Topic: Climate Emergency is already here. How much worse it gets is still up to us (?)

[Fanxxxxtastic]

Had their first snow in Egypt for 112 years.

[CornerFlag]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-report-ipcc-governments-unprepared-live-coverage

Even worse than when we thought it was worse than we thought...

[BUSHMILLS]

Had their first snow in Egypt for 112 years.

What did they blame it on in 1902?

[Twelfth Man]

On the grand scale scale of things, snow in Egypt is not the doombringer. Added to polar cap melting, CO2 atmosphere readings. Possibility of methane escape from the floor beds. My advice is stockpile oligarchs and prostitutes.

[RojoLeón]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/30/ipcc_2014_u_n_climate_change_report_warns_of_dire_consequences.html

In a new U.N. report released on Monday morning (Japan time) scientists come to a stark conclusion: Unless the world changes course immediately and dramatically, the fundamental systems that support human civilization are at risk.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new report—which is seven years in the making—draws on “widespread” evidence of “substantial” climate change impacts “on all continents and across the oceans.” For the first time, the IPCC has scientifically linked the changing climate with the destabilization of nation states. It is also increasingly confident of serious effects on food crops, water supplies, and human health, plus global species loss.

This is a follow-up to a similarly major report issued last September, which concluded the scientific evidence for climate change was “unequivocal,” with human activity “extremely likely” to be the dominant cause. If September’s report answered the question of “what’s happening to the climate and why?”, this one tackled the more practical “So, what does it mean for us?”

Unless we change our path, the simple answer is: Climate change could put our future into question.

What makes the new IPCC statement so striking is its process. The entire 44 page summary was agreed to line-by-line by scientists and political representatives from more than 110 governments during a marathon session over the last week. Simply because of the way it was constructed, this report instantly becomes the most authoritative ever written on the subject of climate change impacts and the long-term consequences of current (in)action. Fast-growing China must agree with tiny Maldives, and the relatively rich United States must align with poor governments like Tanzania.

That process also makes the report’s conclusions necessarily conservative. The document therefore touches only on the effects of climate change that have widespread consensus. Turns out, that list is much longer than was agreed upon in the previous report, released in 2007. For better or worse, actions we take now “affect the risks of climate change throughout the 21st century.”

Even if we take bold action—what the report characterizes as “high” adaptation—there’s medium or higher confidence that virtually ever corner of the globe will suffer widespread impacts by the end of the century. According to the report’s risk calculus, Europe fares the best. Virtually every other corner of the globe, including North America, will face “very high” risk of a breakdown in at least one critical component of the climate system—the availability of fresh water, or crop productivity, or coastal flooding due to sea level rise, to name three examples—by 2100, even with ambitious action taken. Without bold action, the risks increase even further.

Here are some of the report’s most striking conclusions:

“Negative impacts of climate change on crop yields have been more common than positive impacts (high confidence)”

“Throughout the 21st century, climate change is expected to lead to increases in ill-health in many regions and especially in developing countries with low income, as compared to a baseline without climate change (high confidence)”

“… the combination of high temperature and humidity compromising normal human activities, including growing food or working outdoors in some areas for parts of the year (high confidence)”

“Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-group violence by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks (medium confidence)”

“Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger (medium confidence).”

What this report makes clear is that climate change isn’t a far-off risk. It’s happening today, and getting worse. Something is going to have to trigger a global wake-up call, because apparently, we’re incapable of taking action on problems that aren’t immediately obvious.

The new report makes a consensus statement that coral reefs and Arctic sea ice—the proverbial canaries in a coal mine—have already experienced irreversible changes. The report makes clear that the risk of other destabilizing consequences increases the more carbon we emit.

And yet humans continue to expand our production and use of fossil fuels. New data shows we managed to emit more carbon in 2013 than in any previous year—emissions even increased in the United States. The new IPCC report will serve as one of the primary scientific guides for world governments as they prepare to negotiate the 2015 U.N. climate treaty in Paris. ​During this week's negotiations, as reported by the New York Times​, language supporting adaptation support for poor countries to the tune of $100 billion per year was dropped at the last minute, upon insistence from several rich countries, including the United States.

It’s difficult for me, as both a scientist and as a human, to emotionally process continued inaction on climate change. My characterization of this report may make it seem like the problem is hopeless. It’s not. There’s still time to stave off most of the worst effects if we all work together and realize that every single person’s actions, no matter how small, make a difference. But it will take massive action.

It was the IPCC’s first report last September that motivated me to give up flying for good. Just having the ability to take that step now feels like an extreme luxury, considering much greater impacts on people around the world—like farmers dependent on rainfall—with much less ability to adapt. The authors of this report rightly emphasize the world’s poorest will face the biggest consequences of climate change. Maybe it’s just seeing it all in one place, but I’m more convinced than ever that climate change is the single most important issue facing humanity today.

[BUSHMILLS]

The 16 year 'pause' in warming is good news though, eh?

[please, I have my reasons for it but...]

Had their first snow in Egypt for 112 years.

This is photoshopped BTW. Doesn't mean it didn't snow for a while in December but this is not real.

[RojoLeón]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/the-bbc-must-not-confuse-climate-change-with-politics-9228314.html

Another day, another broadside against the BBC. This time, it is the Commons Science and Technology Committee that is taking the broadcaster to task. According to MPs, the Beeb’s news coverage is inclined to give scientific fact and unscientific opinion the same billing. While the views of, say, sceptical lobby groups should be heard, they should not be treated on a par with proven research, the committee concludes.
There are several possible explanations. One is uncertainty among BBC staff about where, on the issue of climate change, the line between science and supposition lies. Another is the reality of programme-making; there is nothing like a spirited debate to keep viewers and listeners interested. A third is that this is a consequence of the perennial allegations of political bias levelled at the BBC.
There are some such accusations from those on the left, who tend to list the right-wing affiliations of everyone from the Chairman of the BBC Trust downwards to bolster their argument. The overwhelming majority of the pressure is the other way, however. When one of the Corporation’s top broadcasters, John Humphrys, suggested last month that the BBC had “bought into the European ideal”, and had therefore not been sufficiently sceptical of the pro-EU case, there were howls of triumph. Meanwhile, the recent appointment of a senior Trades Union Congress official as Newsnight’s economics correspondent prompted outrage and I-told-you-so in equal measures.
Against such a background, is it any wonder if the BBC tries to give climate-change naysayers – who are predominantly from the political right – a hearing? Except, of course, that climate change is not a matter of politics. This week’s United Nations report warning that the effects of excess atmospheric carbon are already being felt, and that future food and security are at risk, is not the conjectures of an axe-grinding few. It is the result of collating the research of thousands of scientists across the world.
To remedy the situation, the Corporation needs clearer editorial guidelines on climate change, say MPs. Indeed, it does. Science is not opinion, and should not be treated as such.

[BUSHMILLS]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/the-bbc-must-not-confuse-climate-change-with-politics-9228314.html

Good to see the committee's chairman, Andrew Miller MP, being so hard on the climate change sceptics.

He must have changed his views since he accepted two tickets from Virgin (plus hospitality worth £3,657) to the 2011 British Grand Prix.

Unless that was one of those 'carbon neutral' races, of course.

[Roady]

Good to see the committee's chairman, Andrew Miller MP, being so hard on the climate change sceptics.

He must have changed his views since he accepted two tickets from Virgin (plus hospitality worth £3,657) to the 2011 British Grand Prix.

Unless that was one of those 'carbon neutral' races, of course.

[Roady]

What did they blame it on in 1902?

i like you bushmills

[RojoLeón]

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/31/while_the_world_burns_climate_deniers_are_headed_to_vegas/

Climate deniers are taking their anti-science shenanigans to Vegas
What consensus?

So here’s the deal. The latest report for the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the “accepted global authority on climate change,” is out, and it’s concluded that the effects of climate change are both already being experienced and expected to get worse. At this point, warned Secretary of State John Kerry, “the costs of inaction are catastrophic.”
And while the world (hopefully) tries to figure out what to do, the climate deniers (or as they like to be called, “skeptics”), are going to Vegas.
Spearheaded by the Koch brothers-affiliated Heartland Institute, which the Economist named “the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change,” the  9th International Conference on Climate Change is being held this July at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It coincides with the release of the latest volumes in the group’s “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)” report. Both the report and the conference are an attempt to pretend that denying the basic science of man-made climate change has any legitimacy (it doesn’t), as well as a handy excuse for the right-wing media to pretend it’s giving the issue balanced representation (it isn’t).

The IPCC report, it should be noted, is a collaborative effort by hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists. They volunteer their time (as in, no governmental or corporate entity is paying them to reach the conclusions they’ve arrived at), and each installment of the report goes through three thorough stages of review. The NIPCC report, in contrast, is compiled by paid contributors, funded by fossil fuel-backed groups and missing the rigorous peer review process. The skeptics convening in Vegas may be “world famous” as claimed, but not necessarily because they’re leaders in their fields. TriplePundit reports on the guest list:
Among the expert speakers giving lectures will be a medical officer from a Texas sheriff’s office and an architecture professor.
Climate skeptic blogger Willis Eschenbach, whose credentials include a massage therapy certificate and a B.A. in Psychology will also be speaking. Another speaker, Chistopher Monckton is a non-scientist who claims that global warming is a non-problem. Also speaking will be Marc Morano, a former staffer for Sen. James Inhofe, and Fred Singer, who has been called the “granddaddy of fake science.” After being wrong about both the safety of cigarette smoking and the significance of the hole in the ozone layer, he is now apparently going for a hat trick. Both Morano and Singer were profiled in Rolling Stone as one of 17 “climate killers.”
“The public, the press, and the scientific community will all benefit from learning about the latest research and observational data that indicate climate science is anything but ‘settled,’” said Heartland Institute president Joseph Bast in a statement. He’s right, in that climate scientists are still debating exactly what, and how severe, the impacts of climate change will be. But to suggest that climate change isn’t happening, or that it’s some natural process that has nothing to do with human activity, and to continue to ”question whether ‘man-made global warming’ will be harmful to plants, animals, or human welfare,” can no longer be seen as anything but extreme, dangerous and willfully uninformed. We can only hope it stays in Vegas.

[lfcderek]

The 16 year 'pause' in warming is good news though, eh?

I thought it was over 17 years. 

Still, the prophesized 4.5 ^oC rise by the end of the century will fry us all anyway - we're all doomed.

Strange though. Despite the ever lengthening hiatus, they are more confident that they are correct than they were in the the previous report.

In Physics, if the predictions of your theory do not match the data, you would rework (or abandon) the theory. In climate 'science' (sic) it makes you more 'confident' that you are right.

I've clearly got this 'science' thing wrong.

It's been a fair while since I checked this thread and it's nice to see some revived interest. If I can find time in the next day or so I'll drop the data down from NOAA and the Argo system and update my graphs. Mind you, those indulging in warming hysteria will look at the (updated) graphs which show (even longer) flat lines and still see ever rising slopes which should be matching the ever rising slope of CO₂.

Then again I might be wrong and common sense (that most rare of commodities) might begin to surface.

You can now see, from the above statement, I'm the most incorrigible of optimists.   

[lfcderek]

By the bye - isn't time we changed the thread title

from

Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss

to

Global warming isn't here - and is no where near as bad as some would have you believe - Discuss


    

[RojoLeón]

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2014/03/how-british-columbia-enacted-most-effective-carbon-tax-north-america/8732/

Suppose that you live in Vancouver and you drive a car to work. Naturally, you have to get gas regularly. When you stop at the pump, you may see a notice like the one below, explaining that part of the price you're paying is, in effect, due to the cost of carbon. That's because in 2008, the government of British Columbia decided to impose a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, enacting what has been called "the most significant carbon tax in the Western Hemisphere by far."
A carbon tax is just what it sounds like: The BC government levies a fee, currently 30 Canadian dollars, for every metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions resulting from the burning of various fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and, of course, coal. That amount is then included in the price you pay at the pump—for gasoline, it's 6.67 cents per liter (about 25 cents per gallon)—or on your home heating bill, or wherever else the tax applies. (Canadian dollars are currently worth about 89 American cents).

If the goal was to reduce global warming pollution, then the BC carbon tax totally works. Since its passage, gasoline use in British Columbia has plummeted, declining seven times as much as might be expected from an equivalent rise in the market price of gas, according to a recent study by two researchers at the University of Ottawa. That's apparently because the tax hasn't just had an economic effect: It has also helped change the culture of energy use in BC. "I think it really increased the awareness about climate change and the need for carbon reduction, just because it was a daily, weekly thing that you saw," says Merran Smith, the head of Clean Energy Canada. "It made climate action real to people."
 
It also saved many of them a lot of money. Sure, the tax may cost you if you drive your car a great deal, or if you have high home gas heating costs. But it also gives you the opportunity to save a lot of money if you change your habits, for instance by driving less or buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle. That's because the tax is designed to be "revenue neutral"—the money it raises goes right back to citizens in the form of tax breaks. Overall, the tax has brought in some $5 billion in revenue so far, and more than $3 billion has then been returned in the form of business tax cuts, along with over $1 billion in personal tax breaks, and nearly $1 billion in low-income tax credits (to protect those for whom rising fuel costs could mean the greatest economic hardship). According to the BC Ministry of Finance, for individuals who earn up to $122,000, income tax rates in the province are now Canada's lowest.
So what's the downside? Well, there really isn't one for most British Columbians, unless they drive their gas-guzzling cars a lot. (But then, the whole point of taxing carbon is to use market forces to discourage such behavior.) The far bigger downside is for Canadians in other provinces who lack such a sensible policy—and especially for Americans. In the United States, the idea of doing anything about global warming is currently anathema, even though addressing the problem in the way that British Columbia has done would help the environment and could also put money back in many people's pockets. Such is the depth of our dysfunction; but by looking closely at British Columbia, at least we can see that it doesn't have to be that way.

British Columbia's carbon tax was, by all accounts, a surprise at the outset. BC's center-right Liberal Party, which introduced the policy, wasn't exactly known at the time for its strong environmental track record. However, then-Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell was apparently much influenced by the business-friendly environmentalism of California's then-governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Liberals were also very friendly with economists, 70 of whom came out in 2007 with a letter calling for a "revenue-neutral carbon tax." (For a very helpful in-depth history of the BC tax, see here.)

Environmentalists and the business community also chimed in with support, and sure enough, in February 2008, BC Finance Minister Carole Taylor formally introduced the tax. It would be set at an initial low rate of $10 per metric ton of CO2 equivalent emissions, and scheduled to increase $5 per year until it reached $30 per metric ton (which it did on July 1, 2012). The revenue would go straight back to taxpayers, and all BC residents would get a one-time payment of $100—dubbed a "Climate Action Dividend"—when the policy first launched. There is also a "Climate Action Tax Credit" from the carbon tax, paid to low income persons or families, who currently receive $115.50 for each parent and $34.50 per child annually.
Legislative passage was more or less assured, because the Liberals controlled the provincial government. But shortly after it kicked in, opposition ramped up. After all, the tax took effect in July 2008, just prior to the worst part of the economic collapse. The recession greatly dampened support for climate action, strengthening political claims that reining in emissions would further damage an already deeply wounded economy. Rather surprisingly, BC's left-of-center New Democratic Party, known for championing environmental causes, seized the moment to campaign against the tax, calling instead for a cap-and-trade policy and using the slogan "Axe the Tax." Premier Campbell, though, stood strongly in favor of his party's creation, reportedly insisting, according to the Vancouver Sun, that "if they wanted to get rid of the tax they would have to get rid of him."
Thus, the carbon tax survived an initial trial by fire, and the opposition softened. After all, after a few years with the tax in place (and the resulting tax cuts for BC residents getting larger and larger), any repeal of the policy would amount to a highly unpopular tax increase. "The party that I represent opposed the legislation at the beginning, and we've changed our point of view now to embrace it," says Spencer Chandra Herbert, a British Columbia legislator from the New Democratic Party who is the official opposition voice on environmental issues. "And we're actually raising questions about what's next."
The tax has actually become quite popular. "Polls have shown anywhere from 55 to 65 percent support for the tax," says Stewart Elgie, director of the University of Ottawa's Institute of the Environment. "And it would be hard to find any tax that the majority of people say they like, but the majority of people say they like this tax."
It certainly doesn't hurt that the tax, well, worked. That's clear on at least three fronts: Major reductions in fuel usage in BC, a corresponding decline in greenhouse gas emissions, and the lack of a negative impact on the BC economy.
Quantifying the effects of BC's carbon tax is somewhat complicated by its timing: The 2008 economic collapse reduced overall emissions across Canada, and indeed, across the world. Moreover, British Columbia is somewhat of a unique place in that the top source of electricity is actually carbon-free hydroelectric power, not coal or natural gas.
Therefore, the most likely place for the carbon tax to make an impact would be in sales of carbon-intensive fuels like gasoline and diesel. Sure enough, a recent analysis by Seattle's Sightline Institute shows that BC's sales of motor fuels and other petroleum products declined by 15 percent in just the first four years of the carbon tax, much more than in the country as a whole: (graph at link)

Yet another analysis, by the research and policy group Sustainable Prosperity, finds a similar result: A 17 percent per capita decline in fuel consumption in BC.
Then there are greenhouse gas emissions. Again, comparing BC to the rest of Canada is a little tricky. Elsewhere in the country, the recent shift from coal-fired power plants to natural gas has lowered emissions, but that change has not been felt as much in BC because of its heavy use of hydropower. However, if you centrally look at either emissions from fuel or the sale of fuels subject to the tax (gasoline, diesel, and so on), the Sustainable Prosperity and the Sightline Institute reports broadly agree that there has been a considerable decline relative to the rest of Canada.
What's more, this happened even as BC's economy fared just as well as Canada's economy in general. "BC's fuel use has gone down dramatically, and its economy has kept pace with the rest of Canada at the same time," says the University of Ottawa's Stewart Elgie, a coauthor of the Sustainable Prosperity report.
Overall, then, that's not a bad record for a tax that is just five years old. "What it has done is reduced our carbon emissions, reduced our fuel consumption, and in that period our GDP and our population has gone up," says Clean Energy Canada's Smith. "So it's quite impressive what it has done."
Not everyone would agree, of course; on the national level, Canada's ruling Conservative Party is strongly opposed to a carbon tax. In 2008 (when a national version of the tax was under consideration), the party argued that it would "plunge Canada into a recession."
"Politically, our federal government has tried to make carbon taxation toxic, saying it's a job killer," adds the New Democratic Party's Spencer Chandra Herbert. "BC's experience has proven that it doesn't have to be, and I would argue, it can lead to more jobs."
Canadians aren't the only ones who could benefit from emulating BC's policies—so would Americans. Scholarly research suggests that a national carbon tax in the United States could be at least as effective as the BC tax, both in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and in lowering income taxes (or, lowering the deficit).
Take, for instance, a recent study from Resources for the Future, a prominent environmental policy think tank, that modeled the economic impact of different carbon taxes. The study found that a very modest $30 per ton carbon tax (roughly equivalent to BC's tax, but in US dollars) would yield about $226 billion in annual revenues. If paid directly back to every American, that would equal a rebate of $876 per year; but of course, this vast sum of money could be used for a variety of purposes, including to greatly reduce the federal deficit.
Meanwhile, the Resources for the Future study found that emissions reductions in the US by the year 2025 would be on the order of 15 percent, and the economic costs would be small: Effects on GDP range from mildly positive to mildly negative depending upon the particular scenario used.
The bottom line, then, is that BC's experience provides an exclamation point at the end of the long list of reasons to like a carbon tax. Perhaps the leading one, in the end, is that it's a far simpler policy option than a cap and trade scheme, and is, as Harvard economist and Bush administration Council of Economic Advisers chair N. Gregory Mankiw has put it, "more effective and less invasive" than the sort of regulatory approaches that the government tends to implement.
Indeed, economists tend to adore carbon taxes. When the IGM forum asked a group of 51 prominent economists whether a carbon tax would be "a less expensive way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than would be a collection of policies such as 'corporate average fuel economy' requirements for automobiles," assent was extremely high: 90 percent either agreed or strongly agreed. Yale economist Christopher Udry commented, "This is as clear as economics gets; provides incentives to find minimally costly ways to reduce emissions."
"Totally basic economics!" added Stanford's Robert Hall.
Since 2012, British Columbia has not raised the carbon tax further. Instead, the government agreed to freeze the rate as it is for five years. And no wonder: BC is now far ahead of most of its neighbors, and most of North America, in taking action to curtail global warming. Many policy watchers think the BC carbon tax still needs more strengthening, however, to ultimately set in place the kinds of emissions cuts needed. Smith would like revenue from further increases to be used to advance further carbon reductions, rather than for more tax breaks.
In the meantime, another question is whether any other provinces or US states, seeing BC's success, will wade into these waters. For instance, as part of the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy, Washington state and Oregon have both pledged to join BC and California in putting a price on carbon emissions. (California already has a cap-and-trade program). The question is whether these states will decide that the far simpler (and more economically supported) carbon tax is the way to go.
In the meantime, BC can boast of the crown jewel of North American climate policy. "BC now has the lowest fuel use in Canada, the lowest tax rates in Canada, and a pretty healthy economy," says the University of Ottawa's Stewart Elgie. "It works."

[Skidder.]

What's going on with all this Sandstorm?

Is there a grain of truth in what they're saying?

[RojoLeón]

http://whatweknow.aaas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AAAS-What-We-Know.pdf
WHAT WE KNOW:
THE REALITY, RISKS AND RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

http://climatechangenationalforum.org/tail-risk-vs-alarmism/

The American Association for the Advancement of Science just published a statement on climate risk (link, above) on which I am a co-author. This statement has several aims, one of which is to highlight the importance of societal risk in the low-probability tail of the climate change probability distribution. I would like to take this opportunity to explain why we think it necessary to talk about tail risk, and the road blocks we scientists face in doing so.
Tail risk is a concept that everyone is familiar with at some level. To take a rather obvious example, suppose an 8-year-old girl comes to a busy street which she must cross to catch her school bus. Unsure what to do, she asks an adult bystander for advice.  The adult replies that, most probably, she will make it across the street unharmed.

Any other reasonable adult listening to such advice would regard it as radically incomplete. Surely, no one would encourage the girl to cross the street if there were a 1% chance that she would be run over. The most probably outcome is, in this example, largely irrelevant. But here there is very little downside to walking the girl up the street to where there is a traffic light.
In assessing risk, one has to estimate the probability distribution of the event (car colliding with girl), convolve that with an outcome function (girl likely dies if hit), and account for the cost of mitigation (take 5 minutes to walk to a traffic light). In the realm of climate change, climate scientists are the ones charged with estimating the event risk, while other disciplines (e.g. economics, engineering) must be brought to bear on estimating outcome, and the costs of mitigating the risk or adapting to it.
In assessing the event risk component of climate change, we have, I would argue, a strong professional obligation to estimate and portray the entire probability distribution to the best of our ability. This means talking not just about the most probable middle of the distribution, but also the lower probability high-end risk tail, because the outcome function is very high there. For example, here is an estimate of the probability distribution of global mean temperature resulting from a doubling of CO2 relative to its pre-industrial value, made from 100,000 simulations using an integrated assessment model. (We use this here as an illustration; it should not be regarded as the most up-to-date estimate of global temperature increase probabilities.) (Graph at link)

More or less in agreement with the most recent IPCC report, the most probable “middle” of the distribution runs from about 1.5 oC to about 4.5oC , while there is a roughly 5% probability of temperature increases being less than about 1.8 oC and more than about 4.6 oC. But, given the corresponding distributions of rainfall, storms, sea level rise, etc., the 5% high-end may be so consequential, in terms of outcome, as to be justifiably called catastrophic. It is vitally important that we convey this tail risk as well as the most probable outcomes.
But there are strong cultural biases running against any discussion of this kind of tail risk, at least in the realm of climate science. The legitimate fear that the public will interpret any discussion whatsoever of tail risk as a deliberate attempt to scare people into action, or to achieve some other ulterior or nefarious goal, is enough to make almost all scientists shy away from any talk of tail risk and stick to the safe high ground of the middle of the probability distribution. The accusation of “alarmism” is quite effective in making scientists skittish in conveying tail risk, and talking about the tail of the distribution is a sure recipe to be so labelled.
Predictably, the AAAS statement evoked just such responses. For example, in her climate blog (link), Judith Curry states that “ …..these particular experts seem more alarmed than the expert authors of the IPCC report (well, the WG1 anyways), citing many very low probability events as something to be alarmed about……When scientists become alarmists, I don’t think it helps public opinion.” And this, from Roger Pielke (Sr): “This AAAS report is an embarrassment to the scientific community”.
Judy Curry is right that the IPCC working group 1 (WG1) almost entirely avoids the issue of tail risk (which is one reason that the AAAS felt compelled to do so), and Drs. Pielke and Curry speak for most scientists in expressing the fear of embarrassment in any discussion of low probability events. After all, by their very definition, such risks are unlikely to be the outcome. If we want to be admired by our descendants, the best strategy is to stick with the peak of the probability distribution, and with high probability, we can then ridicule those “alarmists” who warned of the tail risks, just as the adult who advises the girl to cross the street will, in all likelihood, be able after the fact to chastise the one who counseled against it.
And yet. Does the dictum to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” not apply to climate scientists? If we omit discussion of tail risk, are we really telling the whole truth?
So far it has been difficult to quantify tail risk beyond that implied by figures such as the one above, which resulted from running an integrated assessment model many times with many combinations of parameters varied across plausible ranges. We have also tried to use paleoclimate data and the observed response of climate to large volcanic eruptions to narrow down the probability distribution. A wild card in climate risk assessment is the problem of abrupt, irreversible climate change, which evidence in ice cores and deep sea sediments suggests are general features of past climate variations. We also have to be mindful that the graph above and many risk assessment studies use the canonical doubling of CO2 as a benchmark, whereas we are currently on track to triple CO2 content by the end of this century. (As a rough measure of global temperature change under triple CO2, multiply the values on the horizontal axis of the figure by 1.5.) Unless we find a way to extract carbon from the atmosphere, the climate risks would become alarmingly high (and not just in the tails) in the 22nd Century, even if we stopped emissions by the end of this century.
Do we not have a professional obligation to talk about the whole probability distribution, given the tough consequences at the tail of the distribution? I think we do, in spite of the fact that we open ourselves to the accusation of alarmism and thereby risk reducing our credibility. A case could be made that we should keep quiet about tail risk and preserve our credibility as a hedge against the possibility that someday the ability to speak with credibility will be absolutely critical to avoid disaster. What do you, the reader, think?

[RojoLeón]

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/31/climate_change_is_already_here_how_bad_it_gets_is_still_up_to_us/

Climate change is already here. How bad it gets is still up to us

A lead author of the new IPCC report explains what we know and how we know it

If you want to understand where mainstream science stands on climate change, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the best place to start. Its latest report reflects a thorough analysis of the peer-reviewed science and a harsh, but admittedly conservative, overview of predictions for the future. It includes input from a total of 309 lead authors, representing 70 nations — and helped along by 436 contributing authors and 1,729 expert and government reviewers.
Salon spoke with Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and one of the lead authors of the new report, which was released Monday morning. The challenge in putting it together, Diffenbaugh told Salon, wasn’t in trying to determine whether climate change is happening: Its impacts, as climate scientists have made clear, are already being felt. On the contrary, he said, there’s so much known about climate change that the real task was distilling the scientific knowledge into a clear and concise message. That message: Climate change is here, and if we don’t take drastic action to limit warming, its effects are going to get worse.
First, tell us a little bit about your contribution to the report. What was the process like for you?
I’ve been a lead author on the North American chapter [more on that here], and I have also coordinated a cross-chapter effort to integrate the physical climate information across a number of regional chapters. And I have found this to be a very inspiring and fulfilling experience, particularly to observe  how committed so many authors are to conducting such a disciplined and accurate  assessment of the scientific literature while at the same time presenting it in a way that is accessible for the decision-makers that have commissioned us with conducting the report.

What were some of the biggest challenges in putting something like that together? 
Certainly, the biggest challenge is that there’s so much known about climate change. Our job is to assess the literature that has appeared in the last seven years since the last IPCC report, and we’ve really seen a huge amount of growth in the state of knowledge about the impacts of climate change. So we have a huge literature to assess and that’s been one of the most fulfilling aspects, but also one of the most challenging.
Can you give a quick explanation of how climate modeling works? What is it able to tell us about how climate change is affecting us now, and about what the future effects might be? 
So when I was in eighth grade, in science class, I conducted experiments on corn plants. If you water some and don’t water others, and you put some in the light and put some in the closet, in the dark, you can see what happens to the corn plants as a result of these experiments. And we would really like to be able to run experiments like that on the global climate system. But the problem is that we can’t, we can’t run those experiments. And so we use climate models to run those experiments that we’d like to run in the real world. These models are based on the laws of physics — they literally start with Newton’s Laws — and they allow us to simulate the climate system and run the experiments that we would like to be able to run in the real world.
So how would you characterize the level of confidence with which they’re able to tell us about climate change?
We use climate models in the same way that other scientists conduct their science, in that we create hypotheses and we try to use real observations to test those hypotheses. So we run the climate model experiments for the past using the known concentrations of greenhouse gases, and that creates a hypothesis about how the climate system responds to the human input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And then we’re able to compare those results of the climate model experiments with the observations from the real world.
As far as North America — your focus — goes, what are some the specific things to look out for that are highlighted in the report?
We see in North America that climate change is already happening and we’re already experiencing impacts. We’re already seeing increases in some extreme events such as severe heat and heavy downpours and extreme flooding during storm surges. We’re also seeing decreases in snowpack and earlier timing of snowmelt in many parts of the Western United States. So these climate changes are already happening and we’re already feeling the effects.
What’s the future outlook for the catastrophic impact — when things are going to reach that point of no return?  Do you have a good understanding of how close we are?
We have a lot of evidence that if global warming continues along its current trajectory, that we’re likely to see high-impact climate change in the United States. We’re likely to see really large increases in severe heat, to the point that almost every summer in likely to be hotter than what used to be the historically hottest summer. We’re likely to see substantial increases in sea level that will increase the risk of extreme storm surge during storm events. And in the United States, we have large populations that live near the coast. In terms of agriculture we know that many crops are sensitive to severe heat and that continued global warming is likely to increase the stress from severe heat on a number of important crops in the United States.
It’s important to emphasize that we have a lot of opportunities to manage these risks in the climate system. We have opportunities to manage how much global warming occurs and we have opportunities to manage our exposure and vulnerability to build resilience to climate stresses.
What is the most significant action we could be taking right now to address these issues?
As a scientist, it’s not my role to make any policy prescriptions for society, but it is clear, in terms of just the physics of how the world works, that we will experience much greater increases in extreme events from high levels of global warming than we will within the target for global warming that has been set by the United Nations, for example [2 degrees Celsius]. So the difference between 2 degrees Celsius for global warning and 4 degrees Celsius of global warming is really substantial in terms of the risk of extreme events: the risk of severe heat, the risk of heavy precipitation, the risk of low snow years and the risk of extreme floods. These will all be much reduced in a world with 2 degrees Celsius of global warning compared to 4 degrees.
Without giving any specific recommendations, then, what are you hoping the reaction to the report will be like? What do you want people to take away from it? 
I think the most important message that the public can take away from this report is that a large number of scientists have taken a look at a large body of evidence and we know that climate change is occurring. We know we’re already experiencing the impacts, and we know that there are opportunities to manage those risks in terms of the level of global warming, and in terms of our vulnerability to climate change.

[TepidT2O]

What's going on with all this Sandstorm?

Is there a grain of truth in what they're saying?

Sandstorms happen quite often.

Southern winds bring sand up from the Sahara, just depends on the wind direction and strength....

Bugger to clean off though

[lfcderek]

By the bye - isn't time we changed the thread title

from

Climate change is here — and worse than we thought - Discuss

to

Global warming isn't here - and is no where near as bad as some would have you believe - Discuss


    

Think my suggested change far better - and a good deal more accurate. 

PS. Have you some peculiar addiction to cut and paste Rojo? You must be eligible for a Guinness Book of Records entry by now. 

PPS. Is there any valid reason to use 'Climate Change' instead of 'Global Warming'? That was the phrase used when this nonsense first appeared. Is it just PR since the 'Warming' bit stopped about 17 years ago? 

[Bioluminescence]

Think my suggested change far better - and a good deal more accurate. 

PS. Have you some peculiar addiction to cut and paste Rojo? You must be eligible for a Guinness Book of Records entry by now. 

PPS. Is there any valid reason to use 'Climate Change' instead of 'Global Warming'? That was the phrase used when this nonsense first appeared. Is it just PR since the 'Warming' bit stopped about 17 years ago? 

Ah, Derek, you and your myths have  been missed Now you know that the change you suggest isn't better and more accurate, since global warming is ongoing. You seem to be forgetting all the heat that's going into the oceans again. Still, you get a brownie point for pointing out the faux pause is no longer 16 years

As for climate change versus global warming... The IPCC was established in 1988. Think about it, hint is in the CC bit.

[lfcderek]

As for climate change versus global warming... The IPCC was established in 1988. Think about it, hint is in the CC bit.

The IP Climate Change is it's title alright, but the words 'Global Warming' were never off it's lips - until the Globe stopped Warming that is. 

As for the heat 'hiding' in the Ocean, where's your data? If you go on to the Argo system it's flat. In fact it's completely flat. For 1-2000 metres, completely and utterly flat since 2006. Go on yourself if you doubt me. Go on. Go on. I dare you! I double dog dare you.

You know it makes sense.

Edit
Actually, the lazy sods haven't updated for Jan/Feb yet so I'm waiting for them before I update any graphs.

[RojoLeón]

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-were-having-the-wrong-climate-change-debate-20140401-35w1p.html

Science is an exciting field to work in. There is a whole universe of problems out there waiting for someone to solve. But science doesn't exist in a vacuum.
For me, the most interesting part of being an engineer is using my research to help individuals, and society in general, make better decisions..
I would imagine the motivation is similar for the hundreds of scientists who spent months compiling the latest IPCC report released on Monday, and the thousainds more who've spent their careers trying to understand the mechanisms of global warming, its timeframe and impacts.
The report has been well received by many, but for some people the report seems to be seen as a personal affront, written by a bunch of scientists solely for the purpose of destroying the world that they live in.
The reality is that the IPCC report is a document of careful language and moderated statements, approved by the governments of 195 countries.
When scientists work together to report results, our language is carefully calibrated, with the caveats and limitations of our work thought out and often explicitly discussed.
Science is a dialogue and our work is incremental – there is rarely a breakthrough paper.
We work together in teams and discuss, argue, revise and gradually make progress. This is a lifetime of work; a marathon, not a sprint.
There are many subtleties in any profession and we can't expect people outside of our individual fields to understand these. I don't expect to understand the legal arguments in a court of law or commercial deals. And it is unreasonable to expect that the measurement methods or the scientific process that I take for granted in my work are any more transparent to a lawyer.
At some point, though, unless we have unlimited time to become experts ourselves, we need to trust that the professionals in any field are good at what they do. That's what it means to be professional. But some people seem to believe that scientists can't be trusted.
Some level of scepticism is a good thing – no one should take all information at face value. But thinking that all scientists and engineers are wrong until proven otherwise does not give any credit for the amount of work that goes into my research, the IPCC reports and the work of all other scientists.
Interacting with the media brings another level of complication to the relationship between science and the community. Scientists are used to promoting their research at conferences, to peers and to funding authorities. But our incremental discoveries or improvements may not make for an interesting story for the daily media. Reporting timeframes, particularly in the digital age, are much quicker than the timelines that research operates on.
Information is more available than ever, but is the digital age improving the quality of the conversations? The anonymity of email and comments on websites and blogs means that people end up in a virtual shouting match where rarely anyone is listening properly.
I find it frustrating that the comments in social media and on forums degenerate in a fairly predictable way when it comes to so-called debates about human-induced climate change.
But we are having the wrong debate. For climate change, the evidence is clear that carbon dioxide and temperatures are increasing. Where is the interest in debating observations?
What is more interesting is when we have to make decisions that depend on the values that we hold as a community. Someone may value free markets, someone else may value the natural diversity of our coral reefs, whilst a third may value a large house on the beach. The debate that we need to have is how these values can co-exist or if they can't then how to prioritise them. But the current level of vitriol doesn't promote rational discussions.

[Bioluminescence]

The IP Climate Change is it's title alright, but the words 'Global Warming' were never off it's lips - until the Globe stopped Warming that is. 

As for the heat 'hiding' in the Ocean, where's your data? If you go on to the Argo system it's flat. In fact it's completely flat. For 1-2000 metres, completely and utterly flat since 2006. Go on yourself if you doubt me. Go on. Go on. I dare you! I double dog dare you.

You know it makes sense.

Edit
Actually, the lazy sods haven't updated for Jan/Feb yet so I'm waiting for them before I update any graphs.

Funny, data from NOAA don't seem to agree with your statement that oceans haven't taken up heat since 2006



And according to this 2013 paper, it doesn't look like the oceans haven't warmed since 2006 either



Another 2013 paper concludes

In recent years, from 2004 to 2011, while the upper ocean is not warming, the ocean continues to absorb heat at depth (e.g., Levitus et al. 2012; von Schuckman and Le Traon 2011), here estimated at a rate of 0.56 W m-2 when integrating over 0–1800 m

A 2014 paper shows that that there is still an energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, and the heat accumulating into the climate is consistent with that energy imbalance. A consequence of this additional heat is the ongoing rise in sea levels, as expected.

So to sum it up, there is an energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases. Most of this additional heat is going into the oceans, and the resulting thermal expansion is a factor in sea-level rise (the main other being melting ice). Basically we have a converging body of evidence consistent with what scientific principles tell us should happen.

But according to you, there's a pause in warming, including in the oceans. So now you have a problem, because if the additional heat caused by the observed energy imbalance is not going into the oceans, where is it going? And if thermal expansion and melting ice can't explain sea-level rise, what can? Can you in any way provide a coherent explanation that includes observational evidence? My turn to dare you to provide evidence and explanations

[lfcderek]

Bio, don't go off to sites like 'Skeptical Science' (a misleading name if there ever was one) and drink in their propaganda, their distorted graphs which stop short off current data, use pentadal averaging and use wildly exaggerated y axis units to achieve 45 deg slopes.

No, Bio. Get the data. Do a trend line of the temp.

Like this one

[lfcderek]

Sorry to all for the quality of the graph. Couldn't get it up to imageshack. Will do an update when those lazy sods at Argo put up Jan/Feb.

Y-axis is deg C. X-axis are years of course.

So Bio. It's flat. In fact Bio it's very flat. It is in fact very, very, very flat.

Go on yourself if you doubt me. Go on. Go on. I dare you! I double dog dare you.

Indulge yourself Bio. Instead of following Rojo's copy and pasting from shite sites - do some of your own investigation. Get at the truth. Enjoy.

You know it makes sense.

Edit. Clicking on opens it up in a new window. Improves it no end. Bloody clever things these computers!

[Bioluminescence]

Bio, don't go off to sites like 'Skeptical Science' (a misleading name if there ever was one) and drink in their propaganda, their distorted graphs which stop short off current data, use pentadal averaging and use wildly exaggerated y axis units to achieve 45 deg slopes.

No, Bio. Get the data. Do a trend line of the temp.

Like this one

I did get the data, Derek. One of the graphs was hosted on Skeptical Science, but it's not theirs. I gave you links to NOAA and several published papers. Not that I agree with you about Skeptical Science. I hear a lot of contrarians claim Skeptical Science is biased and a propaganda site, but I've yet to see a single reasoned argument, with evidence, to suggest that these contrarians have a point. Maybe you can provide such evidence.

Where's your data from? How about answering some of the questions I put to you? Since there's an energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, where is the additional heat going? What is causing sea-level rise if not the additional heat?

[Bioluminescence]

Sorry to all for the quality of the graph. Couldn't get it up to imageshack. Will do an update when those lazy sods at Argo put up Jan/Feb.

Y-axis is deg C. X-axis are years of course.

So Bio. It's flat. In fact Bio it's very flat. It is in fact very, very, very flat.

Go on yourself if you doubt me. Go on. Go on. I dare you! I double dog dare you.

Indulge yourself Bio. Instead of following Rojo's copy and pasting from shite sites - do some of your own investigation. Get at the truth. Enjoy.

You know it makes sense.

Edit. Clicking on opens it up in a new window. Improves it no end. Bloody clever things these computers!

I have already provided you with links to the scientific literature and NOAA. All I have from you is a graph with no source so what is the source?

[RojoLeón]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/the-uns-new-focus-surviving-not-stopping-climate-change/359929/

The UN's New Focus: Surviving, Not Stopping, Climate Change

The international body has issued a manual for adapting to a warming world.

The United Nations' latest report on climate change contains plenty of dire warnings about the adverse impact "human interference with the climate system" is having on everything from sea levels to crop yields to violent conflicts. But the primary message of the study isn't, as John Kerry suggested on Sunday, for countries to collectively reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Instead, the subtext appears to be this: Climate change is happening and will continue to happen for the foreseeable future. As a result, we need to adapt to a warming planet—to minimize the risks and maximize the benefits associated with increasing temperatures—rather than focusing solely on curbing warming in the first place. And it's businesses and local governments, rather than the international community, that can lead the way.
“The really big breakthrough in this report is the new idea of thinking about managing climate change,” Chris Field, the co-chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) study, said this week, adding that governments, companies, and communities are already experimenting with “climate-change adaptation.”
First, a definition of terms is in order. Since the 1990s, the climate-policy community has been engaged in a debate about whether to focus on reducing emissions ("mitigation"), managing climate change ("adaptation"), or both. But in a 2007 article for Nature, a team of academics gave three reasons for why the "taboo on adaptation" was gradually disappearing:

1.  The "timescale mismatch": Even if world leaders take decisive action to cut emissions (a big "if"), it won't have an impact on the climate for decades, and greenhouse-gas concentrations will continue to increase in the meantime.
2.  The emissions fallacy: People are vulnerable to the climate for reasons other than greenhouse-gas emissions, including factors like socioeconomic inequality and rapid population growth along coasts.
3.  The demands of developing countries: While wealthy countries account for most greenhouse-gas emissions, poor countries suffer the most damage from climate change. And these developing countries want the international community to help them become less vulnerable to the extreme climactic events they're facing now, rather than arguing over emission targets that will theoretically protect them in the future. 
The IPCC's early climate reports in the 1990s barely mentioned climate-change adaptation. But that changed in the panel's 2001 edition, which noted that "adaptation is a necessary strategy at all scales to complement climate mitigation efforts." The IPCC spent two pages discussing "adaptation options" in its 2007 study, and this week has devoted more than four chapters to the strategy, including a graph that shows our ability to adapt to climate change in three eras: the present; the near-future we've committed ourselves to based on current emissions; and the distant future we still have the capacity to shape.

Adaptation hasn't received nearly as much attention on the international level as mitigation has, though that could change with this latest UN report. But on the national level, where much of the action on climate change has shifted amid international gridlock, adaptation-focused thinking is becoming more common. According to a recent study by Globe International, which tracked climate legislation across 66 countries, the number of national climate laws around the world has increased from 40 in 1997 to nearly 500 now. Some of these laws are mitigation-focused, like Switzerland's aggressive carbon-dioxide-reduction act, but overall the "momentum in climate change legislation [is] shifting from industrialised countries to developing countries and emerging markets," which "has gone hand in hand with a rise in legislation covering adaptation."
This shift is a positive development for two reasons. First, adaptation measures are less politicized than mitigation measures. People may not agree on the science of climate change, but uncertainty about the future is no excuse for failing to prepare for the worst. "The dam of orthodoxy is cracking," Simon Jenkins wrote in The Guardian on Monday. "If Rome is burning, there is no point in endlessly retuning Nero's fiddle." 
"If Rome is burning, there is no point in endlessly retuning Nero's fiddle." 
 
Second, preparing for the worst actually presents major opportunities for the private sector and local governments. In its report this week, the IPCC is indeed calling for action—but not in the form of grand international declarations or promises. "Among the many actors and roles associated with successful adaptation, the evidence increasingly suggests two to be critical to progress; namely those associated with local government and those with the private sector," the report states. The implicit message: Citizens should stop waiting for world leaders to legislate climate change away—because that can't be done. Instead, individuals and communities need to show entrepreneurial initiative and figure out how best to survive in an increasingly volatile climate.
 
But what exactly does "adaptation" look like in practice? Americans have long practiced climate-change adaptation—by, for instance, commissioning public art to make hurricane-evacuation routes more visible, systematically planting trees to combat urban heat, and genetically engineering drought-tolerant crops. In many of these cases, people aren't even aware that they're "adapting" to climate change; they're just doing what needs to be done to keep the water flowing or the business growing. 
 
This year's IPCC report goes into great detail about how these strategies can work on every continent, identifying "key risks" and "adaptation prospects" that players—whether they be governments, businesses, or non-profits—should be prioritizing. (The World Resources Institute also has an excellent series of blog posts on the different roles that multinational corporations, small- and medium-sized businesses, and public-private partnerships can play here.) 

In Africa, key risks revolve around insect-transmitted illnesses, clean-water availability, and agricultural productivity due to intensifying droughts. Terms such as "sustainable urban development," "agroforestry," and "diversifying livelihoods" pop up in the corresponding list of adaptation prospects. Central and South America face all of the above, too, though adaptation responses may focus more on equipping public-health services to fight the spread of vector-borne diseases.
In Europe, according to the IPCC, it's time to focus on the increased risk of flooding and wildfires. Some people will profit from beefed-up flood-insurance policies; others will be forced to relocate their homes. New forms of insurance may develop against "weather-related yield variations" in the agricultural sector. North America's situation is similar. In addition to wildfires and urban floods, there will be extreme heat waves, which may incapacitate and kill people; communities may invest in public "cooling centers," and employers will have to adjust workers' hours—perhaps people will start sleeping during the day and going to work at night.
 
In Asia, one of the main concerns is anticipating natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Technological innovations are needed for early-warning systems that can save lives when disaster is about to strike. Addressing current vulnerabilities of essential infrastructure (water, energy, telecommunications, mobility) is another worthwhile investment. Japan's four major cell-service providers all had their infrastructure destroyed during the country's 2011 earthquake and tsunami; in situations like these, satellite companies like IPSTAR can swoop in and restore disrupted services quickly. 
 
In Australia, meanwhile, the focus is on the coasts and the ocean: sea-level rise, intense floods, and acidifying coral reefs. Here, the adaptation options seem slimmer. The IPCC suggests "land-use controls" and "relocation" as possible workarounds. The "ability of corals to adapt naturally appears limited and insufficient to offset the detrimental effects of rising temperatures and acidification," the report adds, highlighting a sad truth about climate change. Humans may be able to build resilience in a warming world, but other species have fewer ways to avoid becoming victims.

[lfcderek]

Forgive the language all but - Fuck Me Rojo! Do you have some morbid, pathological need to clutter up a thread with vast reams of cut and paste.

Anyway, Bio. The data comes directly from the Argo site.

i.e. the site were the Argo ocean buoys data is held by the, wait for it, the Argo organization!

Having seen the real data (perhaps for the first time in your life) are you trying to tell me it's not flat?

Your trying to tell me that that, almost straight, near horizontal line is not flat. If you are trying to say it's not flat, it's not very, very flat - I'll give up and take up bee keeping (the investigative instinct in me is becoming apparent?).

[lfcderek]

The 'first time in your life' was a bit uncalled for. Sorry.

You've obviously had a science background so, since you would find it relatively easy, I do recommend that, when you can, you get the data yourself. Investigate. Then come to your conclusions. 

[The Gulleysucker]

... I'll give up and take up bee keeping ...

Steady there, that's what I do.

[RojoLeón]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/03/climate-change-battle-food-head-world-bank
Climate change will 'lead to battles for food', says head of World Bank

Jim Yong Kim urges campaigners and scientists to work together to form a coherent plan in the fight against climate change

Battles over water and food will erupt within the next five to 10 years as a result of climate change, the president of the World Bank said as he urged those campaigning against global warming to learn the lessons of how protesters and scientists joined forces in the battle against HIV.
Jim Yong Kim said it was possible to cap the rise in global temperatures at 2C but that so far there had been a failure to replicate the "unbelievable" success of the 15-year-long coalition of activists and scientists to develop a treatment for HIV.
The bank's president – a doctor active in the campaign to develop drugs to treat HIV – said he had asked the climate change community: "Do we have a plan that's as good as the plan we had for HIV?" The answer, unfortunately, was no.
"Is there enough basic science research going into renewable energy? Not even close. Are there ways of taking discoveries made in universities and quickly moving them into industry? No. Are there ways of testing those innovations? Are there people thinking about scaling [up] those innovations?"
Interviewed ahead of next week's biannual World Bank meeting, Kim added: "They [the climate change community] kept saying, 'What do you mean a plan?' I said a plan that's equal to the challenge. A plan that will convince anyone who asks us that we're really serious about climate change, and that we have a plan that can actually keep us at less than 2C warming. We still don't have one.
"We're trying to help and we find ourselves being more involved then I think anyone at the bank had predicted even a couple of years ago. We've got to put the plan together."
Kim said there were four areas where the bank could help specifically in the fight against global warming: finding a stable price for carbon; removing fuel subsidies; investing in cleaner cities; and developing climate-smart agriculture. Improved access to clean water and sanitation was vital, he added, as he predicted that tension over resources would result from inaction over global warming.
"The water issue is critically related to climate change. People say that carbon is the currency of climate change. Water is the teeth. Fights over water and food are going to be the most significant direct impacts of climate change in the next five to 10 years. There's just no question about it.
"So getting serious about access to clean water, access to sanitation is a very important project. Water and sanitation has not had the same kind of champion that global health, and even education, have had."
The World Bank president admitted that his organisation had made mistakes in the past, including a belief that people in poor countries should pay for healthcare. He warned that a failure to tackle inequality risked social unrest.
"There's now just overwhelming evidence that those user fees actually worsened health outcomes. There's no question about it. So did the bank get it wrong before? Yeah. I think the bank was ideological."
The bank has almost doubled its lending capacity to $28bn (£17bn) a year with the aim of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 and spreading the benefits of prosperity to the poorest 40% in developing countries.
"What we have found is that because of smartphones and access to media, and because everybody knows how everyone else lives, you have no idea where the next huge social movement is going to erupt.
"It's going to erupt to a great extent because of these inequalities. So what I hear from heads of state is a much, much deeper understanding of the political dangers of very high levels of inequality," he said.
"Now that we have good evidence that suggests that working on more inclusive growth strategies actually improves overall growth, that's our job."
Kim said he was shaking up the bank's structure so that it could lend more effectively and to end a culture in which the organisation's staff did not talk to each other. Instead of being organised solely on a geographic basis, the bank will now pool its expertise across sectors such as health, education and transport so that ideas could be shared across national borders.
The bank's private-sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, will be encouraged to work with the public-sector arm.
Kim said the changes had come about because knowledge was not flowing through the organisation.
"We were working at six regional banks. The six regional banks were working pretty well, but there was not the sense that there was any innovation in tackling a problem – that if you went to the World Bank you'd have access to that innovation."

[Bioluminescence]

Forgive the language all but - Fuck Me Rojo! Do you have some morbid, pathological need to clutter up a thread with vast reams of cut and paste.

Anyway, Bio. The data comes directly from the Argo site.

i.e. the site were the Argo ocean buoys data is held by the, wait for it, the Argo organization!

Having seen the real data (perhaps for the first time in your life) are you trying to tell me it's not flat?

Your trying to tell me that that, almost straight, near horizontal line is not flat. If you are trying to say it's not flat, it's not very, very flat - I'll give up and take up bee keeping (the investigative instinct in me is becoming apparent?).

I need the data to replicate your graph, Derek. I need to know exactly which data you're using so can you please provide a link? I won't comment until I can replicate your results.

I see you're refusing to answer my questions and you're ignoring the graphs and literature I presented to make my case. Why is that, Derek?

[BUSHMILLS]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/03/climate-change-battle-food-head-world-bank
Climate change will 'lead to battles for food', says head of World Bank

Jim Yong Kim urges campaigners and scientists to work together to form a coherent plan in the fight against climate change

The World Bank, eh? You're keeping strange company these days, Rojo.

[lfcderek]

Steady there, that's what I do.

Gulleysucker, I know you. You're one of those buggers who spurn pain and austerity.

Actually, now that I think about it, that's a bit like me!

 

[Alan_X]

Think my suggested change far better - and a good deal more accurate. 

PS. Have you some peculiar addiction to cut and paste Rojo? You must be eligible for a Guinness Book of Records entry by now. 

PPS. Is there any valid reason to use 'Climate Change' instead of 'Global Warming'? That was the phrase used when this nonsense first appeared. Is it just PR since the 'Warming' bit stopped about 17 years ago? 

What's your background mate? You are making some very strong sweeping statements that go against the current scientific consensus.

I assume you work in the field and have the knowledge and training to back up your assertions that climate change doesn't exist.

[lfcderek]

I need the data to replicate your graph, Derek. I need to know exactly which data you're using so can you please provide a link? I won't comment until I can replicate your results.

The refusal of climate 'scientists' to archive their data (and computational methods) to allow replication has been an ongoing disgrace for a quarter of a century Bio.

In this case ( ) however

Argo - http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/

[BUSHMILLS]

What's your background mate? You are making some very strong sweeping statements that go against the current scientific consensus.

I assume you work in the field and have the knowledge and training to back up your assertions that climate change doesn't exist.

He's made no such assertion.

He's pointed out the scientific fact that there's been no warming of the earth's temperature for 17 years. He's questioned the controversial claim that the "missing heat" is being stored in the oceans. And he's challenged the more apocalyptic predictions of what will happen to us all as a result of climate change. But nowhere has he said that it doesn't exist.

[Bioluminescence]

The refusal of climate 'scientists' to archive their data (and computational methods) to allow replication has been an ongoing disgrace for a quarter of a century Bio.

In this case ( ) however

Argo - http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/

 

Come on Derek, there are loads of datasets available on the site - you need to tell me precisely which you used, as well as which data.

Annoying I know, but since your graph is based on NODC data, and the NOAA/NODC graph clearly shows warming, someone somewhere is doing it wrong



See the noticeable difference? And then there are all the studies (Nuccitelli et al. (2012), Balmaseda et al. (2013), Levitus et al. (2012) as well as others) that show ocean heat content has been building up, consistent with the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere and resulting in expected sea-level rise.

So forgive me if I'm sceptical about your flat graph and require a bit more from you. I won't hold my breath about you giving answers to the questions I've asked - about where the additional heat is going and what is causing the sea-level rise - but I hope you will give me a direct link to the data you picked, with all the details I need. I thank you