The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

and keeping some kind of relationship open is just smart 

I would remind some well-known sequence of events happened earlier, but prefer to refrain from offtopic.

[Codraroll]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Most recently it was the Fukushima mess, actually. The German announcement that they were ending all nuclear power production came in the wake of Fukushima.

They made an announcement after Fukushima, but the decision was made after Chernobyl. Germany last opened a nuclear plant in 1989, one among a few that were already under construction when the Chernobyl disaster occurred. All other plans were cancelled. Meanwhile, it was clear even back then that the life span of those plants would be 30-something years - Germany hasn't ever operated a nuclear plant for more than that. It was already in the cards that the plants would close at some point in the 2020's, and that would be the end of nuclear power in Germany unless the decision not to build more plants was reversed.

So when Merkel announced the end of nuclear power production after Fukushima, she really just reaffirmed that the current practice would continue and that the plants would be retired upon reaching their already-expected life span. A few plants might have closed a few years before they otherwise would have, but it's unlikely that they would have carried on for much longer anyway. And by 2011, it was arguably to late to save the existing expertise in nuclear power building. Those who planned and built the plants that opened in the late 1980's were presumably not junior engineers straight out of university, but experienced seniors who retired before the 2010's. The right time to save the nuclear power sector would have been around the turn of the millennium.

[kerbiloid]

(English subtitles)

Spoiler

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

So much internal dissonance in this:

Exceedingly rare' horse bridle discovered in melting ice in Norway could date to Viking Age

"https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/exceedingly-rare-horse-bridle-discovered-in-melting-ice-in-norway-could-date-to-viking-age

" During the Viking Age, Lendbreen pass was a popular thoroughfare and is known for its abundance of artifacts, which over the years has revealed Viking Age spears, ancient horse dung and horse bones, according to the Secrets of the Ice website.

...

The reason we are making all these finds is that the mountain ice is retreating due to anthropogenic climate change. "

 

 

I cannot help but ask - if the place was a pass / popular thoroughfare... Why is being covered by a glacier considered the 'natural state'? 

Clearly there wasn't a glacier there during the Viking Age - and yet there is a retreating glacier there now - one which likely formed during the Little Ice Age. 

All of this goes to my criticism of using 1850 as the 'zero' against which the models are measured.  

 

[Jacke]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I cannot help but ask - if the place was a pass / popular thoroughfare... Why is being covered by a glacier considered the 'natural state'?

Clearly there wasn't a glacier there during the Viking Age - and yet there is a retreating glacier there now - one which likely formed during the Little Ice Age.

The Viking Age was know for an upswing in population and much more trading, raiding, and eventually emigration.  Not any particular warming of the climate.  (There was one around ~1200 I believe, but it was minor compared to what we've got now)

There were glaciers then.  All sorts of things end up in glaciers because they were dropped on the glacier and eventually covered by snow which eventually became ice.

If those glaciers get to the sea, then all those things in them are lost.  That was the case with many glaciers in Norway.

But like elsewhere (like the Canadian Rockies), glaciers are retreating and dropping their contained items at the exposed foot of the glacier.  In Norway, there's a combination of ice that had items from ~800 or so that didn't go to the sea and is now retreating, thus providing the artifacts.

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

28 minutes ago, Jacke said:

All sorts of things end up in glaciers

Not sure that is the case.  Much of what I've read suggests that glaciers are bloody dangerous.  Not something that should be used as a thoroughfare. 

I'm not doubting that our habit of rampant pollution is adverse to the health of the planet.  I just think the 'zero' offered by some is flawed. 

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Not sure that is the case.  Much of what I've read suggests that glaciers are bloody dangerous.  Not something that should be used as a thoroughfare. 

I used to do a lot of mountaineering. Glaciers are dangerous, but are also excellent ways to travel in the mountains if you are prepared for them.

[SunlitZelkova]

So I had a philosophical epiphany a few minutes ago. It isn’t really on topic for the forum and obviously not the thread, but this newfound wisdom has, right off the bat, severely affected my view of climate change.

I just no longer feel the doom that goes around in reports and media.

Apart from my epiphany, I also just remember reading about (The Freaking) Carl Sagan going on TV during the Gulf War and saying that if the Iraqi oil fields got set afire, it would cause atmospheric damage on the level of a limited nuclear war.

It didn’t happen, and even if we are on an ecological brink (that is also largely traceable to standard human expansion and pollution rather than CO2) and even if October is now so hot in Oregon it rots our Jack-O-Lanterns unless you carve them and put them out two days before Halloween, I have a hard time believing in the more extreme predictions, that is, sea level rise (the more extreme estimates that get treated as the most likely), decline of crops in certain regions (the anthropology museum at University of Oregon claims Napa will be too hot to grow wine in by 2100), and although it doesn’t have to do with climate change, mass die offs of shellfish vital to the food chain due to ocean acidification.

I am in the wrong here? Do I have a right to not worry as much and be more skeptical, or am I dabbling in denialism, both standard and of science?

Note that I’m not accusing climate scientists of lying or that climate change itself won’t have any effects, I just don’t feel a need to treat their findings as the Gospel as I did in the past.

[darthgently]

51 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

So I had a philosophical epiphany a few minutes ago. It isn’t really on topic for the forum and obviously not the thread, but this newfound wisdom has, right off the bat, severely affected my view of climate change.

I just no longer feel the doom that goes around in reports and media.

Apart from my epiphany, I also just remember reading about (The Freaking) Carl Sagan going on TV during the Gulf War and saying that if the Iraqi oil fields got set afire, it would cause atmospheric damage on the level of a limited nuclear war.

It didn’t happen, and even if we are on an ecological brink (that is also largely traceable to standard human expansion and pollution rather than CO2) and even if October is now so hot in Oregon it rots our Jack-O-Lanterns unless you carve them and put them out two days before Halloween, I have a hard time believing in the more extreme predictions, that is, sea level rise (the more extreme estimates that get treated as the most likely), decline of crops in certain regions (the anthropology museum at University of Oregon claims Napa will be too hot to grow wine in by 2100), and although it doesn’t have to do with climate change, mass die offs of shellfish vital to the food chain due to ocean acidification.

I am in the wrong here? Do I have a right to not worry as much and be more skeptical, or am I dabbling in denialism, both standard and of science?

Note that I’m not accusing climate scientists of lying or that climate change itself won’t have any effects, I just don’t feel a need to treat their findings as the Gospel as I did in the past.

The best analyses I've seen by reputable scientists is the the IPCC report, in its details, is not alarmist, but the "recommendations for policy makers" section of the report (notably not written primarily by scientists) is a bit alarmist, then, when the media reports only referring to that one section, they turn the alarmism up to 11.  The actual conclusions deep in the report are not very alarming and peppered with caveats and admissions of limited claims of certainty.  I'm in the camp that humans can affect climate and we should try to characterize that effect and push politics out of the process thus letting researchers research in relative peace

Edited October 8, 2023 by darthgently

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

The actual conclusions deep in the report are not very alarming and peppered with caveats and admissions of limited claims of certainty.  I'm in the camp that humans can affect climate

Yep. 

 

2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

am I in the wrong here? 

Nope. 

I'm convinced the hype and doomcasting is media driven.  But sadly that also includes editorial discretion in reputable publications. 

https://www.eenews.net/articles/a-scientist-manipulated-climate-data-conservative-media-celebrated/

But things like this don't mean the science is wrong or there is no cause for concern... But they do show that we should be skeptical of the more extreme predictalizing. 

[Codraroll]

23 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So much internal dissonance in this:

Exceedingly rare' horse bridle discovered in melting ice in Norway could date to Viking Age

"https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/exceedingly-rare-horse-bridle-discovered-in-melting-ice-in-norway-could-date-to-viking-age

" During the Viking Age, Lendbreen pass was a popular thoroughfare and is known for its abundance of artifacts, which over the years has revealed Viking Age spears, ancient horse dung and horse bones, according to the Secrets of the Ice website.

...

The reason we are making all these finds is that the mountain ice is retreating due to anthropogenic climate change. "

 

 

I cannot help but ask - if the place was a pass / popular thoroughfare... Why is being covered by a glacier considered the 'natural state'? 

Clearly there wasn't a glacier there during the Viking Age - and yet there is a retreating glacier there now - one which likely formed during the Little Ice Age. 

All of this goes to my criticism of using 1850 as the 'zero' against which the models are measured.  

 

Quite on the contrary, the glacier was definitely there, and used as the quickest and easiest way to get over the mountain (being "ice rivers", glaciers flow along the parth of least resistance down the mountainside, after all). Occasionally, items were lost on the ice, which is why we find them when the ice melts away. Had there not been a glacier there, you'd have expected to find all sorts of bits of vegetation as the ice retreated as well. But alas, even the remains of old horse dung stand out.

The reason why 1850 is used as a baseline is because that's roughly when things started to change rapidly. In the preceding 2000 years, the global average temperature changed by about 0.5 °C. In the 170 years since, we've seen three time that. There's a famous XKCD that illustrates the point quite clearly.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Another pass - from Roman times

https://www.zenger.news/2022/08/15/global-warming-reveals-swiss-mountain-route-unseen-since-roman-times/

 

[kerbiloid]

On 10/7/2023 at 6:10 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

ancient horse dung and horse bones

Pure thing... Just pooped and immediately died...

But anyway. If they found the dung after the glacier ice had melted, why the dung didn't?
And if it did, how did they get the idea to collect it? They were puzzled with a horse skeleton putting fresh dung?

Could be a thestral.

Spoiler

 

[darthgently]

tl;dr   Total Solar Irradiation explains warming better than anthropogenic sources 1850-2018

The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data

https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/11/9/179

Oops, the above is similar content, but below is what I meant to link

Statistics Norway has overall responsibility in Norway for providing statistics on Norwegian society.

https://www.ssb.no/en/natur-og-miljo/forurensning-og-klima/artikler/to-what-extent-are-temperature-levels-changing-due-to-greenhouse-gas-emissions

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by darthgently
Added intended link

[Codraroll]

22 hours ago, darthgently said:

Statistics Norway has overall responsibility in Norway for providing statistics on Norwegian society.

And they've caught a lot of flak for letting two retirees publish a contrarian working document (calling it an "article" would be too generous - it never went through quality control, never mind peer review) through their official channels, abusing the name and reputation of the institution to give credence to their bogus work.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, Codraroll said:

And they've caught a lot of flak for letting two retirees publish a contrarian working document (calling it an "article" would be too generous - it never went through quality control, never mind peer review) through their official channels, abusing the name and reputation of the institution to give credence to their bogus work.

What is bogus about the methodology?

I mean, of course they caught flak, because those are the times we are in, but aside from something related to appeal to authority, what is wrong with their methodology?  Catching flak isn't enough

A lot of very good researchers "catch flak".

Give this interview a full viewing, suspend prior bias for the duration.  It won't hurt that much

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh9444

Climate models need to account for how plants adapt to increased CO2 in the environment, and not overstate the impact of temperature.  Ground carbon uptake via plants higher than predicted by current models. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Hotel26]

Nobel Laureate John Clauser: Climate Models Miss One Key Variable (also on Apple Podcasts)  (both audio only)  (original video episode at American Thought Leaders, but behind a pay-wall.)

I saw this on American Thought Leaders when this interview first came out in early September(?) but the video was behind a paywall and I couldn't share it easily.

The summary is that Clauser claims that the IPCC has a collection of ~40 models that all work only part of the time and generally do not agree with each other much of the time.  NONE of them work with cloud cover: that is to say that they all omit cloud cover as a variable, and assume clear skies.

Clauser, a physicist (quantum entanglement) and a sailor who has crossed the Atlantic, noticed that cloud cover cuts energy input to the surface by 50% (out in the Atlantic on the open ocean).  Noting also that more than 60% of the Earth's surface is ocean, he thinks of the global weather system with cloud formation as a gigantic planetary thermostat (paraphrase).  Greater temperature causes increased evaporation and humidity and cloud cover, reducing retained energy input from the Sun, causing coolling as positive feedback.  His conclusion has been that miniscule anthropogenic inputs to our global system are well within the ability of nature to compensate.

The above is by far the best interview with Clauser after he made his recent public statements.  (As I recall, he received his Nobel Prize in 2022, and was then safe to state his mind in 2023.)

Spoiler

I have access to a Full Transcript, but cannot publish that here (anywhere) in its entirety.  I think it would not violate copyright if I published key excerpts, if requested.

 

Quote

One of the most remarkable traits of quantum mechanics is that it allows two or more particles to exist in what is called an entangled state. What happens to one of the particles in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other particle, even if they are far apart. In 1972, John Clauser conducted groundbreaking experiments using entangled light particles, photons. This and other experiments confirm that quantum mechanics is correct and pave the way for quantum computers, quantum networks and quantum encrypted communication.

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Hotel26

[SunlitZelkova]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

I have access to a Full Transcript, but cannot publish that here (anywhere) in its entirety.  I think it would not violate copyright if I published key excerpts, if requested.

Thanks for sharing the blurb anyways!

[GluttonyReaper]

6 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Clauser, a physicist (quantum entanglement) and a sailor who has crossed the Atlantic, noticed that cloud cover cuts energy input to the surface by 50% (out in the Atlantic on the open ocean).  Noting also that more than 60% of the Earth's surface is ocean, he thinks of the global weather system with cloud formation as a gigantic planetary thermostat (paraphrase).  Greater temperature causes increased evaporation and humidity and cloud cover, reducing retained energy input from the Sun, causing coolling as positive feedback

I haven't got access to this transcript obviously - is there any mention within it of the insulative effects of clouds, i.e. are they claiming that the energy input blocked by cloud cover is greater than the effect of heat being trapped in the atmosphere by the same clouds?

[Hotel26]

28 minutes ago, GluttonyReaper said:

I haven't got access to this transcript obviously - is there any mention within it of the insulative effects of clouds, i.e. are they claiming that the energy input blocked by cloud cover is greater than the effect of heat being trapped in the atmosphere by the same clouds?

Only the obvious implication that this too is NOT modeled.

It does seem that, during the average 12 hours a day of sunlight, albedo cutting 50% of incoming solar energy would be far more significant an effect comparatively than that of terrestrial radiation, even over a 24 hour period.  Otherwise, we'd have a constantly-warming earth, with constant cloud cover, and runaway temperatures.  Yes?

I do remember in the video some views from space of the planet, showing great patches of cloud cover somewhere over the vast expanse of our oceans (very bright, very white).

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Hotel26

[darthgently]

The frustrating aspect is that professional scientists, meteorologists, geologists, oceanographers, etc, have been raising the point for more than a decade (2 decades?) that climate, and later IPCC models, even current ones,  vastly simplify cloud cover modeling if dealt with at all and that water vapor, solar input combined with albedo *must* be hugely critical for climate implications given what has been known for many decades about these things apart from global computer modeling

Edited November 21, 2023 by darthgently

[GluttonyReaper]

17 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

Only the obvious implication that this too is NOT modeled.

It does seem that, during the average 12 hours a day of sunlight, albedo cutting 50% of incoming solar energy would be far more significant an effect comparatively than that of terrestrial radiation, even over a 24 hour period.  Otherwise, we'd have a constantly-warming earth, with constant cloud cover, and runaway temperatures.  Yes?

I do remember in the video some views from space of the planet, showing great patches of cloud cover somewhere over the vast expanse of our oceans (very bright, very white).

I was about to say that Venus is arguably a counterexample to this (with a notoriously high temperature and albedo), but I suppose that's not really applicable given that Venus' clouds aren't water-based (and I have no idea what the properties of sulphuric acid are with regards to infrared insulation). And we don't see runaway heating on Venus at present, just a higher equilibrium... although it's still a fair example of what can happen if you can pump enough CO₂ into an atmosphere, even if the Earth will never reach those kind of percentages.

Anyway, the lack of modelling of cloud effect definitely seems... odd, given that you'd expect models to be relatively mature by now. I'd still wonder whether increasing temperatures will produce enough additional cloud cover to make a substantial difference (i.e. enough to counter greenhouse effects), but that's exactly the kind of question only proper modelling can answer.

[darthgently]

24 minutes ago, GluttonyReaper said:

although it's still a fair example of what can happen if you can pump enough CO₂ into an atmosphere

1)  Venus isn't covered with plant and algal life voraciously consuming and capturing CO2 

2)  Venus is much closer to the Sun

 

Apples and oranges to a very large degree, though worth studying, of course

Edited November 21, 2023 by darthgently

[darthgently]

43 minutes ago, GluttonyReaper said:

Anyway, the lack of modelling of cloud effect definitely seems... odd, given that you'd expect models to be relatively mature by now.

Cloud formation and cover is a vastly chaotic process that is mathematically impossible to accurately model to any real accuracy beyond a few days into the future without perfect knowledge of all inputs and a perfect computer that can simulate faster than reality with no error. 

Weather prediction is a lucrative industry that attracts a lot of R&D. If you want to see current state of the art cloud formation and cloud cover prediction simply observe the accuracy of cloud  predictions hours, days, weeks into the future on weatherunderground.com or an app like Windy (my fave).  IPCC models looking decades into the future don't stand a chance of being remotely accurate.  Clouds are not the only inherently chaotic process that affects climate

Edited November 21, 2023 by darthgently