[cogitator]

Reality meets the road.

I checked the Hansen article to see what he says about glaciers and sea level rise. Here's what he says:

"I argue that the level of dangerous anthropogenic influence likely to be set by the global temperature and planetary radiation imbalance at which substantial deglaciation becomes practically impossible to avoid. Based on the paleoclimate evidence, I suggest that the highest prudent level of additional global warming is not more than about one degree C. This means that additional climate forcing should not exceed about one watt per square meter."

I.e., if it warms to the point that large-scale melting of glaciers and ice sheet commences, we're going to be in trouble.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I'll be 96 years old. I don't like hot weather now but my blodd will be thinner then. So I guess I'll be fine.

[FBD]

With all due respect to Hansen....
B.arbara S.treisand!!!

What forced the climate changes on both ends of the Ice Age???

It is only a man's vanity to believe that he can affect global temperatures one way or another. It is caused by ocean currents, volcanic activity, etc.

Incidentaly, one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas (methane) is termites.

What does Mr Hansen sugest we do about that? Call Terminex?

[Straight Vermonter]

The IPCC is a joke and a fraud. Here is a little reality check:

Word from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) meeting in Shanghai is that the upper range of temperature rise during the next 100 years is nearly 11°F. "This adds impetus for governments of the world to find ways to live up to their commitments . . . to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases," Robert Watson, chairman of the IPCC and former Clinton science advisor, is quoted as saying.

The January 23 edition of The Washington Post put this particular global warming story above the fold on its front page! The play could have been bigger only were it in the upper left-hand corner rather than the right.

Neither the Post nor Watson mentions that this forecast of extreme warming is the result of a computer model. And not just any model, either. It is a product of the most extreme climate model run under the most extreme set of future emission scenarios. In other words, it's not a model based upon present trends; it's a model of a model! Putting a fine point on it, this particular result was produced by one (that's right, one) of 245 models the modelers ran.

From Patrick J. Michaels Ph.D. More info on bad modeling at the link.

In addition to all of this none repeat none of the computer models currently in use can accurately predict the heating that has already occurred when past data is used. In other words if you put in all of the data available up to say 1980 you can not accurately predict the weather as it occurred in 2000.

[taxed2death]

Some of us will make out, depending on the elevation at which we live at. I'm kinda looking forward to owning beachfront property. :)

[Carry_Okie]

Your bias is showing. The article said:

If one looks at actual evidence (rather than modeled responses), as do Hansen and Michaels, it is the lower end of the range that is more likely. The impacts associated with warming at the low end of the IPCC TAR range are far less dramatic and infinitely more manageable than those that accompany high-end warming.

It seems about time to dispense with the notion that future warming will be catastrophic and begin to focus on the implications of a modest warming where benefits are likely to outweigh costs.

Then you said,

I.e., if it warms to the point that large-scale melting of glaciers and ice sheet commences, we're going to be in trouble.

Give it up. If humans made a maximum effort to reduce production of carbon dioxide, the consequent reduction in heating is so small as to be virtually unmeasurable. Worse, our economic ability to fund the means to accommodate climate variation will have been seriously curtailed. Both humans and nature would be better off if we expend our efforts learning to manage habitat wisely on microscopic bases.

[Tribune7]

Here's the litmus test: Those who really believe that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are going to cause a global warming catastrophe are going to become outspoken, evangelical supporters of replacing all goal/gas/oil power plants with nukes.

Until I see that happen, I'm not going to worry.

[bmwcyle]

The beach will be closer!!!!

[WOSG]

Excellent article.

It's the wrong question to ask "is there global warning?"
The right question to ask is 'what is the real impact and effect, and how can you be sure the predictions are real?'

The science has been exagerrated and politicized on the IPCC so that impacts and models are made to be worse than reality.

[kidd]

Hansen says his biggest concern is the potential for a large rise in sea-level. Yet empirical evidence shows that the rate of sea-level rise over the course of the 20th century (during which there was about 0.75ºC of warming) was about 1.8 mm per year

I am wondering what is the source of Hansen's information. The most detailed report I've read on sea level change have concluded that a significant measurement of sea level change will not be obtained until 2030. Previous reports of sea level changes did not account for changes in land elevation due to tectonics, and were complicated by sea level changes due to such effects as El Nino.

[.cnI redruM]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133483/posts

An example of what scientists need to debunk, IMHO. Yes, I've heard all the quotes about the truth being protected by a vanguard of lies, but at least lets tell some lies that aren't outrageous to the point where they cheapen and demean the scientific disciplines like a case of VD.

[JasonC]

"Hansen relies on simple empirical evidence"

That is known to be false. Sorry. He just takes past warming and past CO2 and gets one coefficient between them (a slope, in effect). And then current trends in CO2, which he projects forward. Then he imputes a change as large as the CO2 change to the temperature response.

But we know that the CO2 change cannot cause a temperature response that big. It does not produce enough power. Additional power effects equilibrium temperature as the 4th root of the power. Increasing CO2 gives slightly less than linear increases in power (near linear for small changes, but less for large ones as there is some saturation diminishing returns as the sky becomes opaque from below in CO2 frequencies).

The known physical relationship is more CO2 means slightly less than linearly more power, and more power gives a fourth root response in temperature. Instead he just uses linear. The handwaving that this is "simple and empirical" is still hand waving. For a small change you can project the current temperature trend - which is less than this, half. To predict a doubling in the current temperature trend based on the CO2 trend, when we know to a physical certainty the CO2 change cannot cause that big a temperature response, is just the correlation as causation fallacy.

They can't name the power source even for 0.75C in 50 years. 0.4C in 100 years is a more likely figure, from the power sources they can actually name. What we are seeing here is some pressure for realism entering, from the scientific as opposed to the activist side, as it becomes clearer and clearer they have no energy budget to support their scare quote predictions. Meanwhile we get Hollywood nonsense more extreme than the stuff being admitted here to be unfounded.

Hanson has come about half way to reality with this change in his projection. He still has half way more to go.

[dangus]

>> Note from the poster: this is double the rate of warming in the 20th century.<<

O NO! That's a WHOLE DEGREE FARENHEIT! We're doomed! Doomed! We're all going to fry! The Earth will turn into a living hell! Easter, 2050 in Paducah, KY will be 57 Degrees instead of 56! Grampa will hesitate slightly longer when considering whether to wear a sweater of a jacket. (O wait, that'll be me by then!) WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! Or at least have slightly more pleasant winters in Sheboygan...

[Psycho_Bunny]

I think this article is ignoring the effects of the several nuclear weapons we are probably going to have to drop in the Middle-East.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Now the modelers can turn their efforts to Mars and explain how a planet with an atmosphere that's 95% CO2, manages to stay cold rather than have runaway greenhouse warming.

[Seadog Bytes]

Ah, but what Hansen may be failing to factor into his calculations is all the additional hot air (and, in some cases, even 'methane') being generated by all the Chicken-Little crowd's jawboning on this subject.

I suspect that the most dangerous 'global-warming effect' is more likely the destruction of our economy by those who are "well-meaning, but without understanding" trying to 'fix' it, than any possible risk of us all drowning in seawater and/or melted glaciers.

...Yeah, now that you mention it, I guess you're right... I'm really NOT too certain about that 'well-meaning' part I guess...)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with a series of hobgoblins." -- H.L. Mencken

"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." -Anatole France

Can I share these here...?

More??? ...Please see...: Seadog Bytes at StrangeCosmos.com