That isn't so. That is a propaganda line from the denialist camp - the projections of incoming glaciation from data were properly dated as long into the future, and no feedback effects capable of that rapid an onset were looming at any frightening level of probability. The revision of history to present current global warming threats as replays of global cooling threats from the 1970s misrepresents those cooling threats - which are still valid, btw, on the appropriate timeline. So how does that affect the actual threat? The question here - since Billy does not control his own media empire, while Roger Ailes does - is: what probability of actual threat do we face? We have a mechanism, not hypothetical but confronting us, that can in basic physical theory produce a bona fide apocalypse. It is in fact in operation, on a small scale. It is not an invention of ignorance and hyperventilating woo, like the collapsed timelines on the glaciation horror stories in revisionist versions of the 1970s cooling flap. Its probability of explosive feedback seems to lie somewhere between nuclear winter from military reflex response and ELE asteroid impact, but from the various discussion I'm unable to get a better handle on it than that vague intuition, which is frankly bothersome. I can see that the arguments against its realistic possibility have certain obvious flaws, for example - the reassurances don't hold water (they assume heat transfer to underwater hydrate stores by diffusion only, for example), and that's kind of disturbing. One would prefer a more solid estimate of the probabilities, especially since only a very low probability is acceptable without triggering a dramatic emergency response on the part of the sane. Example of problem: We have solid reasons to doubt human extinction by Ebola ever, let alone by 2020. It only kills a percentage of its victims, its lethality interferes with its spread (a natural damping or diminution, either way), its spread depends on cultural factors not universal in the species and changes in its mode of spread are all but certain to reduce rather than increase its already inadequate lethality, the world's population of humans is divided into geographically as well as demographically isolated cadres (so that even universal infection, let alone extinction, is essentially impossible by 2020) and so forth. Human civilization could be temporarily brought low by a newly pneumatic Ebola, but the species as a whole is safe. What we want are similar reasons to justify setting aside the methane bomb for the time being. And there don't seem to be so many, or so solid.
True as we have data relating to those event and thus can calculate their low probability of occrence on time scales of human interest. That is where Global Warming's near term extinction differs from your examples. We are nearly certain that continued "business as usual" does lead to NTE on time scale of human interest; but the "half life" of civilization, especially one built on growth on a finite planet, is very uncertain. Even which of many mechanisms, that are probable without drastic changes,* destroys civilization first is unknown. * Unfortunately it is a global problem and several different societies are struggling to grow to significant fraction of US's per capita release of CO2.
No. You are certain; science is equally certain that that is NOT the case. Not even the worst case IPCC case leads to that - and temperatures have not been tracking to the worst case (they are considerably less severe.) Yes, and unfortunately there will be a lot of results of climate change that could harm those very same countries. One of those results is not "near term extinction" of humanity. How can we convince people it's a problem? The best way lies in putting in our best efforts to predict what the effects will be, publishing them, then seeing whether the climate meets our predictions. (And that's what the IPCC has been doing.) Once we can prove our predictions track reality we have a much better tool to use to convince people. The worst way involves shrill, hysterical predictions with LOTS OF BOLD TYPE and LOTS!! OF!! EMPHASIS!!!!!!! describing the end of the world - steam Venus hells, near term extinction of all humans etc etc.
Agreed. And they projected that the observed increases in high altitude areosols and sulfur emissions would continue without change, which was the primary poor assumption they made. That's my point - such propaganda gives the enemies of science more ammunition. That's akin to saying that we are at real risk of a "snowball Earth" because it happened on a small scale last winter. There is absolutely no consensus that there will be a runaway greenhouse effect rapidly leading to a "steam Venus." I disagree. Neither was entirely woo - but both are hyperbolic, apocalyptic fringe theories that attract followers primarily due to their emotional appeal. A biologist who had never seen an epidemic before might well disagree with you, and quotes sources showing how virulent it was and how easily it could be spread. They could then use some simple math and show a geometric series that "proved" we would all be dead in ten years. Biologists with more experience know that there are a great many factors that prevent such a simplistic scenario - but the best argument against such an outcome is that, after a long history of humanity's coexistence with contagious diseases, it has never happened. Likewise, someone with no knowledge of the climactic history of the Earth might well conclude that our climate is metastable, and that both the snowball Earth and steam-Venus scenarios are likely. However, someone with more experience will realize that despite much worse perturbations than our emissions of CO2 have caused, neither has ever happened. That is the best real-world argument against both. I am all for reducing our emissions of CO2 to reduce the overall impact that climate change will cause. I think talking about "near term extinction" "the methane bomb is about to detonate" "Venus hell" etc is detrimental to that.
It is not just an ever growing monetary debt this generation is handing down to the next, it is also a weaken ecological system too - Globally more CO2, lower grade ores and energy sources with lower EREI etc.(Energy Return on Energy Invested) as oil sands and "fracking" grow as percent of the supply. A note on why I take any thing the IPCC puts out with a grain of salt (or shot of something stronger): Their analysis is built on the "radiative forcing" of the various GHGes and little else. - does not consider the mutually amplifying (accelerating) mutual feed backs of 31 known positive feed back systems. Most recent example I have noted is that GW induced drought promotes forest fires than lay down soot on snow to speed its melting. etc. They are then surprised that Greenland is seen to be melting much faster than they expected, etc.
Of course they do. They just apply scientific rigor rather than unsupported guesses. From AR4 working group 1: ========== There are many feedback mechanisms in the climate system that can either amplify (‘positive feedback’) or diminish (‘negative feedback’) the effects of a change in climate forcing. For example, as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases warm Earth’s climate, snow and ice begin to melt. This melting reveals darker land and water surfaces that were beneath the snow and ice, and these darker surfaces absorb more of the Sun’s heat, causing more warming, which causes more melting, and so on, in a self-reinforcing cycle. This feedback loop, known as the ‘ice-albedo feedback’, amplifies the initial warming caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases. Detecting, understanding and accurately quantifying climate feedbacks have been the focus of a great deal of research by scientists unravelling the complexities of Earth’s climate. . . . Aerosols are small particles present in the atmosphere with widely varying size, concentration and chemical composition. Some aerosols are emitted directly into the atmosphere while others are formed from emitted compounds. Aerosols contain both naturally occurring compounds and those emitted as a result of human activities. Fossil fuel and biomass burning have increased aerosols containing sulphur compounds, organic compounds and black carbon (soot). ========== This is what I mean. The idea that an increase in forest fires will put more particulates in the atmosphere than a major volcanic eruption is unsupportable.
What propaganda? A few people noted that we were due for a cooling trend, and proposed that some recent events were part of it. Others disagreed about the recent events, and turned out to be correct - although the fact that we are due for a major cooling on an ordinary time scale remains uncontradicted. The enemies of science invent whatever they need. Should climate scientists not email each other about statistical techniques, because these emails can be stolen, taken out of context, misrepresented, and converted to ammo for Ailes? With the difference, which appears unimpressive to you for some as yet unexplained reason, that the counterarguments to any worries about a snowball earth are sound and free of dubious assumptions or bad logic. The arguments against a too-high probability of a methane bomb are not, at least the ones I've seen. And these assumptions of his would be dubious, his sources likewise, and his logic bad. The arguments against him are sound and their logic good. What's your point? I agree (well, except for the snowball earth, which has happened). That's why I have posted it myself, a couple of times here over the years, as my idea of the strongest reassurance. But it isn't actually strong enough, for sufficient confidence - the current circumstances are in fact unique in a couple of ways, and some of their unique features bear directly on the risk of too much feedback boost too fast for too long for us. So I want a decent rebuttal, not a complaint about discussion of long shot possibilities somehow interfering with the good fight out there in Fox News territory. Argue the case, not the politics - Rupert Murdoch isn't on this forum.
I did not say IPCC was unaware of theses feed backs. They just ignore them in the LINEARIZED model of a NON-linear problem. I.e. they put forth a great deal of effect in a complex areas, say like net effect of aerosols, and then assign each of the effects investigated a radiative forcing function Fn where "n" is integer that might be 6 for aerosols. Then add these forcing function up to get an overall forcing function F. F = F1 +F2 + F3 +.... +Fn where currently n should be about 31, at least (because 31 different positive feed backs are known), but I think the IPCC only includes less than 10 effects in its linearized model. I.e. The IPCC's F is an incomplete, linear sum which totally neglects, for example, F(F3,F6) where this F(3,6) is a function that reflects the increase of F3 by positive feed back from F6 PLUS increase of effect F6's contribution to Global Warming by positive feed back from F3. Many of these omitted contribution are very small admittedly but there are 31x31= 930 of them. This is wrong. I was in a rush - had to leave house and walk 3 blocks in the 2 minutes remaining before the hour changed. The number is much larger. 31 factorial (31 !). I.e. #1 interacts with 30 others; #2 interacts with 29 others (interaction with #1 is already counted); #3 with28 others etc.) 31 ! = 8.2228387E33 So if the magnitude of the average positive feed back contribution to Global Warming is only 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001 = 1E(-23) as important as factors IPCC does include in their linearized calculation of the overall forcing F then the amount the IPCC underestimates the Global Warming effect is by a factor of ~8E10 = 80,000,000,000. Such a gross error would be obvious (near term extinction tomorrow) EXCEPT for fact Earth is an "oceanic planet" with a 30 to 40 year (or greater for some effects) thermal time constant. I.e. the obvious indicators (more flooding, air temperature rise, ice melting, more frequent and stronger storms, sea level rising, jet stream wander, droughts, more fires, etc.) are only beginning to show, but NTE is very likely impossible to avoid in cultures that value current profits more than the conditions they leave to their grandchildren. ======== No true, for most volcanos.* The ice now melting on Greenland is exposing soot that mainly came for Siberian fires** - has not melted down yet to any significant volcanic layer's soot. When it does their will be a step function increase in solar absorption (and melting rate). That "step function" will happen when last 98 years of snow fall have meted away and soot from last big volcanic eruption is again absorbing sunlight. Perhaps Iceland can delay NTE a few years? * The fall out from the 2010 eruption of an Icelandic volcano, which grounded air plane in Europe for ~3 days did not even get to Alaska was not ejected high enough ** The reason why Siberian fires, not the closer forest fires in US are the main source of soot on Greenland is that their buoyancy in the colder local air is much greater - can lift the rising smoke to higher altitudes especially the rapid jet stream, form which it falls out all over the northern part of the world, Iceland included.
"resulting famines would be catastrophic . . . the longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.. . .drought and desolation. . . the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded. . . droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, and delayed monsoons.. . .impossible for starving peoples to migrate." ?? Of course they should email each other. They should NOT post on public forums that everyone is probably going to die in 6 years. That hurts their cause. Snowball earth was not a stable climactic state; there was no permanent transition to a high-albedo state. No, but BillyT is - and he's giving Rupert a run for his money.
AFAIK, no one has said that - certainly not me. In post 970, I presented someone else's (Sam Carana's) argument that if a 1 G ton burp of CH4 were to occur now in the Arctic, where prior releases of CH4 have already drasticaly lowered the concentration of OH radical, by far the most important pathway for removal of atmospheric CH4, then it is reasonable to expect relative prompt thermal run away condition to follow. Below is his final graph illustrating this. Below it is a graph showing how CH4 is concentrated in N. polar regions. - In small part because it is more rapidly released there, per sq.meter, but cows and swamps release much more where it has only ~12 year half life.) but more because the global half life (12.6 years, global average, now and increasing at 0.3% each year is much longer near the N. Pole). Instead of producing ~80 times more GW than same mass puff of CO2, elsewhere, there it lives so much longer in the Arctic, that it takes a puff of CO2 more than 1000 times as massive to do the same Global Warming. This is in part why Arctic is warming ~5 times faster than mid latitudes. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!from: http://guymcpherson.com/home/doomst...ads/2013/01/methane-concentration-300x200.png
Billy T - " "Bottom line" of this post is that human extinction by 2020 is possible!" No, it is not, especially since previous "burps" have not had anything like the effect you are guessing they will - and considering that now conditions are less favorable for massive releases of clathrates.
Yes that is basically Sam Carana's conclusion but it comes qualified, which you omit, by IF a 1 G TON BURP OF CH4 WERE RELEASED, essentially now. Wrong on both points. Please give some reference for these two silly statements in your post. (1) I'm not guessing but giving the data - see global map of CH4 concentrations vs. latitude a couple of posts back in post 990. In the reference given there you can see calculations suggesting that in the arctic the 10 year average global warming effect of a puff of CH4 is matched only by a puff of CO2 with more than 1000 times its mass. I have been trying for many months to get people to understand it is really CH4, not CO2 that mankind may not be able to survive - more carbon in even just the shallow (50 m or less deep) Arctic Ocean and tundra than in all the coal that ever existed and it is entering the atmosphere much more rapidly every year now. If it is true that part of the Gulf Stream now enters the arctic along the East Siberian Coastal Shelf, then this dense (64+ pounds / cu Ft, not 62 pounds / cuFt fresh water from ice melting) salt water will deliver heat direct to these stores of CH4 and decompose them much more rapidly. (2) "conditions" are MORE favorable now for rapid CH4 release than ever before, except for one time long ago - when the worst mass extinction ever (yet) occurred. Not only "more favorable" but already about 400% more than ever in the last 800,000 year has not only been released but HAS ACCUMULATED, especially in the Arctic! - that is data - not a guess. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
And that behavior is what I consider irresponsible - because in fact that was the very first line of your post, used for dramatic effect, and in that line you omitted any conditionals. You were hoping people would see that and say "WOW!" and thus entice them to read your post. And that's exactly what magazines did back in the 1970's on the global cooling issue - they wanted people to read their magazines, and as a result, harmed the cause of climate change science. So we have already completed a thermal runaway and are now dead? If not, then you are guessing that (for example) "salt water will deliver heat direct to these stores of CH4 and decompose them much more rapidly." And yet back when conditions were even more favorable, we did not transition to a "Venus hell" state of boiling oceans. The climate recovered, and our ancestors did not go extinct.
Not sure what the "propaganda" is there - that stuff was all reasonably projected consequences of a rapid and cooling, which a minority of researchers thought (on unsound reasoning and inadequate research) was likely. The bold type and exclamation points, above, are your own contribution. Are you claiming none of that should have been mentioned in public by the minority of researchers who thought its probability too high for comfort? 1) It hurts the cause of science to discuss statistical techniques in public? 2) They didn't. And the fact that they didn't was used to claim they were hiding fraud from oversight, and running a scam, a claim which has "hurt their cause" more than any other single falsehood or slander or deception by the enemies of science. Hence the title of this thread, and the OP. On a science forum a person ought to be able to take for granted that the difference between "possible" and "probably" will be recognized automatically by all readers. Is that your idea of reassuring argument - that the last time something like this happened, it didn't quite kill every living thing on the planet? What I'm looking for is a reasonable estimate of the probability of catastrophe here - keeping in mind that only very low probabilities are even remotely acceptable, and anything in even single digits is a howling emergency.
Those were not from researchers. They were from writers for Newsweek and Time. And yes, they were sensationalist propaganda, intended to sell magazines, that harmed the overall cause of climate change awareness. To their credit they have since apologized. Here is the most alarmist thing that actual researchers said: "Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end, to be followed by a long period of considerably colder temperatures leading into the next glacial age some 20,000 years from now. However, it is possible, or even likely, that human interference has already altered the environment so much that the climatic pattern of the near future will follow a different path." Not at all. It does not harm the cause of science to discuss statistics. It hurts the cause of science to claim that the cold will make it impossible for all the starving refugees to migrate someplace safe, away from the grim reality of the (cold) climate change. It hurts the cause of science to claim that it's possible that humanity will be extinct in 6 years. Right. BillyT did.
Basically correct. Same reason I use graphical presentation of the data when I can. Few will read my long fact filled posts with out some "tease" up front. I have never suggest that transition to a Venus like hot thermal states would happen - was a certain fact. I have explained how it might be possible, with CO2's very rapid release causing the release of much more powerful GHG methane to be released faster than OH radical could destroy it, as is fact now, with their combined acceleration of water accumulation in the atmosphere (7% more for each degree of ocean surface temperature rise.)* and many times asked if any one had a solid proof that run away to Earth's hot stable state (IR opaque atmosphere with high pressure steam atmosphere at the surface) was impossible. My interest in this question ending at lease a year ago when I realized that exposure to 35C wet bulb conditions kill humans (and all but the smallest of warm blooded animals - tiny mice might be able to survive 35C WBT) in less than hour. I said: if it is true (as I have recently read) that a "tounge" of the Gulf Steam is now entering the Arctic Ocean, that would further accelerating the decomposition of methane ice on the shallow Arctic floor especially on the East Siberian Coastal Shelf. See map showing the 50m or less depth region. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Note average depth of all the Arctic Oceans, deepest parts included, is only 45 meters. The solar radiation intensity was slightly (a few percent) less back then and when land mass was assembled (Pangaea), I think there was less shallow water - continual shelf perimeter was certainly less. Thus the thermal time constant for raising the average oceans temperature was longer. - Here I am "guess" but these and other conditions may be why, Or it still may not be possible, even with a hotter sun now and with man helping increase the trapping of IR radiantion trying to escape Earth. *BTW, CNN just an hour ago said Japan's record rain fall of less than two weeks ago is no longer the record. Yesterday for 24 hours it rained at least 1cm per hour to set new record (and killed 27 people in land slides with at least 10 still missing).
Yep. Such rationales have been used to justify everything from climate change denialism to the "global cooling" story. The rationale is valid (i.e. "fewer people will read my story unless I put 'Obama lies about climate change' in the headline - but I qualify it later!") but I think the result is a less well informed populace overall. A good summary, without any warnings about how we may all soon be extinct - and much more likely to help educate people about climate change and it's risks, IMO.
How? Are we to presume that Billy T here is in the position of a nationally syndicated journalist published by Newsweek? It is, after all, apparently a true statement, and reasonable fodder for discussion here. That is, the kinds of arguments easily found to deflate the exaggerations of the media woo-meisters in the rapid cooling flap seem to be notably and bothersomely scarce in the case of the methane bomb. a
Not at all. Not surprising; it took quite a while to generate a response to that particular woo, so I'd expect the same in this case. Heck, it took Newsweek 31 years to apologize for their misinformation. Do you think that the woo-meisters who posted the hyperbolic claims of cooling disasters in the 1970's helped or hurt the cause of climate change education?
