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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?