I confess I am joining the Patersons. I am little less skeptical. Dr X clearly knows a lot about climate science and he puts it well. I intend to read Unsettled, by Koonin, to see what I can learn there.
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong”. – Richard P. Feynman
When the climate model results are compared with the last 40 years of global satellite temperature measurements, they do not match.
The models, with a couple exceptions, project rates of temperature increase that are 2 to 3 times greater than the measurements.
Unless you believe the rate of global temperature increase, as measured by the satellites and calibrated with weather balloons is wildly incorrect, the theory used to build the computer models is incorrect. The theory needs to be corrected so the computer models built on the theory match the data.
The other possibility is the computer models fail to express the theory correctly and need correction.
I believe humans are making some contribution to warming, but models based on a theory that is incorrect or models that fail to correctly express the theory will not help us accurately separate the human contribution from the natural warming. The current models are failures at prediction.
Until they are corrected, the models cannot be relied on to tell us if the human contribution will make a difference that will be of any significance 80 years from now.
I believe the scientific consensus, based on hundreds of studies of temperature proxies, is that more than 7,000 of the last 10,000 years of this interglacial were warmer than now. Some of the warming we are now experiencing after the Little Ice Age ended in the mid 1800’s is natural and to be expected based on the natural observed temperature cycles over the last 2,000 years.
Until we can separate the natural warming from the human warming we lack adequate information to decide what, if anything, we should do.
The divergence in the rate of change in the data and the models means the models are invalid.
By significant, I mean will the change caused by human activity be noticeable to people in 2100. A change of 1 degree C in the average temp is well within the natural variation (which is likely to both warm and cool multiple times in that time frame) and would not be detectable by people going about their daily lives. A 10 degree C human contribution would be very noticeable. Unfortunately, the current models are incapable separating out and predicting the effect of the human contribution to warming. Until they are corrected to match up with data from the last 40 years, they are useless.
Sorry, I should have specified that I was referring to the data we've already collected, not the predictive models based on them. I think we can all agree about the uncertainties of extrapolation. But everything good science touches is going to have acknowledged uncertainties, so I wouldn't let that paralyze me into inaction.
With my apologies, I'll try and rephrase:
Even if we can't separate natural contributions from anthropogenic, but we can determine the average global temperature up to this date, would a record breaking rate of change over the last several decades be enough to cause concern?
I refer to the last 2 paragraphs in my first comment.
During this interglacial there is evidence of temperature changes likely more rapid than we are experiencing now. Our current rate of change is only “record breaking” if the time horizon is short.
There are hundreds (probably over a thousand now) of research papers detecting evidence of the Roman and Medieval warming periods all over the world.
The Romans had vineyards in England without the benefit of todays frost resistant hybrid vines. It was likely several degrees C warmer than today.
The Vikings were farming in Greenland during the Medieval Warm period. It is too cold to do that today.
As we continue warming out of the Little Ice Age, the change will not be constant. Some decades it will be faster and then there will be decades where the increase flattens out, much like the 15+ plus year pause in temperature rise that occurred recently.
What is a “record” is pretty subjective. Especially given the sparse and subject to error temperature records before the satellites.
Even if we decide increasing temperatures, natural or otherwise, will continue, this is a slow-motion disaster happening over many decades. Humans have always been good at dealing with slow-motion disasters. With our current rate of technological advancement, we should be getting better at it.
Even if we decide to do something. We don’t know enough to know what measures would actually be effective. The IPCC says that if humans immediately stopped adding CO2 to the atmosphere, the result would a reduction in the increase in temperature by less than .5 C by 2100. That doesn’t appear very effective to me.
Not that I think it is a good idea, but Bill Gates plan to block the sun with high altitude particles might be more effective at dropping temperature, if that is really what you want to do.
I’m not really interesting in going back to the conditions of the Dark Ages or Little Ice Age with their crop failures, famines, depopulation, plagues, more wars and stormier weather.
I'm not going to be able to address with every direction you take your posts in, but you certainly deserve a response to most of it.
"During this interglacial there is evidence of temperature changes likely more rapid than we are experiencing now." This is the first time I've heard this claim, since it's pretty radically different from the normal comparison of global averages. I will adjust my position accordingly if I can find a nonpartisan source to support it. I'd be impressed by a natural phenomenon that could create that rate of change, barring asteroid impact or sudden violent volcanic activity or the like. Which wouldn't be comforting at all.
I’ve been reading and paying attention to this issue for a few decades, so one thought tends to connect to another as it is all connected. Sorry about that.
It is all related to the same subject. The one thing I’ve learned for sure is that just when I think I know something in this area, a study or several studies will come along that reshape my understanding.
30 years ago, I thought solar panels and hydrogen would be the answer. As I have learned more, not so much.
The climate and all its processes have far more to them than humans understand. We’ve only been studying the climate with focus for a short time.
I suspect what we will learn in the future is far more than what we have learned so far.
The most severe recorded temperature changes were the result of large eruptions. I have read papers that some of temperature changes at boundaries of the Roman Warming period, Dark Ages, Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age were sudden and in short periods less than a decade and sometimes oscillated up and down for several decades. There are records related to crop abundance and other writings in historical records. Going back to find those references is more effort than I will make now.
There are also extrapolations from ice cores, mud bores and other temperature proxies that go back further, but they are not as precise about short time frames.
For me the bottom line is there are indications, but no certain evidence of big sudden swings in the past. There is also no certain evidence that all temperature changes in the past happen gradually. There are only conclusions people who study these areas have reached. At this point their findings are often conflicting.
To say that our current warming is “unprecedented” or is “setting records” is to assume a certainty about past climate that is unwarranted given the current state of our knowledge about the climate.
When I see an article like the one above that expresses that certainty, my antenna go up. Little in climate science is certain or predictable at this point.
Basing significant public policy decisions, that will be far reaching and have negative impacts on many lives in the near term, on our current limited climate knowledge strikes me as folly.
Well, I have wandered about again. The stimulation of this conversation and your questions has my mind moving about.
If your interested in a far-reaching weekly compilation of all things written about the climate, I recommend subscribing to the free weekly compilation from Sepp.org. They have their point of view, but are pretty good about including articles and studies from all sides. They always link to the sources, so you can dive in as deep as you want. They have an extensive archive available.
This was very enlightening. The only problem is that it indicates no particular course of action.
It may be that nothing can be done to halt or significantly retard climate change, for the complications of the problem go far beyond its scientific component. The problem being global, so must be the solution. But alas, the oft-spoken of global community is, like the basilisk, a mythical beast. So it will probably be found that the range of practical action is very narrow.
This is not to say that action on the energy front would be futile. There are reasons other than climate change to develop and deploy cleaner, more efficient energy technologies. The one thing I’m sure we should not do is listen to John Kerry.
I would like Dr. X’s comments regarding GHG measurements on Mauna Loa and the continuous 35 year (1983-2018) eruption of Pu’u ‘O’o on Kilauea Volcano’s East Rift Zone. This eruption ranks as the greatest in volume of magma disgorged from Kilauea in the last 500 years. How did the volume of CO2, SO2, H2S, CO, H2O, etc. emitted just down slope of Mauna Loa effect those measurements? And if not, why not? FYI: this December past, the eruption has began anew.
While waiting for somebody else to provide a more scientific comment, I would just observe that the Mauna Loa Observatory is situated on the NORTHWEST slope of Mauna Loa, whereas the Pu’u ‘O’o on Kilauea Volcano’s East Rift Zone is located SOUTHEAST of the Mauna Loa crest:
Not from the rift. I’ve been there. The prevailing winds blow the Kilauea emissions around Mauna Loa, below its summit, around towards Kona. The monitoring station is high up, and shielded by the crest.
Noted, at elevation the air quality does improve. I live in downslope Kawaihae (north of Kona) part of the year with Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa looming in the distance. At times the air quality has been rated “unhealthy” and worse.
Also, CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations scattered across 66 countries, and they all report the same rising trend. If the Mauna Loa station's readings lately seemed to be getting out of whack with the measurements from those stations, don't you think we would have heard about it? To my untrained eye, the trends in CO2 measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory look pretty much consistent in their trajectory, despite what's been happening in the East Rift Zone.
Yes, of course, and scientists do. Suggest you contact Volcanoes National Park to get the specific number for Hawaii. But to put things into perspective, the Forbes article at the link below provides information on emissions from volcanoes and other geological sources, which in turn draws its numbers from the article at the link below that.
What it says is that the world's ~550 historically active volcanoes contribute about 117 million tonnes CO2 to the atmosphere each year. Let's assume that Kilauea emits more than the average, say 1 million tonnes/year.
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions in 2019 were 36,000 times that amount.
Well written and very clear explanation of a complex subject. Thank you for it.
John Kerry, President Biden’s climate Czar, recently said,
“Well, the scientists told us three years ago we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left...”
My question, Dr. X, is whether you think the data generated by climate scientists is so overwhelming and so amenable to precise analysis that scientists can determine the exact year when, absent dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, “the worst consequences” (whatever that means) will result?
To put it another way, Is there now or has there ever been, a consensus of climate scientists that we are currently in a short window of now nine years where if we don’t take severe action calamity becomes inevitable?
The year 2030 is mainly significant because it was a nice round year, against which progress against various commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions could be adjudged. I doubt there are many scientists out there who would claim that they can say with certainty the exact date by which the worst consequences of climate climate change can be averted, in part because there are other variables that will affect that trajectory, not the least of which are economic and technological developments in the interim.
Nonetheless, since so many countries made pledges to take climate-related action by 2030 (in the Paris Climate Agreement, under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example), it is natural for scientists to look for significant action by the world's governments between now and that date. To me, that is what "12 years to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis" means in that context.
The fact that 2030 sounds like a “nice round year” doesn’t sound very scientifically compelling. In fact, what it really sounds like is hocus pocus.
Unless, Senator Kerry can point to an overwhelming number of peer-reviewed scientific papers which demonstrate that calamity ensues by 2030 if we don’t act, his statement is false; in fact it’s worse than that. It’s a lie. Is that the person who should be leading the American effort in the climate arena?
By failing to correct the record, point out the folly of making definitive predictions and criticize the exaggerations of pundits and politicians, don’t climate scientists become complicit in deceiving ordinary citizens?
I have another question for Dr. X and Ronald Steenblik. Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom of California said the Zogg wildfire near Redding California was proof that climate change was real.
Is there any proof to the standard of near statistical certainty that the Zogg fire or any other recent California wildfire has as its major cause, human induced climate change? Or is Newsom’s statement as inaccurate as Kerry’s?
Internationally agreed targets are almost ALWAYS established with reference to a "nice round year". That doesn't make them any more or less scientifically valid. Scientists have looked at possible pathways towards outcomes that avoid reaching certain global average temperatures, so they can provide some idea of what actions (especially emissions trajectories) need to be taken by a specified date.
In other words, the direction of causation is: scientists are constantly refining their models, but at some point they are asked to look at a specific date, one that it is easy for everybody to remember. Indeed, using "nice round numbers" is itself a signal that avoids the appearance of false precision. If the target date for certain policy outcomes was 2029, critics would be asking, "Why did they choose such a precise date?"
The predictions from climate scientists of course have bands of uncertainty around them, which expand the further one looks into the future. What climate-mitigation actions get done in the short to medium term can have a big influence on the longer term, and especially the rate of change that would be needed in the future to avoid catastrophe if actions taken now prove insufficient.
Perhaps this late 2019 report, co-authored by a team of international scientific leaders, helps explain what is behind the kind of statement that Kerry made. Again, everybody is focussing on what countries do between now and 2030, in part because the pledges beyond that date are much more vague, and the rate of reductions would be even more politically difficult to achieve.
(Rewritten for grammar.) No. No way to prove that; the comment was ridiculous. But there's a logical fallacy at work if you mention this to implicate serious climate scientists, none of whom would actually say that and all of whom always diligently say the very opposite: "There is no way to prove this particular disaster was caused by climate change. However, we are extremely certain the Earth is warming." There are people who can't or won't understand what they're saying. But saying, "This fire was caused by climate change" does not invalidate the serious climate science. If that were true, we'd decide that a virologist who produced a coronavirus vaccine that's 80 percent effective should be reviled because an especially loathsome politician insisted it would "totally protect you against getting sick."
Fair enough, Claire, but I do think that climate scientists have done too little to point out the exaggerations, distortions and deception of the climate activists who speak in the name of climate science.
In the United States, Democrats in particular like to claim that the Republican hordes are science-denying Neanderthals. My point is that whatever you want to call it, Kerry, Newsom and their ilk are not peddling science. They’re peddling pseudo-science at best and and hocus pocus at worst.
Turning science into good public policy is hard-very hard. Getting it wrong can have bad consequences. Once public health experts were finished distorting the complicated work done by scientists with expertise in lipid metabolism, we ended up with dietary advice that caused a massive epidemic of obesity and Type II diabetes (thankfully, France, which never gave up butter for margarine or real cheese for cheese wiz escaped this anthropogenic dietary disaster).
Similarly, climate activists are distorting the findings of climate scientists in ways that could have disastrous results.
The policies needed to avert climate calamity, especially if Kerry’s 9 years is the time period in which we must act, will ruin the livelihood of tens of millions of people around the world. Americans are already losing good jobs with little hope of replacing the jobs they’ve lost with anything other than menial labor.
By perverting the findings of genuine climate scientists, climate activists are doing something that is genuinely evil.
"Fair enough, Claire, but I do think that climate scientists have done too little to point out the exaggerations, distortions and deception of the climate activists who speak in the name of climate science."
I can proudly stand with you here.
When AOC breathlessly declares the end of the world, scientists and skeptics alike should stand up and, with the mightiest hedged language they can muster, "That is statistically unlikely, however action would be prudent given our models, and we recommend setting concrete goals in order to reduce risk." It's not sexy, and it won't grab headlines, but it's what needs to be said.
Unfortunately, this one facet of a much larger and more difficult problem. People are too reluctant to call out incautious thinking on their side of the fence. It's probably because of the savagery of our discourse. I watched the Trumpists' treatment of "RHINOs" in order to stomp out criticism with disgust. The same can be said of seeing members of the press calling liberals like Sam Harris "Alt-Right" because they don't adhere to woke politics.
I have to disagree with you Dr. Steenblik. John Kerry picked a year, 2030. He was selling the proposition that if we didn’t solve the problem of our carbon emissions by then, it was game over. Like many climate activists he did this with a specific purpose. That purpose was to scare the dickens out of ordinary citizens so that they would acquiesce to policies that were bound, in the short run at least, to ruin their standard of living.
Unless you can identify a large cohort of genuinely expert climate scientists to affirm that nine years is all we have left to avoid calamitous climate change, Kerry’s false statement is about politics not science.
I would love Dr. X to give us his opinion (understanding that it’s only an educated opinion) do we have exactly 9 years to avoid climate disaster? Do we have 10-50 years? Do we have a century? Is it already too late?
Obviously the longer we have, the more gradual the changes can be made and the fewer economic dislocations can be expected.
Another question I have for Dr. X and Dr. Steenblick is do you feel that having John Kerry and Greta Thunberg as the two most prominent spokespeople for the climate science community increases or decreases the credibility of climate science?
Do you really think climate science will be more credible if climate scientists acquiesce to climate activists making statements that simply have no basis in science?
This string has little to do with the actual article. Neither John Kerry nor Greta Thunberg are mentioned in it. The two most prominent spokespeople for the climate science community? Since when? Yes, they try to refer to science, but their sphere of action is, respectively, international diplomacy and climate activism.
I think I have said enough already about the relationship between science and diplomacy, the meaning of shared targets, and the necessary collective action it implies.
As for activists, Greta Thunberg is a very passionate, articulate person. But only one voice among many. I have questioned some of her past statements on global fossil fuel subsidies, where it appears that she is referring to the IMF's estimates of "post-tax subsidies" to fossil fuels ($5.2 trillion in 2017), more than 90% of which are not actually estimates of subsidies as commonly understood, but mainly estimates of the externalized costs imposed on society from burning fossil fuels. (See my pinned Tweet.) I've written to people who I think have her ear, to verify whether the IMF is her source, but have heard back nothing.
I did listen in to the most recent U.S. House Subcommittee on the Environment hearing on fossil fuel subsidies, at which Ms. Thunberg testified, and I was afraid she would confuse matters by throwing out the IMF's estimates of the USA's "fossil fuel subsidies", $649 billion in 2017, but she didn't, so I was glad of that. The estimate that the Subcommittee itself was working with was in the neighborhood of $15 billion a year. That is 2.3% of the IMF number.
P.S., It's not "Dr." (I worked on one, but did not finish) and it's not "Steenblick" (there's no "c").
I confess I am joining the Patersons. I am little less skeptical. Dr X clearly knows a lot about climate science and he puts it well. I intend to read Unsettled, by Koonin, to see what I can learn there.
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong”. – Richard P. Feynman
When the climate model results are compared with the last 40 years of global satellite temperature measurements, they do not match.
The models, with a couple exceptions, project rates of temperature increase that are 2 to 3 times greater than the measurements.
Unless you believe the rate of global temperature increase, as measured by the satellites and calibrated with weather balloons is wildly incorrect, the theory used to build the computer models is incorrect. The theory needs to be corrected so the computer models built on the theory match the data.
The other possibility is the computer models fail to express the theory correctly and need correction.
I believe humans are making some contribution to warming, but models based on a theory that is incorrect or models that fail to correctly express the theory will not help us accurately separate the human contribution from the natural warming. The current models are failures at prediction.
Until they are corrected, the models cannot be relied on to tell us if the human contribution will make a difference that will be of any significance 80 years from now.
I believe the scientific consensus, based on hundreds of studies of temperature proxies, is that more than 7,000 of the last 10,000 years of this interglacial were warmer than now. Some of the warming we are now experiencing after the Little Ice Age ended in the mid 1800’s is natural and to be expected based on the natural observed temperature cycles over the last 2,000 years.
Until we can separate the natural warming from the human warming we lack adequate information to decide what, if anything, we should do.
Do you think rate of change is significant in trying to determine if we've contributed significantly?
The divergence in the rate of change in the data and the models means the models are invalid.
By significant, I mean will the change caused by human activity be noticeable to people in 2100. A change of 1 degree C in the average temp is well within the natural variation (which is likely to both warm and cool multiple times in that time frame) and would not be detectable by people going about their daily lives. A 10 degree C human contribution would be very noticeable. Unfortunately, the current models are incapable separating out and predicting the effect of the human contribution to warming. Until they are corrected to match up with data from the last 40 years, they are useless.
Sorry, I should have specified that I was referring to the data we've already collected, not the predictive models based on them. I think we can all agree about the uncertainties of extrapolation. But everything good science touches is going to have acknowledged uncertainties, so I wouldn't let that paralyze me into inaction.
With my apologies, I'll try and rephrase:
Even if we can't separate natural contributions from anthropogenic, but we can determine the average global temperature up to this date, would a record breaking rate of change over the last several decades be enough to cause concern?
I refer to the last 2 paragraphs in my first comment.
During this interglacial there is evidence of temperature changes likely more rapid than we are experiencing now. Our current rate of change is only “record breaking” if the time horizon is short.
There are hundreds (probably over a thousand now) of research papers detecting evidence of the Roman and Medieval warming periods all over the world.
The Romans had vineyards in England without the benefit of todays frost resistant hybrid vines. It was likely several degrees C warmer than today.
The Vikings were farming in Greenland during the Medieval Warm period. It is too cold to do that today.
As we continue warming out of the Little Ice Age, the change will not be constant. Some decades it will be faster and then there will be decades where the increase flattens out, much like the 15+ plus year pause in temperature rise that occurred recently.
What is a “record” is pretty subjective. Especially given the sparse and subject to error temperature records before the satellites.
Even if we decide increasing temperatures, natural or otherwise, will continue, this is a slow-motion disaster happening over many decades. Humans have always been good at dealing with slow-motion disasters. With our current rate of technological advancement, we should be getting better at it.
Even if we decide to do something. We don’t know enough to know what measures would actually be effective. The IPCC says that if humans immediately stopped adding CO2 to the atmosphere, the result would a reduction in the increase in temperature by less than .5 C by 2100. That doesn’t appear very effective to me.
Not that I think it is a good idea, but Bill Gates plan to block the sun with high altitude particles might be more effective at dropping temperature, if that is really what you want to do.
I’m not really interesting in going back to the conditions of the Dark Ages or Little Ice Age with their crop failures, famines, depopulation, plagues, more wars and stormier weather.
I'm not going to be able to address with every direction you take your posts in, but you certainly deserve a response to most of it.
"During this interglacial there is evidence of temperature changes likely more rapid than we are experiencing now." This is the first time I've heard this claim, since it's pretty radically different from the normal comparison of global averages. I will adjust my position accordingly if I can find a nonpartisan source to support it. I'd be impressed by a natural phenomenon that could create that rate of change, barring asteroid impact or sudden violent volcanic activity or the like. Which wouldn't be comforting at all.
I’ve been reading and paying attention to this issue for a few decades, so one thought tends to connect to another as it is all connected. Sorry about that.
It is all related to the same subject. The one thing I’ve learned for sure is that just when I think I know something in this area, a study or several studies will come along that reshape my understanding.
30 years ago, I thought solar panels and hydrogen would be the answer. As I have learned more, not so much.
The climate and all its processes have far more to them than humans understand. We’ve only been studying the climate with focus for a short time.
I suspect what we will learn in the future is far more than what we have learned so far.
The most severe recorded temperature changes were the result of large eruptions. I have read papers that some of temperature changes at boundaries of the Roman Warming period, Dark Ages, Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age were sudden and in short periods less than a decade and sometimes oscillated up and down for several decades. There are records related to crop abundance and other writings in historical records. Going back to find those references is more effort than I will make now.
There are also extrapolations from ice cores, mud bores and other temperature proxies that go back further, but they are not as precise about short time frames.
For me the bottom line is there are indications, but no certain evidence of big sudden swings in the past. There is also no certain evidence that all temperature changes in the past happen gradually. There are only conclusions people who study these areas have reached. At this point their findings are often conflicting.
To say that our current warming is “unprecedented” or is “setting records” is to assume a certainty about past climate that is unwarranted given the current state of our knowledge about the climate.
When I see an article like the one above that expresses that certainty, my antenna go up. Little in climate science is certain or predictable at this point.
Basing significant public policy decisions, that will be far reaching and have negative impacts on many lives in the near term, on our current limited climate knowledge strikes me as folly.
Well, I have wandered about again. The stimulation of this conversation and your questions has my mind moving about.
If your interested in a far-reaching weekly compilation of all things written about the climate, I recommend subscribing to the free weekly compilation from Sepp.org. They have their point of view, but are pretty good about including articles and studies from all sides. They always link to the sources, so you can dive in as deep as you want. They have an extensive archive available.
This was very enlightening. The only problem is that it indicates no particular course of action.
It may be that nothing can be done to halt or significantly retard climate change, for the complications of the problem go far beyond its scientific component. The problem being global, so must be the solution. But alas, the oft-spoken of global community is, like the basilisk, a mythical beast. So it will probably be found that the range of practical action is very narrow.
This is not to say that action on the energy front would be futile. There are reasons other than climate change to develop and deploy cleaner, more efficient energy technologies. The one thing I’m sure we should not do is listen to John Kerry.
I would like Dr. X’s comments regarding GHG measurements on Mauna Loa and the continuous 35 year (1983-2018) eruption of Pu’u ‘O’o on Kilauea Volcano’s East Rift Zone. This eruption ranks as the greatest in volume of magma disgorged from Kilauea in the last 500 years. How did the volume of CO2, SO2, H2S, CO, H2O, etc. emitted just down slope of Mauna Loa effect those measurements? And if not, why not? FYI: this December past, the eruption has began anew.
While waiting for somebody else to provide a more scientific comment, I would just observe that the Mauna Loa Observatory is situated on the NORTHWEST slope of Mauna Loa, whereas the Pu’u ‘O’o on Kilauea Volcano’s East Rift Zone is located SOUTHEAST of the Mauna Loa crest:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mauna+Loa+Observatory/@19.4994756,-155.8015673,147687m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x7953ef53fcc844c9:0x125658bfa768626b!8m2!3d19.5363306!4d-155.5764617
True, but it puts the observatory right in the path of the prevailing trade wind flow pattern.
Not from the rift. I’ve been there. The prevailing winds blow the Kilauea emissions around Mauna Loa, below its summit, around towards Kona. The monitoring station is high up, and shielded by the crest.
Noted, at elevation the air quality does improve. I live in downslope Kawaihae (north of Kona) part of the year with Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa looming in the distance. At times the air quality has been rated “unhealthy” and worse.
I feel for you and your neighbors. It's otherwise one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Also, CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations scattered across 66 countries, and they all report the same rising trend. If the Mauna Loa station's readings lately seemed to be getting out of whack with the measurements from those stations, don't you think we would have heard about it? To my untrained eye, the trends in CO2 measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory look pretty much consistent in their trajectory, despite what's been happening in the East Rift Zone.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
As for SO2 concentrations in Kona, that's a different story.
An additional question then: Is there anyway to quantify and qualify the GHGs a continuous 35 year eruption has contributed to the atmosphere?
Ronald STEENBLIKjust now
Ronald STEENBLIKjust now
Yes, of course, and scientists do. Suggest you contact Volcanoes National Park to get the specific number for Hawaii. But to put things into perspective, the Forbes article at the link below provides information on emissions from volcanoes and other geological sources, which in turn draws its numbers from the article at the link below that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/06/06/how-much-co2-does-a-single-volcano-emit/
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/rimg/article-abstract/75/1/323/140959/Deep-Carbon-Emissions-from-Volcanoes?redirectedFrom=fulltext
What it says is that the world's ~550 historically active volcanoes contribute about 117 million tonnes CO2 to the atmosphere each year. Let's assume that Kilauea emits more than the average, say 1 million tonnes/year.
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions in 2019 were 36,000 times that amount.
One would think so. That’s why I’m asking. Clarification.
This is good. Thank you for rectifying.
Well written and very clear explanation of a complex subject. Thank you for it.
John Kerry, President Biden’s climate Czar, recently said,
“Well, the scientists told us three years ago we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left...”
My question, Dr. X, is whether you think the data generated by climate scientists is so overwhelming and so amenable to precise analysis that scientists can determine the exact year when, absent dramatic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, “the worst consequences” (whatever that means) will result?
To put it another way, Is there now or has there ever been, a consensus of climate scientists that we are currently in a short window of now nine years where if we don’t take severe action calamity becomes inevitable?
The year 2030 is mainly significant because it was a nice round year, against which progress against various commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions could be adjudged. I doubt there are many scientists out there who would claim that they can say with certainty the exact date by which the worst consequences of climate climate change can be averted, in part because there are other variables that will affect that trajectory, not the least of which are economic and technological developments in the interim.
Nonetheless, since so many countries made pledges to take climate-related action by 2030 (in the Paris Climate Agreement, under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example), it is natural for scientists to look for significant action by the world's governments between now and that date. To me, that is what "12 years to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis" means in that context.
The fact that 2030 sounds like a “nice round year” doesn’t sound very scientifically compelling. In fact, what it really sounds like is hocus pocus.
Unless, Senator Kerry can point to an overwhelming number of peer-reviewed scientific papers which demonstrate that calamity ensues by 2030 if we don’t act, his statement is false; in fact it’s worse than that. It’s a lie. Is that the person who should be leading the American effort in the climate arena?
By failing to correct the record, point out the folly of making definitive predictions and criticize the exaggerations of pundits and politicians, don’t climate scientists become complicit in deceiving ordinary citizens?
I have another question for Dr. X and Ronald Steenblik. Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom of California said the Zogg wildfire near Redding California was proof that climate change was real.
Is there any proof to the standard of near statistical certainty that the Zogg fire or any other recent California wildfire has as its major cause, human induced climate change? Or is Newsom’s statement as inaccurate as Kerry’s?
Ronald STEENBLIKjust now
Internationally agreed targets are almost ALWAYS established with reference to a "nice round year". That doesn't make them any more or less scientifically valid. Scientists have looked at possible pathways towards outcomes that avoid reaching certain global average temperatures, so they can provide some idea of what actions (especially emissions trajectories) need to be taken by a specified date.
In other words, the direction of causation is: scientists are constantly refining their models, but at some point they are asked to look at a specific date, one that it is easy for everybody to remember. Indeed, using "nice round numbers" is itself a signal that avoids the appearance of false precision. If the target date for certain policy outcomes was 2029, critics would be asking, "Why did they choose such a precise date?"
The predictions from climate scientists of course have bands of uncertainty around them, which expand the further one looks into the future. What climate-mitigation actions get done in the short to medium term can have a big influence on the longer term, and especially the rate of change that would be needed in the future to avoid catastrophe if actions taken now prove insufficient.
Perhaps this late 2019 report, co-authored by a team of international scientific leaders, helps explain what is behind the kind of statement that Kerry made. Again, everybody is focussing on what countries do between now and 2030, in part because the pledges beyond that date are much more vague, and the rate of reductions would be even more politically difficult to achieve.
https://bit.ly/2picXvQ
(Rewritten for grammar.) No. No way to prove that; the comment was ridiculous. But there's a logical fallacy at work if you mention this to implicate serious climate scientists, none of whom would actually say that and all of whom always diligently say the very opposite: "There is no way to prove this particular disaster was caused by climate change. However, we are extremely certain the Earth is warming." There are people who can't or won't understand what they're saying. But saying, "This fire was caused by climate change" does not invalidate the serious climate science. If that were true, we'd decide that a virologist who produced a coronavirus vaccine that's 80 percent effective should be reviled because an especially loathsome politician insisted it would "totally protect you against getting sick."
There's a certain peril in extrapolating in front of a dishonest audience, as well.
Fair enough, Claire, but I do think that climate scientists have done too little to point out the exaggerations, distortions and deception of the climate activists who speak in the name of climate science.
In the United States, Democrats in particular like to claim that the Republican hordes are science-denying Neanderthals. My point is that whatever you want to call it, Kerry, Newsom and their ilk are not peddling science. They’re peddling pseudo-science at best and and hocus pocus at worst.
Turning science into good public policy is hard-very hard. Getting it wrong can have bad consequences. Once public health experts were finished distorting the complicated work done by scientists with expertise in lipid metabolism, we ended up with dietary advice that caused a massive epidemic of obesity and Type II diabetes (thankfully, France, which never gave up butter for margarine or real cheese for cheese wiz escaped this anthropogenic dietary disaster).
Similarly, climate activists are distorting the findings of climate scientists in ways that could have disastrous results.
The policies needed to avert climate calamity, especially if Kerry’s 9 years is the time period in which we must act, will ruin the livelihood of tens of millions of people around the world. Americans are already losing good jobs with little hope of replacing the jobs they’ve lost with anything other than menial labor.
By perverting the findings of genuine climate scientists, climate activists are doing something that is genuinely evil.
"Fair enough, Claire, but I do think that climate scientists have done too little to point out the exaggerations, distortions and deception of the climate activists who speak in the name of climate science."
I can proudly stand with you here.
When AOC breathlessly declares the end of the world, scientists and skeptics alike should stand up and, with the mightiest hedged language they can muster, "That is statistically unlikely, however action would be prudent given our models, and we recommend setting concrete goals in order to reduce risk." It's not sexy, and it won't grab headlines, but it's what needs to be said.
Unfortunately, this one facet of a much larger and more difficult problem. People are too reluctant to call out incautious thinking on their side of the fence. It's probably because of the savagery of our discourse. I watched the Trumpists' treatment of "RHINOs" in order to stomp out criticism with disgust. The same can be said of seeing members of the press calling liberals like Sam Harris "Alt-Right" because they don't adhere to woke politics.
Our fight is against all the inquisitors.
I have to disagree with you Dr. Steenblik. John Kerry picked a year, 2030. He was selling the proposition that if we didn’t solve the problem of our carbon emissions by then, it was game over. Like many climate activists he did this with a specific purpose. That purpose was to scare the dickens out of ordinary citizens so that they would acquiesce to policies that were bound, in the short run at least, to ruin their standard of living.
Unless you can identify a large cohort of genuinely expert climate scientists to affirm that nine years is all we have left to avoid calamitous climate change, Kerry’s false statement is about politics not science.
I would love Dr. X to give us his opinion (understanding that it’s only an educated opinion) do we have exactly 9 years to avoid climate disaster? Do we have 10-50 years? Do we have a century? Is it already too late?
Obviously the longer we have, the more gradual the changes can be made and the fewer economic dislocations can be expected.
Another question I have for Dr. X and Dr. Steenblick is do you feel that having John Kerry and Greta Thunberg as the two most prominent spokespeople for the climate science community increases or decreases the credibility of climate science?
Do you really think climate science will be more credible if climate scientists acquiesce to climate activists making statements that simply have no basis in science?
This string has little to do with the actual article. Neither John Kerry nor Greta Thunberg are mentioned in it. The two most prominent spokespeople for the climate science community? Since when? Yes, they try to refer to science, but their sphere of action is, respectively, international diplomacy and climate activism.
I think I have said enough already about the relationship between science and diplomacy, the meaning of shared targets, and the necessary collective action it implies.
As for activists, Greta Thunberg is a very passionate, articulate person. But only one voice among many. I have questioned some of her past statements on global fossil fuel subsidies, where it appears that she is referring to the IMF's estimates of "post-tax subsidies" to fossil fuels ($5.2 trillion in 2017), more than 90% of which are not actually estimates of subsidies as commonly understood, but mainly estimates of the externalized costs imposed on society from burning fossil fuels. (See my pinned Tweet.) I've written to people who I think have her ear, to verify whether the IMF is her source, but have heard back nothing.
I did listen in to the most recent U.S. House Subcommittee on the Environment hearing on fossil fuel subsidies, at which Ms. Thunberg testified, and I was afraid she would confuse matters by throwing out the IMF's estimates of the USA's "fossil fuel subsidies", $649 billion in 2017, but she didn't, so I was glad of that. The estimate that the Subcommittee itself was working with was in the neighborhood of $15 billion a year. That is 2.3% of the IMF number.
P.S., It's not "Dr." (I worked on one, but did not finish) and it's not "Steenblick" (there's no "c").
Sorry about the credential mistake and misspelling your name.