99 One-Liners Rebutting Denier Talking Points — With Links To The Full Climate Science

 

By Joe Romm and Climate Guest Blogger on May 7, 2013 at 12:37 pm

Progressives should know the disinformers’ most commonly used arguments — and how to answer them crisply. Those arguments have been repeated so many times by the fossil-fuel-funded disinformation campaign that almost everyone has heard them — and that means you’ll have to deal with them in almost any setting, from a public talk to a dinner party.

You should also know as much of the science behind those rebuttals as possible, and a great place to start is SkepticalScience.com.

BUT most of the time your best response is to give the pithiest response possible, and then refer people to a specific website  that has a more detailed scientific explanation with links to the original science. That’s because usually those you are talking to are rarely in a position to adjudicate scientific arguments. Indeed, they would probably tune out. Also, unless you know the science cold, you are as likely as not to make a misstatement.

Physicist John Cook has done us a great service by posting good one-line responses and then updating them as the science evolves and as people offer better ways of phrasing. Below I have reposted the top 99 with links to the science. You can find even more here. Everybody should know the first 20 or so.
For instance, if somebody raises the standard talking point (#1 on the list) that the “climate’s changed before,” you can say, “Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.” That is actually quite similar to what was my standard response, “The climate changes when it is forced to change, and now humans are forcing it to change far more rapidly than it did in the past” (see “Humans boosting CO2 14,000 times faster than nature, overwhelming slow negative feedbacks” and “New Science Study Confirms ‘Hockey Stick’: The Rate Of Warming Since 1900 Is 50 Times Greater Than The Rate Of Cooling In Previous 5000 Years“).  Working in the “humans are now the dominant forcing” part is a good idea.

Cook explains the origin of these one-liners in a 2010 post, “Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line.” I have included the longer ‘paragraph’ rebuttals, which any CP reader who plans to speak out on this subject — in public or just with friends and associates — should also be familiar with.

Skeptic Rebuttal One Liners

	Skeptic Argument	One Liner	Paragraph
1	“Climate’s changed before”	Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.	Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate’s sensitivity to CO2.
2	“It’s the sun”	In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions	In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.
3	“It’s not bad”	Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.	The negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health, economy and environment far outweigh any positives.
4	“There is no consensus”	97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.	That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.
5	“It’s cooling”	The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.	Empirical measurements of the Earth’s heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening. Surface temperatures can show short-term cooling when heat is exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean, which has a much greater heat capacity than the air.
6	“Models are unreliable”	Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.	While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.
7	“Temp record is unreliable”	The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.	Numerous studies into the effect of urban heat island effect and microsite influences find they have negligible effect on long-term trends, particularly when averaged over large regions.
8	“Animals and plants can adapt”	Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.	A large number of ancient mass extinction events have been strongly linked to global climate change. Because current climate change is so rapid, the way species typically adapt (eg – migration) is, in most cases, simply not be possible. Global change is simply too pervasive and occurring too rapidly.
9	“It hasn’t warmed since 1998″	For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.	The planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998 – global warming is still happening. Nevertheless, surface temperatures show much internal variability due to heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. 1998 was an unusually hot year due to a strong El Nino.
10	“Antarctica is gaining ice”	Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.	While the interior of East Antarctica is gaining land ice, overall Antarctica is losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Antarctic sea ice is growingdespite a strongly warming Southern Ocean.
11	“Ice age predicted in the 70s”	The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.	1970s ice age predictions were predominantly media based. The majority of peer reviewed research at the time predicted warming due to increasing CO2.
12	“CO2 lags temperature”	CO2 didn’t initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.	When the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth’s orbit. The warming causes the oceans to give up CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet. So CO2 causes warming AND rising temperature causes CO2 rise.
13	“Climate sensitivity is low”	Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.	Climate sensitivity can be calculated empirically by comparing past temperature change to natural forcings at the time. Various periods of Earth’s past have been examined in this manner and find broad agreement of a climate sensitivity of around 3°C.
14	“We’re heading into an ice age”	Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.	The warming effect from more CO2 greatly outstrips the influence from changes in the Earth’s orbit or solar activity, even if solar levels were to drop to Maunder Minimum levels.
15	“Ocean acidification isn’t serious”	Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.	Past history shows that when CO2 rose sharply, this corresponded with mass extinctions of coral reefs. Currently, CO2 levels are rising faster than any other time in known history. The change in seawater pH over the 21st Century is projected to be faster than anytime over the last 800,000 years and will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years.
16	“Hockey stick is broken”	Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years.	Since the hockey stick paper in 1998, there have been a number of proxy studies analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes and ice cores. They all confirm the original hockey stick conclusion: the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years and that warming was most dramatic after 1920.
17	“Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy”	A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.	While some of the private correspondance is not commendable, an informed examination of their ‘suggestive’ emails reveal technical discussions using techniques well known in the peer reviewed literature. Focusing on a few suggestive emails merely serves to distract from the wealth of empirical evidence for man-made global warming.
18	“Hurricanes aren’t linked to global warming”	There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.	It is unclear whether global warming is increasing hurricane frequency but there is increasing evidence that warming increases hurricane intensity.
19	“Al Gore got it wrong”	Al Gore book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.	While there are minor errors in An Inconvenient Truth, the main truths presented – evidence to show mankind is causing global warming and its various impacts is consistent with peer reviewed science.
20	“Glaciers are growing”	Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.	While there are isolated cases of growing glaciers, the overwhelming trend in glaciers worldwide is retreat. In fact, the global melt rate has been accelerating since the mid-1970s.
21	“It’s cosmic rays”	Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming.	While the link between cosmic rays and cloud cover is yet to be confirmed, more importantly, there has been no correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures over the last 30 years of global warming.
22	“1934 – hottest year on record”	1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally.	1934 is the hottest year on record in the USA which only comprises 2% of the globe. According to NASA temperature records, the hottest year on record globally is 2005.
23	“It’s freaking cold!”	A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.	Since the mid 1970s, global temperatures have been warming at around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. However, weather imposes its own dramatic ups and downs over the long term trend. We expect to see record cold temperatures even during global warming. Nevertheless over the last decade, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows. This tendency towards hotter days is expected to increase as global warming continues into the 21st Century.
24	“Sea level rise is exaggerated”	A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the past century.	Sea levels are measured by a variety of methods that show close agreement – sediment cores, tidal gauges, satellite measurements. What they find is sea level rise has been steadily accelerating over the past century.
25	“It’s Urban Heat Island effect”	Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.	While urban areas are undoubtedly warmer than surrounding rural areas, this has had little to no impact on warming trends.
26	“Medieval Warm Period was warmer”	Globally averaged temperature now is higher than global temperature in medieval times.	While the Medieval Warm Period saw unusually warm temperatures in some regions, globally the planet was cooler than current conditions.
27	“Mars is warming”	Mars is not warming globally.	Martian climate is primarily driven by dust and albedo and there is little empirical evidence that Mars is showing long term warming.
28	“Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle”	Thick arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid retreat.	Arctic sea ice has been retreating over the past 30 years. The rate of retreat is accelerating and in fact is exceeding most models’ forecasts.
29	“Increasing CO2 has little to no effect”	The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements.	An enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 has been confirmed by multiple lines of empirical evidence. Satellite measurements of infrared spectra over the past 40 years observe less energy escaping to space at the wavelengths associated with CO2. Surface measurements find more downward infrared radiation warming the planet’s surface. This provides a direct, empirical causal link between CO2 and global warming.
30	“Oceans are cooling”	The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.	Early estimates of ocean heat from the Argo showed a cooling bias due to pressure sensor issues. Recent estimates of ocean heat that take this bias into account show continued warming of the upper ocean. This is confirmed by independent estimates of ocean heat as well as more comprehensive measurements of ocean heat down to 2000 metres deep.
31	“Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions”	The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any.	The CO2 that nature emits (from the ocean and vegetation) is balanced by natural absorptions (again by the ocean and vegetation). Therefore human emissions upset the natural balance, rising CO2 to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years. In fact, human emit 26 gigatonnes of CO2 per year while CO2 in the atmosphere is rising by only 15 gigatonnes per year – much of human CO2 emissions is being absorbed by natural sinks.
32	“IPCC is alarmist”	Numerous papers have documented how IPCC predictions are more likely to underestimate the climate response.	The IPCC lead authors are experts in their field, instructed to fairly represent the full range of the up-to-date, peer-reviewed literature. Consequently, the IPCC reports tend to be cautious in their conclusions. Comparisons to the most recent data consistently finds that climate change is occurring more rapidly and intensely than indicated by IPCC predictions.
33	“Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas”	Rising CO2 increases atmospheric water vapor, which makes global warming much worse.	Water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas. Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and amplifies any warming caused by changes in atmospheric CO2. This positive feedback is why climate is so sensitive to CO2 warming.
34	“Polar bear numbers are increasing”	Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species.	While there is some uncertainty on current polar bear population trends, one thing is certain. No sea ice means no seals which means no polar bears. With Arctic sea ice retreating at an accelerating rate, the polar bear is at grave risk of extinction
35	“CO2 limits will harm the economy”	The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.	Economic assessments of proposed policy to put a price on carbon emissions are in widespread agreement that the net economic impact will be minor. The costs over the next several decades center around $100 per average family, or about 75 cents per person per day, and a GDP reduction of less than 1%.
36	“It’s not happening”	There are many lines of evidence indicating global warming is unequivocal.	There are many lines of independent empirical evidence for global warming, from accelerated ice loss from the Arctic to Antarctica to the poleward migration of plant and animal species across the globe.
37	“Greenland was green”	Other parts of the earth got colder when Greenland got warmer.	The Greenland ice sheet has existed for at least 400,000 years. There may have been regions of Greenland that were ‘greener’ than today but this was not a global phenomenon.
38	“Greenland is gaining ice”	Greenland on the whole is losing ice, as confirmed by satellite measurement.	While the Greenland interior is in mass balance, the coastlines are losing ice. Overall Greenland is losing ice mass at an accelerating rate. From 2002 to 2009, the rate of ice mass loss doubled.
39	“CO2 is not a pollutant”	Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant	While there are direct ways in which CO2 is a pollutant (acidification of the ocean), its primary impact is its greenhouse warming effect. While the greenhouse effect is a natural occurence, too much warming has severe negative impacts on agriculture, health and environment.
40	“CO2 is plant food”	The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors	The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors
41	“Other planets are warming”	Mars and Jupiter are not warming, and anyway the sun has recently been cooling slightly.	There are three fundamental flaws in the ‘other planets are warming’ argument. Not all planets in the solar system are warming. The sun has shown no long term trend since 1950 and in fact has shown a slight cooling trend in recent decades. There are explanations for why other planets are warming.
42	“Arctic sea ice has recovered”	Thick arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat.	Arctic sea ice has been steadily thinning, even in the last few years while the surface ice (eg – sea ice extent) increased slightly. Consequently, the total amount of Arctic sea ice in 2008 and 2009 are the lowest on record.
43	“There’s no empirical evidence”	There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming.	Direct observations find that CO2 is rising sharply due to human activity. Satellite and surface measurements find less energy is escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths. Ocean and surface temperature measurements find the planet continues to accumulate heat. This gives a line of empirical evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.
44	“We’re coming out of the Little Ice Age”	Scientists have determined that the factors which caused the Little Ice Age cooling are not currently causing global warming	The main driver of the warming from the Little Ice Age to 1940 was the warming sun with a small contribution from volcanic activity. However, solar activity leveled off after 1940 and the net influence from sun and volcano since 1940 has been slight cooling. Greenhouse gases have been the main contributor of warming since 1970.
45	“There’s no correlation between CO2 and temperature”	There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term.	Even during a period of long term warming, there are short periods of cooling due to climate variability. Short term cooling over the last few years is largely due to a strong La Nina phase in the Pacific Ocean and a prolonged solar minimum.
46	“It cooled mid-century”	Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming.	There are a number of forcings which affect climate (eg – stratospheric aerosols, solar variations). When all forcings are combined, they show good correlation to global temperature throughout the 20th century including the mid-century cooling period. However, for the last 35 years, the dominant forcing has been CO2.
47	“CO2 was higher in the past”	When CO2 was higher in the past, the sun was cooler.	When CO2 levels were higher in the past, solar levels were also lower. The combined effect of sun and CO2 matches well with climate.
48	“It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low”	Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2.	Early 20th century warming was in large part due to rising solar activity and relatively quiet volcanic activity. However, both factors have played little to no part in the warming since 1975. Solar activity has been steady since the 50′s. Volcanoes have been relatively frequent and if anything, have exerted a cooling effect.
49	“Global warming stopped in 1998,1995, 2002,2007, 2010, ????”	Global temperature is still rising and 2010 was the hottest recorded.	2007′s dramatic cooling is driven by strong La Nina conditions which historically has caused similar drops in global temperature. It is also exacerbated by unusually low solar activity.
50	“Satellites show no warming in the troposphere”	The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming.	Satellite measurements match model results apart from in the tropics. There is uncertainty with the tropical data due to how various teams correct for satellite drift. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concludes the discrepancy is most likely due to data errors.
51	“It’s aerosols”	Aerosols have been masking global warming, which would be worse otherwise.	The global dimming trend reversed around 1990 – 15 years after the global warming trend began in the mid 1970′s.
52	“It’s El Niño”	El Nino has no trend and so is not responsible for the trend of global warming.	The El Nino Southern Oscillation shows close correlation to global temperatures over the short term. However, it is unable to explain the long term warming trend over the past few decades.
53	“2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells”	A cold day in Chicago in winter has nothing to do with the trend of global warming.	The cold snap is due to a strong phase of the Arctic Oscillation. This is causing cool temperatures at mid-latitudes (eg – Eurasia and North America) and warming in polar regions (Greenland and Arctic Ocean). The warm and cool regions roughly balance each other out with little impact on global temperature.
54	“It’s a natural cycle”	No known natural forcing fits the fingerprints of observed warming except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.	A natural cycle requires a forcing, and no known forcing exists that fits the fingerprints of observed warming – except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
55	“Mt. Kilimanjaro’s ice loss is due to land use”	Most glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, notwithstanding a few complicated cases.	Mount Kilimanjaro’s shrinking glacier is complicated and not due to just global warming. However, this does not mean the Earth is not warming. There is ample evidence that Earth’s average temperature has increased in the past 100 years and the decline of mid- and high-latitude glaciers is a major piece of evidence.
56	“There’s no tropospheric hot spot”	We see a clear “short-term hot spot” – there’s various evidence for a “long-term hot spot”.	Satellite measurements match model results apart from in the tropics. There is uncertainty with the tropic data due to how various teams correct for satellite drift. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program conclude the discrepancy is most likely due to data errors.
57	“It’s not us”	Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.	The human fingerprint in global warming is evident in multiple lines of empirical evidence – in satellite measurements of outgoing infrared radiation, in surface measurements of downward infrared radiation, in the cooling stratosphere and other metrics.
58	“It’s Pacific Decadal Oscillation”	The PDO shows no trend, and therefore the PDO is not responsible for the trend of global warming.	PDO as an oscillation between positive and negative values shows no long term trend, while temperature shows a long term warming trend. When the PDO last switched to a cool phase, global temperatures were about 0.4C cooler than currently. The long term warming trend indicates the total energy in the Earth’s climate system is increasing due to an energy imbalance.
59	“IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers”	Glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report.	The IPCC error on the 2035 prediction was unfortunate and it’s important that such mistakes are avoided in future publications through more rigorous review. But the central message of the IPCC AR4, is confirmed by the peer reviewed literature. The Himalayan glaciers are of vital importance, providing drinking water to half a billion people. Satellites and on-site measurements are observing that Himalayan glaciers are disappearing at an accelerating rate.
60	“Scientists can’t even predict weather”	Weather and climate are different; climate predictions do not need weather detail.	Weather is chaotic, making prediction difficult. However, climate takes a long term view, averaging weather out over time. This removes the chaotic element, enabling climate models to successfully predict future climate change.
61	“Greenhouse effect has been falsified”	The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations.	The atmosphere of the Earth is less able to absorb shortwave radiation from the Sun than thermal radiation coming from the surface. The effect of this disparity is that thermal radiation escaping to space comes mostly from the cold upper atmosphere, while the surface is maintained at a substantially warmer temperature. This is called the “atmospheric greenhouse effect”, and without it the Earth’s surface would be much colder.
62	“2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory”	The 2nd law of thermodynamics is consistent with the greenhouse effect which is directly observed.	The atmosphere of the Earth is less able to absorb shortwave radiation from the Sun than thermal radiation coming from the surface. The effect of this disparity is that thermal radiation escaping to space comes mostly from the cold upper atmosphere, while the surface is maintained at a substantially warmer temperature. This is called the “atmospheric greenhouse effect”, and without it the Earth’s surface would be much colder.
63	“The science isn’t settled”	That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.	Science is never 100% settled – science is about narrowing uncertainty. Different areas of science are understood with varying degrees of certainty. For example, we have a lower understanding of the effect of aerosols while we have a high understanding of the warming effect of carbon dioxide. Poorly understood aspects of climate change do not change the fact that a great deal of climate science is well understood.
64	“Clouds provide negative feedback”	Evidence is building that net cloud feedback is likely positive and unlikely to be strongly negative.	Although the cloud feedback is one of the largest remaining uncertainties in climate science, evidence is building that the net cloud feedback is likely positive, and unlikely to be strongly negative.
65	“Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated”	Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting.	Observed sea levels are actually tracking at the upper range of the IPCC projections. When accelerating ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica are factored into sea level projections, the estimated sea level rise by 2100 is between 75cm to 2 metres.
66	“It’s the ocean”	The oceans are warming and moreover are becoming more acidic, threatening the food chain.	Oceans are warming across the globe. In fact, globally oceans are accumulating energy at a rate of 4 x 1021 Joules per year – equivalent to 127,000 nuclear plants (which have an average output of 1 gigawatt) pouring their energy directly into the world’s oceans. This tells us the planet is in energy imbalance – more energy is coming in than radiating back out to space.
67	“IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests”	The IPCC statement on Amazon rainforests was correct, and was incorrectly reported in some media.	The IPCC statement on Amazon rain forests is correct. The error was incorrect citation, failing to mention the peer-reviewed papers where the data came from. The peer-reviewed science prior to the 2007 IPCC report found that up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is vulnerable to drought. Subsequent field research has confirmed this assessment.
68	“Corals are resilient to bleaching”	Globally about 1% of coral is dying out each year.	On a world scale coral reefs are in decline. Over the last 30-40 years 80% of coral in the Caribbean have been destroyed and 50% in Indonesia and the Pacific. Bleaching associated with the 1982 -1983 El-Nino killed over 95% of coral in the Galapagos Islands and the 1997-1998 El-Nino alone wiped out 16% of all coral on the planet. Globally about 1% of coral is dying out each year.
69	“Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans”	Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.	Volcanoes emit around 0.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 29 billion tonnes per year.
70	“CO2 effect is saturated”	Direct measurements find that rising CO2 is trapping more heat.	If the CO2 effect was saturated, adding more CO2 should add no additional greenhouse effect. However, satellite and surface measurements observe an enhanced greenhouse effect at the wavelengths that CO2 absorb energy. This is empirical proof that the CO2 effect is not saturated.
71	“Greenland ice sheet won’t collapse”	When Greenland was 3 to 5 degrees C warmer than today, a large portion of the Ice Sheet melted.	Satellite gravity measurements show Greenland is losing ice mass at an accelerated rate, increasing its contribution to rising sea levels.
72	“It’s methane”	Methane plays a minor role in global warming but could get much worse if permafrost starts to melt.	While methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, there is over 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. Hence the amount of warming methane contributes is 28% of the warming CO2 contributes.
73	“CO2 has a short residence time”	Excess CO2 from human emissions has a long residence time of over 100 years	Individual carbon dioxide molecules have a short life time of around 5 years in the atmosphere. However, when they leave the atmosphere, they’re simply swapping places with carbon dioxide in the ocean. The final amount of extra CO2 that remains in the atmosphere stays there on a time scale of centuries.
74	“CO2 measurements are suspect”	CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend.	CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations scattered across 66 countries which all report the same rising trend.
75	“Humidity is falling”	Multiple lines of independent evidence indicate humidity is rising and provides positive feedback.	To claim that humidity is decreasing requires you ignore a multitude of independent reanalyses that all show increasing humidity. It requires you accept a flawed reanalysis that even its own authors express caution about. It fails to explain how we can have short-term positive feedback and long-term negative feedback. In short, to insist that humidity is decreasing is to neglect the full body of evidence.
76	“500 scientists refute the consensus”	Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.	Close inspection of the studies alleged to refute man-made global warming finds that many of these papers do no such thing. Of the few studies that do claim to refute man-made global warming, these repeat well debunked myths.
77	“Neptune is warming”	And the sun is cooling.	Neptune’s orbit is 164 years so observations (1950 to present day) span less than a third of a Neptunian year. Climate modelling of Neptune suggests its brightening is a seasonal response. Eg – Neptune’s southern hemisphere is heading into summer.
78	“Springs aren’t advancing”	Hundreds of flowers across the UK are flowering earlier now than any time in 250 years.	A synthesis of nearly 400,000 first flowering records covering 405 species across the UK found that British plants are flowering earlier now than at any time in the last 250 years.
79	“Jupiter is warming”	Jupiter is not warming, and anyway the sun is cooling.	Jupiter’s climate change is due to shifts in internal turbulence fueled from an internal heat source – the planet radiates twice as much energy as it receives from the sun.
80	“It’s land use”	Land use plays a minor role in climate change, although carbon sequestration may help to mitigate.	Correlations between warming and economic activity are most likely spurious. They don’t take into account local forcing agents such as tropospheric ozone or black carbon. Correlations are likely over-estimated since grid boxes in both economic and climate data are not independent. Lastly, there is significant independent evidence for warming in the oceans, snow cover and sea ice extent changes.
81	“Scientists tried to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperature”	The ‘decline’ refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports.	‘Mike’s Nature trick’ refers to the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales. “Hide the decline” refers to a decline in the reliability of tree rings to reflect temperatures after 1960. This is known as the ‘divergence problem’ where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960, discussed in the peer reviewed literature as early as 1995.
82	“CO2 is not increasing”	CO2 is increasing rapidly, and is reaching levels not seen on the earth for millions of years.	Currently, humans are emitting around 29 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year. Around 43% remains in the atmosphere – this is called the ‘airborne fraction’. The rest is absorbed by vegetation and the oceans. While there are questions over how much the airborne fraction is increasing, it is clear that the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing dramatically. Current CO2 levels are the highest in 15 million years.
83	“Record snowfall disproves global warming”	Warming leads to increased evaporation and precipitation, which falls as increased snow in winter.	To claim that record snowfall is inconsistent with a warming world betrays a lack of understanding of the link between global warming and extreme precipitation. Warming causes more moisture in the air which leads to more extreme precipitation events. This includes more heavy snowstorms in regions where snowfall conditions are favourable. Far from contradicting global warming, record snowfall is predicted by climate models and consistent with our expectation of more extreme precipitation events.
84	“They changed the name from global warming to climate change”	‘Global warming’ and ‘climate change’ mean different things and have both been used for decades.	There have long been claims that some unspecificed “they” has “changed the name from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’”. In reality, the two terms mean different things, have both been used for decades, and the only individual to have specifically advocated changing the name in this fashion is a global warming ‘skeptic’.
85	“Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun”	The sun has not warmed since 1970 and so cannot be driving global warming.	The claim that solar cycle length proves the sun is driving global warming is based on a single study published in 1991. Subsequent research, including a paper by a co-author of the original 1991 paper, finds the opposite conclusion. Solar cycle length as a proxy for solar activity tells us the sun has had very little contribution to global warming since 1975.
86	“CO2 is coming from the ocean”	The ocean is absorbing massive amounts of CO2, and is becoming more acidic as a result.	Measurements of carbon isotopes and falling oxygen in the atmosphere show that rising carbon dioxide is due to the burning of fossil fuels and cannot be coming from the ocean.
87	“IPCC overestimate temperature rise”	Monckton used the IPCC equation in an inappropriate manner.	Lord Monckton has taken a single equation from the IPCC, used it in an inappropriate manner, and then attributed his results to the IPCC. This is as if I borrowed your car, drove into a tree, and then blamed you. He uses a method that is clearly intended to examine the long-term response of temperature to changes in carbon dioxide, and which is never used by the IPCC (nor should it be) to make predictions about current temperature trends. A slight change in Lord Monckton’s methodology as of July 2010 still does not make his method or attribution remotely appropriate.
88	“CO2 is not the only driver of climate”	Theory, models and direct measurement confirm CO2 is currently the main driver of climate change.	While there are many drivers of climate, CO2 is the most dominant radiative forcing and is increasing faster than any other forcing.
89	“Peer review process was corrupted”	An Independent Review concluded that CRU’s actions were normal and didn’t threaten the integrity of peer review.	The Independent Climate Change Email Review investigated the CRU scientists’ actions relating to peer review. In one case, it judged their strong reaction to a controversial paper was not unusual. In another, it turned out the alleged victim had actually been spreading malicious rumours about CRU. In a third, the allegation of collusion fell apart when the full email exchange was examined. The Review concluded that CRU’s actions were normal and did not threaten the integrity of peer review.
90	“Southern sea ice is increasing”	Antarctic sea ice has grown in recent decades despite the Southern Ocean warming at the same time.	Antarctic sea ice has growing over the last few decades but it certainly is not due to cooling – the Southern Ocean has shown warming over same period. Increasing southern sea ice is due to a combination of complex phenomena including cyclonic winds around Antarctica and changes in ocean circulation.
91	“It’s microsite influences”	Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend.	Poor weather stations actually show a cooler trend compared to well sited stations. This is due to instrumentation changes. When this is taken into account, there’s negligible difference between poor and well sited stations.
92	“Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995″	Phil Jones was misquoted.	When you read Phil Jones’ actual words, you see he’s saying thereis a warming trend but it’s not statistically significant. He’s not talking about whether warming is actually happening. He’s discussing our ability to detect that warming trend in a noisy signal over a short period.
93	“Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate”	Humans are small but powerful, and human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.	Atmospheric CO2 levels are rising by 15 gigatonnes per year. Humans are emitting 26 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Humans are dramatically altering the composition of our climate.
94	“Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity”	Lindzen and Choi’s paper is viewed as unacceptably flawed by other climate scientists.	Lindzen’s analysis has several flaws, such as only looking at data in the tropics. A number of independent studies using near-global satellite data find positive feedback and high climate sensitivity.
95	“Dropped stations introduce warming bias”	If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature would actually be slightly higher.	Dropped weather stations actually show a slightly warmer trend compared to kept stations. So the removal of these faster warming dropped stations has actually imposed a slight cooling trend although the difference is negligible since 1970.
96	“It’s too hard”	Scientific studies have determined that current technology is sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid dangerous climate change.	The argument that solving the global warming problem by reducing human greenhouse gas emissions is “too hard” generally stems from the belief that (i) our technology is not sufficiently advanced to achieve significant emissions reductions, and/or (ii) that doing so would cripple the global economy. However, studies have determined that current technology is sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the necessary amount, and that we can do so without significant impact on the economy.
97	“It’s albedo”	Albedo change in the Arctic, due to receding ice, is increasing global warming.	The long term trend from albedo is that of cooling. In recent years, satellite measurements of albedo show little to no trend.
98	“Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960″	This is a detail that is complex, local, and irrelevant to the observed global warming trend.	The divergence problem is a physical phenomenon – tree growth has slowed or declined in the last few decades, mostly in high northern latitudes. The divergence problem is unprecedented, unique to the last few decades, indicating its cause may be anthropogenic. The cause is likely to be a combination of local and global factors such as warming-induced drought and global dimming. Tree-ring proxy reconstructions are reliable before 1960, tracking closely with the instrumental record and other independent proxies.
99	“Hansen’s 1988 prediction was wrong”	Jim Hansen had several possible scenarios; his mid-level scenario B was right.	Subsequent comparison of observations with predictions find that Hansen’s Scenario B (which most closely matched the level of CO2 emissions) shows close correlation with observed temperatures.

Will Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter Stop Meaning Anything When Climate Change Hits?

Environment  

Orion Magazine / By Sandra Steingraber

Will Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter Stop Meaning Anything When Climate Change Hits?

My kids and their friends and everyone roughly their age will, in fact, be the last human beings to remember a stable, predictable procession of seasons.

 

 

Photo Credit: kanvag/ Shutterstock.com

May 20, 2013  |  

This article first appeared at Orion magazine under the title "The Discontent of Our Winter." You can enjoy future Orion articles by signing up to the magazine's free trial subscription program.

My children have snow anxiety. For the record, this started in the winter of 2011–12 when no snow fell—at all—and sleds, saucers, skis, and snowball makers sat dejectedly on the porch, unused, next to the irrelevant and despondent snow shovel. Week after week, month after month, Faith and Elijah scanned the skies and studied the forecast. When June-like temperatures hit in March, the sight of the toboggan filled them with so much despair that they wordlessly dragged it back to the barn and put it in storage.

Which did not go unnoticed by their dad and me. When had our kids ever put stuff away without being asked? It was as unprecedented as a snowless winter in upstate New York. Nobody had ever experienced that either.

During the unfrozen winter of 2011–12, the grown-ups all walked around saying, “This is crazy!” True enough. When the temperature in the mudroom hits eighty degrees before the daytime:nighttime ratio hits parity, some synonym for insane is what the thesaurus should take you to. But “This is crazy!” also implies that we possess no rational explanation for June arriving in March. And I noticed that my son and his friends never said things like that to each other. They spoke more grimly, along the lines of, Global warming. It’s here. Now we can’t go sledding. Probably ever. So what do you want to do, dude?

When snow and ice finally fell in April—hard enough and fast enough to cancel school—it fell on tulip and magnolia petals and killed off the entire cherry crop.
The toboggan stayed in the barn.

But wishful thinking springs anew in the hearts of children, even in the face of permanent catastrophe, so, after a cherryless summer and a fall with few apples, Faith and Elijah conferred hopefully about the upcoming winter. Last year was a global warming winter. But maybe global warming winters come only every other year. Maybe this year would be normal.

The snow fell. The sleds came out. The snow melted.

The snow fell again. And turned to rain. The ground thawed and great lakes of water filled the low areas, and the sleds that had been parked at the bottoms of sledding hills across the county bobbed around like flotillas of small boats at harbor.

The sight of floating sleds made the adults say, “It’s crazy!” all over again.
The kids just gave up. Let the record show that in February 2013, the children of Trumansburg, New York, gave up on winter. As a season, it was no longer reliable. You could wake up in the morning to a wonderland—snowflakes dutifully falling, the front yard all white, perfect, hushed, squeaky—and by the time school let out in the afternoon, the miraculous world had already reverted back to brown, gray, mushy, yucky.

“Don’t get excited,” said Faith to Elijah right before Valentine’s Day when he looked out the window at first light and announced a fresh snowfall. “It won’t last.”

My children were born just before and after the turn of the century. They are old enough to reminisce about the days before winter went bad and became the crazy uncle in the seasonal family. Faith’s fashionable friends discuss the clothes they used to wear—month after arctic month—when they were little and the snow was piled high from November to March. Kids today, they note with disinterested interest, just don’t have the same relationship to their snow pants.
I think I’m on to something here, and I’d like to make a prediction. I predict that the cohort of kids who are now ten to fifteen years old are going to have a very different worldview than those born just a few years after them. My kids and their friends and everyone roughly their age will, in fact, be the last human beings to remember a stable, predictable procession of seasons.

Let me put a finer point on this. My kids, who are in middle school, know that winter is supposed to be cold and that January pond ice should be thick enough for skating. They possess snowman-making techniques, snow-fort construction skills, and an elaborate ethos about exactly what kind of snowballs can and can’t be used for ambushing the friends of one’s sibling and what body parts are and are not off-limits (no ice balls, never in the face). They have methods for assessing the slide-ability and pack-ability of any given snowfall. They know which methods of tucking snow pants into snow boots work and which leak. They have strong opinions on gloves versus mittens and the proper way to make a snow angel. And yet, for the last two years, they have had almost no opportunity to exercise this knowledge.

Meanwhile, a friend calls to tell me that her otherwise very bright granddaughter, who is of nursery-school age, is having trouble learning the names of the seasons. They make no sense to her. “But grandma, you said that winter was cold!” Winter, when she said it, wasn’t. And there was the added problem of the forsythias. They bloomed this year during a warm spell that spanned the twelve days of Christmas. April showers bring May flowers. When the nursery rhymes no longer match the empirical evidence, what’s a three-year-old to think?

Here are two more stories for the record. Because of climate change, Elijah gave up on Little House in the Big Woods. He liked the first half. But the episodes involving horse-drawn sleighs and maple-syrup snow cones were too painful. He refused to read on. “It’s not that way anymore, Mom,” he said matter-of-factly, and set the book aside.

I was stunned. But then it happened to me. While rereading the poem “Corsons Inlet” by A. R. Ammons—“I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning / to the sea, / then turned right along / the surf”—which had once been the subject of my own master’s thesis, I found that I couldn’t go on. It’s not that way anymore, Archie. And how come, in 1965, you didn’t see it coming? Corson’s Inlet, a last undeveloped stretch of beach in New Jersey, was destroyed during Hurricane Sandy.

I set the book aside. Matter-of-factly.

Not to say that our hearts have all turned to stone around here. Here’s my other story: After days of wild, record-breaking weather, our village winter festival was canceled because of rain and flood warnings. When I told Elijah the bad news on the walk home from school, he began to cry. I told him I was sorry.
He said, “I’m not upset about the festival. I’m upset because the planet’s dying. I know this is all because of global warming.”

This is what I heard myself say: “Look, Mom is on the job. I’m working on it. I’m working on it really hard, and I promise I won’t quit.”

And then I cried. And not only because my son believes himself to be alive on a dying planet, but because all the generations of parents before mine have been unable to deal with the facts and mount a response of sufficient scale to solve the problem, meaning that all of us now have a monumental task before us. I cried because keeping my promise makes me arise before dawn to get on buses, puts bullhorns in my hand in faraway cities, may yet land me in jail, and, in these and other ways, takes me away from my children so that I can prove them wrong.


This article first appeared at Orion magazine under the title "The Discontent of Our Winter." You can enjoy future Orion articles by signing up to the magazine's free trial subscription program.
 

Sandra Steingraber is the author of "Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment" and "Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood." She is the founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking.

  Climatide 

Oceans, coasts & climate change on Cape Cod

March 22, 2011 | 12:19 PM | By Heather Goldstone

Four ways seasons are changing – on land and at sea

FILED UNDER: Human Impacts, Ocean Change, health, phytoplankton, sea surface temperature

NASA image by Norman Kuring, GSFC Ocean Color Team

This satellite image of the Barents Sea (part of the Arctic Ocean north of Russia) from August 2009 shows a massive phytoplankton bloom. Scientists have found that algal blooms in the Arctic Ocean are starting earlier due to climate change.

Aah, the irony: a post about seasonal changes linked to climate change was intended for the spring equinox (a.k.a. first day of spring) but got delayed by winter illnesses making their way through my family. Better late than never …
Everybody has their own favorite first sign of spring. Personally, I’ve always loved the snow drops and crocuses that are brave enough to poke their little heads up through the snow to give us our first flowers of the season. The ocean has seasons, too, and in a decade or so of living on Cape Cod I’ve come to appreciate those more. I look forward to my first sighting (or hearing) of an osprey soaring over the cranberry bogs near my house in search of fish. Or watching the shape of local beaches change as winter-storm-driven waves give way to the gentler wave action of spring and summer.

A number of recent studies indicate that warming air and water temperatures are changing the timing of many seasonal hallmarks. And while an early end to winter may not sound like a bad thing (particularly on a snowy March day), it’s not all sunshine and roses. Here are a few ways seasons are changing – on land and at sea. You may be surprised to find out you’ve already noticed one or two.

flickr/Ian Muttoo

Ragweed is blooming earlier and longer, causing more allergies.

On Land

• If you’re a gardener, you may have already noticed that some flowering plants are budding earlier in spring. Observant citizens are helping scientists document the changes going on in their own backyards. Interested? Check out Project BudBurst.

• Much to the dismay of allergy sufferers, USDA scientists have found that the pollen season for ragweed and other common plant allergens is starting up to a month earlier, lasting longer, and affecting a broader area of North America. Because warming is more dramatic at higher latitudes, the effect is most pronounced in the northern half of the continent and unnoticeable in places like Texas and Oklahoma.

At Sea

• Spring blooms of harmful red tide algae are starting earlier and lasting longer, according to Stephanie Moore of NOAA’s West Coast Center for Oceans and Human Health. Harmful algae in the Alexandrium group – like those Moore studies on the West Coast, and WHOI’s Don Anderson studies here in New England – produce toxins that can build up in the bodies of shellfish and be deadly to humans who consume contaminated shellfish. So earlier, longer red tides could have significant economic and public health repercussions.
• Ocean scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego have used satellite images of the Arctic to determine that the “late summer” bloom of phytoplankton – microscopic plants at the base of the food chain – is happening up to fifty days earlier than it did just fourteen years ago. While there’s not much evidence to back this up (yet), scientists are concerned that this shift could disrupt the entire food chain because the animals that depend on the blooms might not be able to shift their timing as quickly.

Climate change “deniers” and “skeptics”: What’s the difference?

Blogs

The Curious Wavefunction

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Musings on chemistry and the history and philosophy of science

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Climate change “deniers” and “skeptics”: What’s the difference?

By Ashutosh Jogalekar | May 8, 2013 |

"Angry hot planet" (Image: Green Party)

This post is really a question. Over the past few years, ever since the climate change debate, well, heated up, the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been thrown around on countless websites and blogs, usually accompanied by much frothing at the mouth. This has left me wondering; is there anything bordering on a consensus among the climaterati that recognizes a difference between the two?

Now I understand of course that the words lie on an often too slippery continuum. I also realize that true deniers often conveniently cloak themselves with a veneer of polite skepticism. But it strikes me that my own perception of both groups is akin to Potter Stewart’s famous take on pornography; I can’t (and won’t) always define them, but I can usually recognize bonafide cases, at least extreme ones. So for instance, in my dictionary Senator James Inhofe  is squarely in the “denier” camp but Freeman Dyson is squarely in the “skeptic” camp.

In addition I firmly believe that being a skeptic is not just a good thing but a great thing; skepticism is what all of science is founded on after all. So I respect true skeptics as much as I detest true deniers. I am still undecided on someone like Bjorn Lomborg who seems to have started out as a firm denier but gradually gravitated toward the skeptic camp. There’s the additional problem that people like Lomborg sometimes pitch a mix of denial and bonafide skepticism and it can be hard to distinguish between the two.

I also seem to have developed my own rough, somewhat well-defined compass for recognizing members of each group. As far as I can tell there are three central premises of the science of climate change, stated in my opinion in increasing order of uncertainty:

1. The climate is warming.

2. This warming is unprecedented and is almost certainly because of human influence.

3. This unprecedented warming is going to do some very bad (or at least unpredictable) things.

To me it appears that almost nobody except the most rabid fundamentalist denier would have a problem with the first point. Personally I would also call someone who disagrees with the second point as at least leaning toward being a denier; to me there’s really no other good explanation for the warming that we have seen except human activity.

The third point is where it gets more interesting. There are people who agree that humans are warming the planet, but then wonder about the exact details of the effects: How much will it exactly warm? Will it warm equally everywhere? And most importantly – and this is something Bjorn Lomborg has often asked – would the favorable effects of the warming outweigh the unfavorable ones? Many of these questions involve prediction and they ask if the science and art of climate change is predictive enough. I have to say that in most cases I place people who ask these kinds of questions in the “skeptic” camp, although there are sometimes exceptions. It’s also not escaped my notice that the difference between denial and skepticism sometimes simply comes down to whether someone is just throwing around opinions or actually sweating the details.

But that’s enough of what I think. What do readers think? Who in your opinion is a “skeptic” and who is a “denier”? And let’s also involve the other side, the one which thinks that the whole thing is a giant communist scam or misguided science or whatever. What kinds of terms do you have for the moderate and extreme varieties in your sworn enemies and how do you define them?

Friendly housekeeping note: More than for other posts I am going to have the comments on this post on a tight leash since I don’t want the comments section to morph into a mudfest. Strong disagreement and criticism are fine, strenuous arguments are ok, interpretive dance videos are especially welcome; unhinged rants are not. What we are looking for is a spectrum of opinion on definitions. Maybe something approaching a consensus will emerge from the comments or maybe opinion will be as diverse as species of beetles. In either case with enough commenters it should be interesting.

About the Author: Ashutosh (Ash) Jogalekar is a chemist interested in the history and philosophy of science. He considers science to be a seamless and all-encompassing part of the human experience. Follow on Twitter @curiouswavefn.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

400 Parts Per Million: Climate Milestone is a Moment of Symbolic Significance on Road of Idiocy

 

 

Published on Friday, May 10, 2013 by The Guardian

400 Parts Per Million: Climate Milestone is a Moment of Symbolic Significance on Road of Idiocy

 

The only way forward is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350ppm

 

by George Monbiot

 

 

 

 
Reaching 400ppm is a moment of symbolic significance, a station on the Via Dolorosa of environmental destruction. (Underlying Photo: Corbis) 



The data go back 800,000 years: that's the age of the oldest fossil air bubbles extracted from Dome C, an ice-bound summit in the high Antarctic. And throughout that time there has been nothing like this. At no point in the preindustrial record have concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air risen above 300 parts per million (ppm). 400ppm is a figure that belongs to a different era.

The difference between 399ppm and 400ppm is small, in terms of its impacts on the world's living systems. But this is a moment of symbolic significance, a station on the Via Dolorosa of environmental destruction. It is symbolic of our failure to put the long-term prospects of the natural world and the people it supports above immediate self-interest.

The only way forward now is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350ppm.

The only way forward now is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350ppm, as the 350.org campaign demands. That requires, above all, that we leave the majority of the fossil fuels which have already been identified in the ground. There is not a government or an energy company which has yet agreed to do so.

Recently, Shell announced that it will go ahead with its plans to drill deeper than any offshore oil operation has gone before: almost 3km below the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, Oxford University opened a new laboratory in its department of earth sciences. The lab is funded by Shell. Oxford says that the partnership "is designed to support more effective development of natural resources to meet fast-growing global demand for energy." Which translates as finding and extracting even more fossil fuel.

The European Emissions Trading Scheme, which was supposed to have capped our consumption, is now, for practical purposes, dead. International climate talks have stalled; governments such as ours now seem quietly to be unpicking their domestic commitments. Practical measures to prevent the growth of global emissions are, by comparison to the scale of the challenge, almost nonexistent.
The problem is simply stated: the power of the fossil fuel companies is too great. Among those who seek and obtain high office are people characterised by a complete absence of empathy or scruples, who will take money or instructions from any corporation or billionaire who offers them, and then defend those interests against the current and future prospects of humanity.

This new climate milestone reflects a profound failure of politics, in which democracy has quietly been supplanted by plutocracy. Without a widespread reform of campaign finance, lobbying and influence-peddling and the systematic corruption they promote, our chances of preventing climate breakdown are close to zero.

So here stands our political class at a waystation along the road of idiocy, apparently determined only to complete the journey.

© 2013 The Guardian

 

George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. Visit his website at www.monbiot.com

Why is Reuters puzzled by global warming's acceleration?

'Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown,' said Reuters. But warming is speeding up, and scientists can explain it

 

Oceans, such as the Pacific pictured here from space, are absorbing much of the warming the planet is currently experiencing. NASA/ Roger Ressmeyer/ Corbis

The rate of heat building up on Earth over the past decade is equivalent to detonating about 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second. Take a moment to visualize 4 atomic bomb detonations happening every single second. That's the global warming that we're frequently told isn't happening.

There are periods when the ocean heats up more quickly than the surface, and other periods when the surface heats up more quickly than the oceans. Right now we're in a period of fast ocean warming and overall, global warming is continuing at a very fast pace.

The confusion on this subject lies in the fact that only about 2 percent of global warming is used in heating air, whereas about 90 percent of global warming goes into heating the oceans (the rest heats ice and land masses). But humans live at the Earth's surface, and thus we tend to focus on surface temperatures. Over the past 10–15 years, Earth's surface temperature has continued to rise, but slowly. At the same time, the warming of the oceans – and the warming of the Earth as a whole – has accelerated.

This was the conclusion of a scientific paper I co-authored last year, in which our team found more overall global warming (of the oceans, air, land, and ice combined) over the past 15 years than during the prior 15 years. Just recently, another paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the warming of the oceans since the turn of the century has been the most sustained in the past 50 years. They also found that, consistent with my team's research, about 30% of overall global warming has gone into the deep oceans below 700 meters due to changing wind patterns and ocean currents. This accelerated deep ocean warming is also unprecedented in the past 50 years.
We often hear from the media that the (surface air) warming has slowed or paused over the past 15 years. This isn't a puzzle; climate scientists are well aware of several contributing factors, as a recent Reuters article – "Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown" – eventually discussed. The accelerated warming of the oceans is likely the main contributor.

During years with La Niña events, more heat is transferred to the oceans, and surface temperatures are relatively cool as a result. The opposite is true during El Niño years. During the 1990s, there were more El Niño than La Niña events, which resulted in more surface air warming. One of the strongest El Niño events of the century happened in 1998, which not coincidentally was 15 years ago.
When people say 'no warming in 15 years', they're cherry picking the timeframe to begin in an abnormally hot year. It's like arguing that your car must have broken down because it hasn't moved in the 15 seconds while you've been stopped at a red light. The argument selects a short timeframe that's not representative of the whole.

Since 2000, there has been a preponderance of La Niña events, which has acted to temporarily bury more global warming in the oceans. A new study published in Nature Climate Change found that by taking into account the short-term changes caused by factors like El Niño and La Niña cycles, they could accurately forecast the slowed warming at the surface several years in advance. The paper concluded,

"Our results hence point at the key role of the ocean heat uptake in the recent warming slowdown."

Reuters did not talk to the authors of this study, or ask any other climate scientists about this surface warming slowdown that they're supposed to be puzzled about. Actually that's not quite true. Just a week earlier, Reuters interviewed the lead author of that paper in an article with the headline "Oceans may explain slowdown in climate change". The article noted,

"Experts in France and Spain said on Sunday that the oceans took up more warmth from the air around 2000. That would help explain the slowdown in surface warming but would also suggest that the pause may be only temporary and brief."

Reuters didn't connect the dots between these two articles, telling us one week that oceans help explain the surface warming slowdown, and the next week claiming the slowdown is puzzling climate scientists. However, these 'slowdowns' happen on a regular basis. You can find one every 5 to 10 years in the surface temperature data, as illustrated in a graphic I created nicknamed 'The Escalator'.


 

 

Average of NASA GISS, NOAA NCDC, and HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature anomalies from January 1970 through November 2012 (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes Jan '70 - Oct '77, Apr '77 - Dec '86, Sep '87 - Nov '96, Jun '97 - Dec '02, and Nov '02 - Nov '12. 

  During periods with more La Niñas, surface temperatures temporarily flatten out. But global warming does not. As long as humans continue to increase the greenhouse effect by burning massive quantities of fossil fuels, the planet will continue to warm, as is clear from the acceleration of global warming since 2000.

• This is the first post for my new blog with John Abraham, Climate Consensus - the 97%, hosted by the Guardian. I'm also a writer for Skeptical Science, and an environmental scientist by trade. You can follow me on Twitter @dana1981.

DISCOVERY News

Global Warming

Global Warming May Be Worse Than Expected

Mar 8, 2013 12:30 PM ET // by AFP 

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Climate change impacts are expected to get severe by 2100.

iStock

Global warming could have even greater consequences than currently expected. The Earth is on track to becoming the hottest it has been at any time in the past 11.3 millennia, a period spanning the history of human civilization, a study published Thursday has found.

Based on fossil samples and other data collected from 73 sites around the world, Earth scientists have been able to reconstruct the history of the planet's temperature from the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago to the present.

They have determined that the past 10 years have been hotter than 80 percent of the last 11,300 years.

ANALYSIS: More Americans 'Alarmed' about Global Warming

 

But virtually all the climate models evaluated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict that the Earth's atmosphere will be hotter in the coming decades than at any time since the end of the Ice Age, no matter what greenhouse gas emission scenario is used, the study found.

"We already knew that on a global scale, Earth is warmer today than it was over much of the past 2,000 years," said Shaun Marcott, the lead author of the study, which was published in Science.

"Now we know that it is warmer than most of the past 11,300 years. This is of particular interest because the Holocene spans the entire period of human civilization," said Marcott, who is a post-graduate researcher at Oregon State University.

The data show that temperatures cooled by 0.8 degrees Celsius over the past 5,000 years, but have been rising again in the past 100 years, particularly in the northern hemisphere where land masses and population centers are larger.

NEWS: World Bank Fears Devastating 4.0 Degree Warming

 

The climate models project that average global temperatures will rise by 1.1 to 6.3 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, depending on the level of C02 emissions resulting from human activities, the researchers found.

"What is most troubling is that this warming will be significantly greater than at any time during the past 11,300 years," said Peter Clark, a paleoclimatologist at Oregon State.

The Earth's position with respect to the Sun is the main natural factor affecting temperatures during that time, the scientists said.

"During the warmest period of the Holocene, the Earth was positioned such that Northern Hemisphere summers warmed more," Marcott said.

"As the Earth's orientation changed, Northern Hemisphere summers became cooler, and we should now be near the bottom of this long-term cooling trend -- but obviously, we are not."

Other studies have concluded that human activities -- not natural causes -- have been responsible for the warming experienced over the past 50 years.

Report: Ecosystems in Upheaval, Biodiversity in Collapse

Published on Thursday, December 20, 2012 by Common Dreams

Report: Ecosystems in Upheaval, Biodiversity in Collapse

New study documenting climate change shows sweeping changes happening faster than previously recorded and bringing 'cascading effects'

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

A new report documents how climate change is already causing rapid, massive changes with "cascading effects" on ecosystems and biodiversity.

 

Wolverines in Glacier National Park. (Photo: Elliott Hammer via flickr) The report (pdf), led by the US Geological Survey, the National Wildlife Federation and Arizona State University, foresees a global loss of biodiversity and major shifts in ecosystems.

"These geographic range and timing changes are causing cascading effects that extend through ecosystems, bringing together species that haven't previously interacted and creating mismatches between animals and their food sources," states Nancy Grimm, a scientist at ASU and a lead author of the report.

And these changes will have direct consequences on humans, Amanda Staudt, a NWF climate scientist and a lead author on the report adds, as many ecosystems serve as a backbone in the defense of storm damage.
"Shifting climate conditions are affecting valuable ecosystem services, such as the role that coastal habitats play in dampening storm surge or the ability of our forests to provide timber and help filter our drinking water."

Among the animals in the US affected by climate change already underway, the report states, are climate-induced changes in pests and pathogens that have been deadly to some conifer forests, small mammals which are seeking higher elevations or having their already high elevation habitats shrunk and a fragmentation in habitat for wolverines.

The USGS offers some of the key findings of the report:

• Changes in precipitation and extreme weather events can overwhelm the ability of natural systems to reduce or prevent harm to people from these events. For example, more frequent heavy rainfall events increase the movement of nutrients and pollutants to downstream ecosystems, likely resulting not only in ecosystem change, but also in adverse changes in the quality of drinking water and a greater risk of waterborne-disease outbreaks.
• Changes in winter have big and surprising effects on ecosystems and their services. Changes in soil freezing, snow cover and air temperature affect the ability of ecosystems to store carbon, which, in turn, influences agricultural and forest production. Seasonally snow-covered regions are especially susceptible to climate change because small precipitation or temperature shifts can cause large ecosystem changes. Longer growing seasons and warmer winters are already increasing the likelihood of pest outbreaks, leading to tree mortality and more intense, extensive fires. Decreased or unreliable snowfall for winter sports and recreation will likely cause high future economic losses.
• The ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats are especially vulnerable to sea-level rise and more severe storms. The Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts are most vulnerable to the loss of coastal protection services provided by wetlands and coral reefs. Along the Pacific coast, long-term dune erosion caused by increasing wave heights is projected to cause problems for communities and for recreational beach activities. However, other kinds of recreation will probably improve due to better weather, with the net effect being that visitors and tourism dollars will shift away from some communities in favor of others.
• Climate change adaptation strategies are vital for the conservation of diverse species and effective natural resource policy and management. As more adaptive management approaches are developed, resource managers can enhance the country’s ability to respond to the impacts of climate change through forward-looking and climate science-informed goals and actions.
• Ecological monitoring needs to be improved and better coordinated among federal and state agencies to ensure the impacts of climate change are adequately monitored and to support ecological research, management, assessment and policy. Existing tracking networks in the United States will need to improve coverage through time and in geographic area to detect and track climate-induced shifts in ecosystems and species.