, so let's keep the status quo. 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.

All that leaves you with is defining anyone who you can actually hear from as not worth listening to. If a scientist decides to spend their time countering scientific misconceptions in the media, suddenly they're not a scientist, and they have no more credibility than Huckabee.

Except the politicians control much of the funding. :(

Not only is there a reason, there's a need.

Congress has gone so far as block NASA from publishing what they see and can prove. :mad:

Amen.

There appears to be a "debate" because political people have framed the subject in a way that they enjoy having a debate over. The debate in science, as you know, happens constantly and permanently. No one side is considered "right", there is only an increasing collection of theories and evidence of various qualities to back those theories up.

The narrative is different every time.

(ctd next message so as not to have a novel here)

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

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.

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.

It is an easy falsehood to prove in an argument full of information, however true, difficult to validate. The author plays into the hands of the other team. The author is having a Limbaugh moment, predigesting information for, as UT puts it, his team.

In a similar 1-on observation, our unusually warm weather in the PDX area seems
to have advanced the maple trees all the way from early August into October's autumn.

Maples leaves are yellowing on the trees, and we're seeing showers of leaves in mild breezes.
Likewise for some of the willows and locusts.

But then, maybe it's just a matter of drought rather than temp.

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 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.
"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.

I love that. All in favor. It's probably the long-run solution.

If we're ready to exchange the global problem for local ones, fracking is the best way to do it. A crap ton of carbon neutral energy, available right now.

A lot of Team Orange is SUPER angry over fracking. What do you make of that?

Or a 12000 year trend when grifftopia was glacial and today it's hot. Or 5000 years ago when the Sahara desert was "a verdant landscape, with sprawling vegetation and numerous lakes".

Fracking is not carbon-neutral. Environmentally, the best that can be said for it is that it's better than coal.

ETA: Maybe not the best that can be said. There are probably other dirty processes that it is also better than.

Right, I mis-stated that.

Point remains: we could cut 40% of carbon output very quickly without disrupting the economic engine that prevents poverty and encourages innovations that will actually allow us to get to the next level. Why is Team Orange actually angry? Why are Team Orange's actual policies prohibiting fracking today? Isn't this one up for debate? Every bit of natural gas we get is stopping coal and oil from being burned. The science is settled here:

http://cellar.org/2015/natgasco2.jpg

from here

More than mis-stated, it was a turrible error

Also I had previously said that half the CO2 we've generated has been since the pause began; this was also wrong; I think it may be about a third? Discredit the entire statement. Nevertheless we are continuing to crank it out in higher and higher amounts, and the Mauna Loa observatory saw CO2 rise at what looks like an even slightly faster rate in the last 20 years.

http://cellar.org/2015/co2_data_mlo.jpg

And when I say "we" I mean some of us.

http://cellar.org/2015/chinacoal.jpg

Our most precious natural resources is potable water, which is getting harder to come by because sources near the surface are becoming polluted and the deep aquifers being drained at an alarming rate.
In the urban/suburban areas with public water supplies, spending a shitload of money can supply cleaned up water or on the coasts desalinated.
But in most of the country wells are the only answer, and supplying public water is out of the question.

Never forget why the coal industry has a poor future. The industry routinely stifled innovation. They even opposed R&D for IGCC.

Innovation that is not pioneered ten and twenty years ago cannot exist today. But according to the coal industry, spending money back then on R&D only increased costs. They created their own problems.

Yup - been somewhat dry here also. I think its a 2fer.... I'll have a lot more first hand data in a month or two. If things are like last year or worse, I'll have zero left in a few months. :(

We are just now beginning to see the leaves change colors. The mushroom season has been weak at best.

As for the Questions ...

The "scientific questions" are:
Is climate warming real (regardless of cause(s)) ? Maybe, I think so.
If it is, what are the consequences ? Potentially the end of life as we know it.
If these are serious, can we (mankind) do anything about it ? most likely no.

One final question.

Should we try to fix it?

Depends.

He wasn't asking about your underwear.

:D

:D

More like hedging our bets on the cross section between fixing and and surviving it:

Renewable energies could be a huge push towards the ability of a lot of countries to go on functioning even if the actual climate - or possibly the resulting political climate - doesn't allow a continues exchange of oil, coal and gas. More and more countries, cities and even households being able to function independently if the grid or economy breaks down is going to be crucial.
Electric vehicles are also a potentially important move towards that, though different places might need to adapt the types of batteries we produce.
There are several programs working on the use of drones to send medical supplies and goods to far away regions in Africa - these could also be a huge bonus in the west in times of needs.
3D printing and robotics can make huge step towards more localized industrial independence as well as reduce energy consumption on global trade, and likewise for vertical farming and agriculture.
Perhaps most important of all, uploading and copying to multiple servers more and more of the body of humanity's accumulated knowledge and intellectual work, on this thing called "the internet". All of the rest are tools that can allow civilization a sturdier foothold in times of crisis, but this one is the one that makes sure that whatever survives will almost certainly have a much better starting point, including not only the intellectual benefit, not only the technical knowledge, but the published research on climate change leading to the crisis in the first place, the history behind it and all the mistakes they'd hold us responsible for and hopefully strive to not repeat.

...Also while we're at it, we should make sure to prank them and give Sherlock Holmes a documented birth certificate.