Climate Change Contrarians - claims examined

[doogles]

This is worth a look for those who like to keep a balanced outlook on matters affecting the planet and who like to check first-hand articles themselves. This article -- https://principia-scientific.org/more-s ... ek-of-aug/ was titled More Sea Ice Than Average In Southernmost Arctic First Week Of Aug. It was written by Susan J Crockford PhD, who is a University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) zoologist and who specializes in Holocene mammals, including polar bears and walrus. Her new book is The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened (Amazon).

The article does not appear to have made it to any major media outlets. It turned up in my e-mails and is worth a read for those who still have open minds.

Here are two brief excerpts -- "Polar bear habitat update for the first week of August 2019 shows there is still more sea ice than average in Hudson Bay, the southernmost area of continuous habitation for this species. ... That certainly wasn’t part of the predictions of doom, especially since freeze-up in that region for the last two years has also been earlier-than-average, which means a shorter ice-free season than we’ve seen for decades.

There is plenty of evidence in the article.

[TheVat]

Most members have open scientific minds, when there is evidence. The question is, as always: what does a preponderance of the evidence show? Intellectual honesty calls us to always look at that overall abundance of data and which predictive models seem to handle that data most effectively.

We had a cold winter here, last year. Global surface temps, however, remained elevated, and vast areas of permafrost continued to melt, coral reefs kept dying from thermal stress, storm surges continued to reach record highs, Antarctica and the Arctic and Greenland and coastal Alaska continued to have unprecedented losses of glacier and sea ice, record-breaking heatwaves continued to strike various parts of the world, tropical storms and cyclones, fed by warmer ocean waters, continued to show an upward trend in number and severity, and so on. These are all matters of public record and readers may easily verify these ongoing changes. Ockham's razor is your friend.

[charon]

Well, I hope there's no doubt that climate change exists! There's no doubt about it. At all. The fact that the US government is suppressing scientific evidence is proof enough of that. Thankfully the UK government hasn't gone down that route... so far.

'Climate change is happening and is due to human activity'

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/climate-change-explained

[Serpent]

Not everyone is enamoured of Dr. Crockford, or her works.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/climate/polar-bears-climate-deniers.html
She's really got it in for polar bears -https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/dont-blame-melting-ice-for-polar-bear-attacks-blame-a-bear-baby-boom
seems like, the sooner we kill them off, the safer we'll be. Plus, there won't be any problem about the ice....
unless you care what happens to those same Inuit she believes are menaced by fat polar bears.
https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/its-time-listen-inuit-climate-change

[TheVat]

https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/ ... crockford/

[charon]

It's not about polar bears, it's whether the ice is melting.

http://factmyth.com/factoids/the-polar- ... e-melting/

[Serpent]

This is cute.

“Skeptics” tend not to trust NASA because NASA is the government.

So, what's the government's excuse for dismissing NASA/EPA/ et al https://www.voanews.com/usa/13-us-agencies-involved-climate-change-report information?
If the skeptics don't believe any government agency sources, because they're government and presumed to have some kind of political agenda; don't believe any university-sponsored sources because academics are presumed to have some vested interest; don't believe the broadcasting network weather reports, because they're MSM and therefore suspect, what would it take to convince them?

There was a one-hour program on Boston's in particular and the state's climate mitigation actions, that's only about two decades late --- and still isolated. People are terribly uninformed! And that's down to MSM being too chickenshit to rock the money-boat.

[doogles]

Thank you all for the comments about Susan Crockford.

Just to be clear about my position, I fully accept that we have had a rise of approximately 1 degree C in Average Global Near Surface Temperatures over the last 100 odd years, and that it is anthropogenic. My problem with the problem is the alarmist type of terminology and early predictions associated with the problem since the 1990s. The use of emotional terms such as 'global warming', 'climate crisis' and 'climate catastrophe', in addition to the faith in carbon dioxide as a focus of attention, without any evaluation of the measures taken to date, certainly make me query anything and everything associated with the official IPCC position on the problem.

I appear to have opened a can of worms by citing that 2019 article on the Arctic ice and polar bears by Susan Crockford. I looked at all of those references you all cited and some of their offshoots. It appears that polar bears and the Arctic ice may have become symbolic of Climate Change.

It also appears that there is anything but consensus on the issue.

I noted the criticisms of a 2018 paper by Susan Crockford. It seems that there is more dispute than consensus in the Arctic/Polar Bear/Climate Change debate! But has anybody seen a critique of the 2019 article I referenced? The 2019 article I posted has a graph of the extent of ice sheets seasonally over the last decades and it seems quite acceptable to me; there is no deception evident that I could attribute to Susan Crockford.

The more I delve into areas of science outside of my own field, the more uncertain I become about accepting anybody's 'expert' opinions.

For example, this was a sideshoot reference from one of Serpent's references -- https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/so-many-b ... -1.4173058 -- It's titled Inuit differ from 'scientific' evaluations and written by a Bob Weber of the The Canadian Press. It was published in November 2018 and here are some excerpts -- -- "There are too many polar bears in parts of Nunavut and climate change hasn't yet affected any of them, says a draft management plan from the territorial government that contradicts much of conventional scientific thinking. ... The plan leans heavily on Inuit knowledge, which yields population estimates higher than those suggested by western science for almost all of the 13 included bear populations. Scientists say only one population of bears is growing; Inuit say there are nine. Environment Canada says four populations are shrinking; Inuit say none are. ... "(Inuit knowledge) has not always been sufficiently incorporated by decision-makers," says a document submitted by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Inuit land-claim organization. The disconnect between the sentiment in certain scientific communities and (Inuit knowledge) has been pronounced. ... The territory's wildlife management board will take what it hears at the public hearings and include it in a final document, which will go before the Nunavut cabinet for approval."

So where do we stand? A Susan Crockford (who apparently makes a living out of keeping in touch with the Arctic environment and its animals) produces an article that other professionals in the field regard as 'poor science'. But her position appears to be supported by Inuit Communities.

I note that Serpent provided a reference to an article By Sheila Watt-Cloutier November 15, 2018 in the Canadian Geographic that's titled It’s time to listen to the Inuit on climate change -- "Because temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than anywhere else in the world, we must look to the experiences of Inuit as a harbinger of what is to come — and seek their guidance on how to live sustainably." That sounds sensible to me but what this lady did not say was that the Inuit do not appear to be agreeing with the official findings of the scientists who study the region.

I'll see if I can uncover something about the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. I couldn't find anything useful except the article by Bob Weber above. There was one article by Tania Kohut on this site -- https://globalnews.ca/news/3112257/pola ... 050-study/, suggesting that the disagreement between the Inuit and the so-called scientific accounts is that those scientific accounts are projections based on climate models and the way they PREDICT the state of the arctic in 2050.

My interpretation is that once again the scientists are using 'modelling' to predict a huge decline of polar bears by 2050, but the Inuit are saying that we have had climate change for decades now, and as far as they can see, the polar bears are adapting very well; in fact, they are becoming a nuisance around their settlements.

To my mind, it comes down to scientific projections of theoretical models against feet-on-the-ground observations by Inuits in the area. I could not find references to "Scientists say only one population of bears is growing; Inuit say there are nine. Environment Canada says four populations are shrinking."

I would like to critically review such evidence and would really appreciate it if anyone in this forum could give me a lead. Has anyone come across any helpful leads?

[Serpent]

The ice is, in fact, melting. The permafrost is thawing. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/permafrost-melting-1.5119767. The icecaps are shrinking https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/climate-change/changing-ice. The icebergs are calving https://www.futurity.org/iceberg-calving-video-1804972/. The glaciers are retreating https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7679/glacial-retreat.

It doesn't frickin' matter who agrees with whom about what. It doesn't matter where the polar bears have migrated; where they're dying now and where they'll die once the garbage is exhausted of sustenance and they're down to eating plastic, like the whales.
Look at the photographs.

THE. ICE. IS. MELTING.

[charon]

Polar bears are probably what they call collateral damage. Along with god knows what else.

[doogles]

I have no problem with those references Serpent, except for the emotional overtones of panic and doom in the first one.

My problem with the problem is the poor science, the lack of consensus and the emotionalism associated with the whole climate change story. This Arctic/polar bear/climate change is a good example.

There is blatant disagreement on a PRIMARY OBSERVATION of whether polar bears are dying out or thriving. How can that be so?

The scientists, with one or two exceptions are saying that the polar bears are dying off (and I was hoping someone like yourself and others could help me get hold of some basic data on this), while the local Inuit say words to the effect of "Yes, there are changes in the Arctic (See bottom graph on areas of sea ice), but the polar bears are adapting and even becoming a nuisance because of their numbers."

And you will remember the lack of consensus in the 1990s, when one large group of eminent scientists claimed that there was consensus on the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and they exhorted all of the countries to get behind the IPCC, and then a much larger group of scientists signed a petition saying words to the effect that they did not endorse the basic science being supported by the first group.

So there is 'bleaching' of coral due to temperature changes of half to one degree C. How can this be so when the Great Barrier Reef covers 2000 km from north to south with a water temperature range of 10 degrees C, and when from winter to summer, the range in any given location is also 10 degrees C? Obviously, any species of coral in our Great Barrier Reef can withstand a 10 degree range. Am I missing something?

Yes, there is an increase in average near surface global temperatures, most probably caused by human activities, and there are many observable probable geophysical changes as a result. But unfortunately, we Homo sapiens appear to be running around like chooks with their heads chopped off. Millions of people, including school children turned out last week to protest about their governments not doing enough.

To date, the only major attack has been on emissions of carbon dioxide, and after 23 years since the Kyoto Protocol, no scientific evaluation has been conducted on the effectiveness of that method. The concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are readily available for everyone to see from Cape Grim or Moana Loa. And as I've said many times, even Blind Freddie can see that all the kings horses and all the king's men have not made a dent in the graph. Yet the best we appear to have done is to call out for more of the same. Any business using the same principles would go broke.

I try to be constructive in everything I do. If this means breaking ranks with the way the mob thinks, I'll cop the flak, but I'll still have a go.

I've mentioned the accumulating literature on the declining of cloud volumes maybe, as a side effect of the reduction of emissions. In another thread I produced evidence that in the Mediterranean area at least, a 3% reduction in cloud results in a radiative forcing of 4 Watts per square metre, compared with 1.6 for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We need research on hygroscopic nuclei and ways of spreading them through the atmosphere. At least the IPCC recognised this in their 2013 report and they were talking about researching sulphurated compounds to inject into the stratosphere. It may have been just talk.

And there is now a cloud research unit at CERN, which is good.

I still don't understand why the IPCC, or most other people for that matter, have not seriously considered researching suggestions for reducing population growth. Sheer numbers of people need feeding and sooner or later, we'll run out of arable land or fertilisers for that land. Not only that, but since 1970, we have increased our world energy usage by 100,000 TeraWattHours per year (W x 1012). Our world surface area is 150,000 x 1012 square metres. I'll leave you to work that out. Some of that energy by the way is used to manufacture and transport renewables.

I'd like to see more world-wide diverse thinking and ideas-input, and less alarmism.

This graph shows a gradual but total decrease of 2 to 5 million square kilometres of sea ice over a 40 year period, with seasonal variations to extremes. The gradual but steady decrease over this 40 year period may just be allowing the polar bears to adapt, but I would like to see the 'scientific' data suggesting that the polar bears are in decline -- with anyone's assistance.

[Serpent]

My problem with the problem is the poor science,

By what standard is the prevailing climate science "poor"?

the lack of consensus

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
Really? I suppose, as long as somebody with a doctorate can be found to counter-blog, it's not a 100%; therefore, leaves plenty of room for doubt and forces you to collect raw data and create you own model. It's something to do while waiting.

and the emotionalism associated with the whole climate change story. This Arctic/polar bear/climate change is a good example.

Is, in fact, the only example. That's why the deniers are picking on the polar bears - they're more photogenic than lobsters, etc., so they've become a symbol. Meanwhile, thousands of species are going extinct without so much as an obituary. It will get much worse very fast.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mass-extinction-in-earth-rsquo-s-oceans-could-begin-by-2100/
The world is ending. We're all going to die. Nothing to get excited about.

[TheVat]

I am puzzled by the general idea that the consequences of global warming are something not to be emotional about. Alarm would seem to be a natural and survival-promoting response to events that threaten suffering and death. We humans have many emotions for powerfully adaptive reasons. Alarm says "do something!"

If anything, the media seem to be downplaying the looming prospect of a tipping point, where loss of ice and permafrost actually accelerates the feedback loop. I don't think many in the general public are aware of the methane hydrates loop or the permafrost-to-bog CO2 loop or other feedback mechanisms.
And many MSM owners are also invested in fossil fuels and/or cement production and/or Arctic mining ventures, etc. so it's not a real surprise that they don't want their audiences to be too "emotional" about what's happening right now. Getting emotional might lead to public demand for initiatives on both GHG reduction and on introduction of hygroscopic nuclei into the strat.

[Serpent]

We have some agreement on that point:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/greta-thunbergs-despair-is-entirely-warranted/598492/
She's not emotional.* Doesn't know how. She's pragmatic.
https://www.vox.com/2019/9/17/20864740/greta-thunberg-youth-climate-strike-fridays-future
But all the other kids who don't want us burning up their world are plenty emotional.


(*She's had plenty of 'emotion' directed at her by the 'skeptics', as well.
https://www.themarysue.com/greta-thunberg-harassment-online/
I know that's not everyone's first choice of an information source, but it's a mouth of the young horse from whom we don't often hear - and to whom we don't listen enough.**)
(**We have an excellent reason for ignoring them. They have no $$$$)

[TheVat]

Yes, Thunberg's high-functioning autism seems to be a cognitive style that actually helps her to be an uncommonly calm and poised 16 year old.

As that precocious Swede understands, unreasoning fear is the emotion people need to get past, so they can plan constructive action.


https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49773869

(This references the WMO report on data of the five year period, 2014-19, and evidence for the acceleration I mentioned a couple posts back)

[doogles]

My problem with the problem is the poor science,

By what standard is the prevailing climate science "poor"?

the lack of consensus

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
Really? I suppose, as long as somebody with a doctorate can be found to counter-blog, it's not a 100%; therefore, leaves plenty of room for doubt and forces you to collect raw data and create you own model. It's something to do while waiting.

and the emotionalism associated with the whole climate change story. This Arctic/polar bear/climate change is a good example.

Is, in fact, the only example. That's why the deniers are picking on the polar bears - they're more photogenic than lobsters, etc., so they've become a symbol. Meanwhile, thousands of species are going extinct without so much as an obituary. It will get much worse very fast.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mass-extinction-in-earth-rsquo-s-oceans-could-begin-by-2100/
The world is ending. We're all going to die. Nothing to get excited about.

Thanks again Serpent and for the comments.

I read those two references Serpent. You would have noticed that all of those organisations state consensus on the belief that average near surface temperatures are rising and that human activities are probably to blame. You also would have noted that I agree with that. In my last post I said "Yes, there is an increase in average near surface global temperatures, most probably caused by human activities, and there are many observable probable geophysical changes as a result." We do have consensus up to that point. One or two included greenhouse gas emissions as part of their statements; most didn't. I don't know whether that was deliberate or whether it was an omission, but I'll mention emissions later.

Some use the emotional term 'global warming'.

The original coinage of the emotional term 'global warming' was made Hansen in his original paper on average global near-surface temperatures (AGNST). The term has connotations of spontaneous combustion of the sphere we inhabit. I consider it to be unscientific because of its emotional connotations, and I naturally become suspicious of the scientific integrity of the work associated with its use. You may be aware that James Hansen based his initial conclusions on changes in temperature recordings at weather stations all over the globe, without checking on the history of those stations -- changes of location, changes of recording devices and erections of buildings around existing stations. It took a weatherman named Anthony Watts and hundreds of volunteers to establish that Hansen had made too many assumptions -- which is bad science -- when he published his first findings. It resulted in large corrections of initial data, and resulted in a significant reduction of the claimed 'global warming'. It was bad science.

Hansen also just stated that carbon dioxide was the cause of that 'global warming' (ugh) even though, in the same paper, he mentioned the fact that between 1940 and 1970, the AGNSTs had dropped 0.5 degrees C in spite of large increases of carbon dioxide.

I consider that poor science.

Not only that, but all of the theory of greenhouse gas effects is based on the work of John Tyndall performed with crude equipment in the 1860s. I've searched and asked other members of the forum to help me find where any modern work has been performed on the properties of absorption and radiation of infrared radiation by carbon dioxide. The reason I would like to see this work performed is because there are two schools of thought about carbon dioxide. The assumption appears to have been made that absorption is linear -- that is, that the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy it will absorb and hold for a while. But another school of thought, led by a climate scientist named Idso (who is reputed to have published something like 500 papers and books) is that absorption is logarithmic -- that is, that most of the absorption is performed by the lower concentrations of carbon dioxide and that larger concentrations do not absorb much more.

Obviously, this is a lack of consensus on this basic premise on which the emissions and current correction policy is based. The poor science is that nobody appears to have repeated the experiments of Tyndall to check the basics on which our emissions-reductions are based.

It's also poor science not to evaluate the success or failure of a procedure after 23 years of implementation.

I'll leave it there for now. But maybe you can understand Serpent why I'm querying two different reports on the status of polar bears. One implies that species can adapt to a one degree change of global temperature, and the other implies that such a change can cause species extinction.

We need less emotion and better science.

I had a look at your third reference which was a popular science account of a paper in Science Advances by Daniel H Rothman, titled Threshholds of Catastrophe in the Earth System in 2017 on this site -- https://advances.sciencemag.org/content ... 00906.full. He claims in the Abstract "Here, I hypothesize that perturbations of Earth’s carbon cycle lead to mass extinction if they exceed either a critical rate at long time scales or a critical size at short time scales." It was an hypothesis.

I must admit that the article was mainly beyond my comprehension, so I can't comment on it specifically. But it does occur to me that carbon exists in many forms, and that the land and atmosphere would also be flooded with carbon compounds if the ocean reached a critical concentration. The author does not mention the particular substances associated with the ocean content.

[doogles]

I am puzzled by the general idea that the consequences of global warming are something not to be emotional about. Alarm would seem to be a natural and survival-promoting response to events that threaten suffering and death. We humans have many emotions for powerfully adaptive reasons. Alarm says "do something!"

If anything, the media seem to be downplaying the looming prospect of a tipping point, where loss of ice and permafrost actually accelerates the feedback loop. I don't think many in the general public are aware of the methane hydrates loop or the permafrost-to-bog CO2 loop or other feedback mechanisms.
And many MSM owners are also invested in fossil fuels and/or cement production and/or Arctic mining ventures, etc. so it's not a real surprise that they don't want their audiences to be too "emotional" about what's happening right now. Getting emotional might lead to public demand for initiatives on both GHG reduction and on introduction of hygroscopic nuclei into the strat.

I take your point TheVat on the value of emotion and alarm. But it's not realistic to call for more action, unless you're sure that the action is going to result in something productive. Those people who become emotionally reactive can only achieve positive results if the emotional expression is directed towards a constructive goal.

Hence the need for more objective (non-emotional) thinking about how to control the gradually increasing temperatures.

I was pleased to read your final sentence -- "Getting emotional might lead to public demand for initiatives on both GHG reduction and on introduction of hygroscopic nuclei into the strat." At least the chanting protestors would have something to chant about if they incorporated more attention to cloud cover in their chants. I think you and I could easily produce such a chant if we took the time.

Which leads to the question of what the IPCC or anyone else has done about hygroscopic nuclei since 2013.

A good sign is that there appears to be more research going on with respect to cloud condensation and hygroscopic nuclei this year eg -- Yanwei Li (2019: https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 018-1903-0) in a paper called Cloud Condensation Nuclei Activity and Hygroscopicity of Fresh and Aged Biomass Burning Particles, conducted laboratory accuracy experiments on a large variety of plants. YanMa et al (2019; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4217336380) performed a similar laboratory study of the burning of crop residues. This would of course create a problem with the philosophy of reducing carbon dioxide production, and someone would have to work out a balance. There's a bit of a dilemma in that reduction of carbon dioxide emissions also reduces the infusion of cloud condensation and hygroscopic nuclei into the atmosphere.

The first practical thought that comes to my mind is that controlled burning of forests in areas not likely to contaminate cities, should be encouraged all over the planet. The Australian Aborigines did this for 40,000 years. In fact, the practice seemed to be necessary for the germination of many Australian plant species. Any positive input from anyone? I'll continue searching.

This one -- by Robert Lange et al (2019; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 19GL084142) conducted a K‐means cluster analysis of a five year aerosol particle size distribution (PSD) dataset from north‐east Greenland combined with measurements of coincident shorter field studies of aerosol equivalent black carbon (eBC) content, hygroscopic growth factor (HGF) and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations. "This led to five clusters strongly controlled by natural emissions (eBC 8‐15 ng m‐3), and three anthropogenic clusters with larger particle concentrations in the accumulation mode (eBC 29‐77 ng m‐3). The HGF and CCN properties of the eight aerosol clusters differ drastically. Anthropogenic clusters feature high growth factors (1.62‐1.81) and low CCN κ‐values (0.10‐0.46), while natural clusters show lower HGF (1.38‐1.70) but remarkably higher κ‐values (0.35‐0.51). Extrapolating the CCN properties on the basis of the cluster analysis to annual timescales suggests that biogenic organic aerosol may drive Arctic aerosol production during summer." This one suggests that natural aerosols are better than man-made ones but it doesn't rule out our ability to produce greater quantities, even though they may be of lesser quality.

Yu Wang and Ying Chen (2019; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 19GL082339) produced this Plain Language Summary of their research -- "Hygroscopic water uptake of aerosols can enhance its light extinction and cloud activation. Therefore, hygroscopicity of aerosol (κchem) is a key factor affecting its direct and indirect climate effects; however, long‐term observation of κchem in Delhi is absent. Here we demonstrate an approach to retrieve κchem from publicly available data sets of PM2.5 and meteorology and report the first long‐term estimation of κchem in Delhi is 0.42 ± 0.07 during 2016–2018. This value indicates only a supersaturation of ~0.18% ± 0.015% is required to activate a particle with 0.1‐μm diameter in Delhi, in contrast to ~0.3% supersaturation is required for Beijing and Asian average. It implies a higher water uptake and cloud activation ability for Delhi aerosols. Therefore, using Asian/Beijing averaged κchem to represent Delhi aerosols would lead to a significant underestimation of aerosol climate effects."

I can see where the last couple of references are helping to find solutions and knowledge about aerosols as cloud condensation and hygroscopic nuclei, but they don't provide any useful practical advice that I see can help to solving our need to generate more cloud. They do however, indicate that the Chinese and the Indians may be doing more research in this area than western scientists. What do you any of you think, as members of the SPCF? I'd like to hear the thoughts from more of you.

[Serpent]

There is a very simple solution.
Shut down capitalism.
Ain't gonna happen.
Do science, play with models, critique other people's conclusions to your heart's content.... or protest, demonstrate and rail against the machine.... or adopt the dog's philosophy, as the world's economic elites are doing. It makes no difference.

[TheVat]

So there is 'bleaching' of coral due to temperature changes of half to one degree C. How can this be so when the Great Barrier Reef covers 2000 km from north to south with a water temperature range of 10 degrees C, and when from winter to summer, the range in any given location is also 10 degrees C? Obviously, any species of coral in our Great Barrier Reef can withstand a 10 degree range. Am I missing something?

Yes. Along a north/south gradient the coral enter into a symbiotic relationship with specific species of algae, which are adapted to a particular temperature range and summer maxima for that latitude. Changes in average temperature year-round can be quite small and yet this average results from pretty intense rises in maxima in surface waters which different algal symbionts are differently adapted to. It takes a long time for a bleached coral ecosystem to shift adaptation to a different algal partner. That's why you have dead reefs that have become relative biological deserts.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0041-2 (abstract - the article has a paywall)

Also....

https://sciworthy.com/coral-is-sensitiv ... mperature/

Also...

https://skepticalscience.com/coral-bleaching.htm

Coral reefs operate very close to their maximum heat tolerance.


(been busy, so took me a few days to get back to this portion of your post. hope this helps)

[Serpent]

Retraction:
I was wrong about Greta Thunberg. She does know how to project emotion.
OTH I forgot to object to

Some use the emotional term 'global warming'.

The globe is warming. That's a simple statement. The relevant emotional term:
FIRE! FIRE! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!

[doogles]

So there is 'bleaching' of coral due to temperature changes of half to one degree C. How can this be so when the Great Barrier Reef covers 2000 km from north to south with a water temperature range of 10 degrees C, and when from winter to summer, the range in any given location is also 10 degrees C? Obviously, any species of coral in our Great Barrier Reef can withstand a 10 degree range. Am I missing something?

Yes. Along a north/south gradient the coral enter into a symbiotic relationship with specific species of algae, which are adapted to a particular temperature range and summer maxima for that latitude. Changes in average temperature year-round can be quite small and yet this average results from pretty intense rises in maxima in surface waters which different algal symbionts are differently adapted to. It takes a long time for a bleached coral ecosystem to shift adaptation to a different algal partner. That's why you have dead reefs that have become relative biological deserts.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0041-2 (abstract - the article has a paywall)

Also....

https://sciworthy.com/coral-is-sensitiv ... mperature/

Also...

https://skepticalscience.com/coral-bleaching.htm

Coral reefs operate very close to their maximum heat tolerance.


(been busy, so took me a few days to get back to this portion of your post. hope this helps)

Many thanks TheVat for those references about the coral reefs. They were all very helpful and constructive. The association between algae and coral were all new to me and not mentioned in my Biology schooling over 70 years ago.

I found the third reference very helpful because it had a blog at the end in which a number of people associated with coral biology took part. As in our forum, there were numbers who agreed or disagreed with certain aspects of the science. Apparently there have been many widespread bouts of coral bleaching in the past with a mixed range of outcomes from permanent damage to complete recovery. It is not new, but the general tone is that the current degree of bleaching is probably the worst.

The main authority seemed to be a Rob Painting who said in 2016 "Because reef-coral have adapted tolerance to a narrow band of environmental conditions, bleaching can occur for a number of reasons, such as ocean acidification, pollution, excess nutrients from run-off, high UV radiation levels, exposure at extremely low tides and cooling or warming of the waters in which the coral reside. Typically these events are very localized in scale and if bleaching is mild, the coral can survive long enough to re-acquire new algal partners. So bleaching in itself is not something new, but mass coral bleaching on the huge scale being observed certainly appears to be, and represents a whole new level of coral reef decline."

And the comment was made that bleaching was not so much due to single heat increase events, as to prolonged periods of heat exposure. It reminds me of sunburn.

It seemed highly probable that the 2015/16 damage was associated with prolonged periods of sea warming. It is not clear whether this warming was from an el nino effect or from prolonged solar radiation exposure or a combination of the two. If prolonged solar radiation exposure was a factor, then maybe radiation in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum could be involved? This would explain to me why warm water per se as a cause does not seem feasible in the Great Barrier Reef with its annual 10 degrees C range in temperature. I have swum in the sea in areas from Brisbane to Cairns and can verify that temperature changes personally. I like a hypothesis about anything to cover all aspects of the subject. It's a personal thing.

Regardless of that, if solar radiation is behind the warming of sea water and the bleaching of coral, then we need more cloud cover. Does this make sense to anyone? What better way to address average global near-surface temperature increases than to create more clouds. In the case of the coral reefs, it would be like putting a giant umbrella over them.

[TheVat]

Ghost Forests in the U.S.

Up and down the mid-Atlantic coast, sea levels are rising rapidly, creating stands of dead trees — often bleached, sometimes blackened — known as ghost forests.

The water is gaining as much as 5 millimeters per year in some places, well above the global average of 3.1 millimeters, driven by profound environmental shifts that include climate change.

Increasingly powerful storms, a consequence of a warming world, push seawater inland. More intense dry spells reduce freshwater flowing outward. Adding to the peril, in some places the land is naturally sinking.

All of this allows seawater to claim new territory, killing trees from the roots up.

Rising seas often conjure the threat to faraway, low-lying nations or island-states. But to understand the immediate consequences of some of the most rapid sea-level rise anywhere in the world, stand among the scraggly, dying pines of Dorchester County along the Maryland coast...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... rests.html

[doogles]

What a shame this article hasn't got some scientific quantitative data associated with it, TheVat! And what a shame that it doesn't make comparisons with other coastlines at a global level. Once again, my opinion is that this article is 'poor science' and also alarmist.

I note this early statement "The water is gaining as much as 5 millimeters per year in some places, well above the global average of 3.1 millimeters, driven by profound environmental shifts that include climate change." I notice that 'Climate Change' gets a mention as having a supportive role by the authors.

What happened to our consensus that global sea levels have risen 200 mm????? One may have to assume that the land mass may be sinking in these seawater-affected areas. You may remember an article I mentioned earlier that in the only longitudinal study of its kind to date, a study of aerial and satellite pictures to 2010 (from memory) of a group of 27 Pacific Islands has shown that only 14% have decreased in surface area, while most have remained the same or have actually increased in surface area -- in spite of a 200 mm rise in sea level.

I give credit to the authors for stating "The effects of climate change are also exacerbated by land that is sinking as a result of geological processes triggered by the end of the last ice age." I note that Climate Change comes first in that statement.

I can't see where 'Climate Change' needs to get a mention at all in this article.

I'm waiting for the time when it gets the blame for ingrown toenails.

I also note that these changes have been measured since 1938 which is long before the 'climate change' from 1970 -- "The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, where Dr. Gedan does research, lost 3,000 acres of forest and agricultural land between 1938 and 2006. More than 5,000 acres of marsh became open water."

Statements such as these do not help to get a balanced overview of the situation -- "Increasingly powerful storms, a consequence of a warming world, push seawater inland." Where is the evidence that storms are increasing and becoming more powerful?

This research by Wikipedia -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... hurricanes -- probably provides a better balanced perspective. Here are some excerpts -- "A total of 298 Atlantic tropical cyclones have produced hurricane-force winds in every state along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico (as well as Pennsylvania), with Florida having had more hurricanes affecting it than any other state.[1]"; "The 1990s were the most active decade for the United States, with a total of 31 hurricanes affecting the nation. By contrast, the least active decade was the 1860s and 1970s,"; "The 1935 Labor Day hurricane was the most intense hurricane to make landfall on the country, having struck the Florida Keys with a pressure of 892 mbar. It was one of only seven hurricanes to move ashore as a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale; the others were "Okeechobee" in 1928, Karen in 1962, Camille in 1969, Andrew in 1992, Michael in 2018, and Yutu in 2018, which had a landfalling pressure of 931 mbar, 932 mbar, 900 mbar, 922 mbar, 919 mbar, and 900 mbar, respectively."; "The 1900 Galveston hurricane was the deadliest hurricane in the history of the United States, killing between 6,000 and 12,000 people. 2017s Hurricane Maria resulted in at least 2,982 fatalities. The 1928 Okeechobee hurricane caused at least 2,500 fatalities, and in 2005, Hurricane Katrina killed approximately 1,800 people. In the 1893 season, two hurricanes each caused over 1,000 deaths.[3]" And those hurricanes before the 1950s had far smaller populations to affect.

So where are these 'increasingly powerful storms', and how were they 'a consequence of this warming world' back in the days before 'global warming'? As you can see from the records on the subject of 'powerful storms' alone, this article in the New York Times is quite unreliable.

Now I could produce a couple of newspaper articles written in 1922 on how the Arctic had disappeared, and another one from 1934 announcing how world catastrophes were increasing at an alarming rate, but they would be as helpful as this particular article about some localised coastal areas undergoing salination.

The way I see it, we need to urge the IPCC to get stuck into ways of producing more cloud, and ways of at least stabilising our population growth.

[TheVat]

Scientists have identified a surprising new mechanism that could be affecting cloud formation and weather patterns in the Arctic: bacteria from the ocean floor.

When tiny, plantlike ocean microbes known as phytoplankton die, their bodies sink to the bottom of the sea, becoming food for bacteria residing there. New observations made in the Bering and Chukchi seas off the coast of Alaska suggest that under the right conditions, these algae eaters are sloshed to the surface and from there are wafted into the air.

Once airborne, seafloor bacteria may become seeds that promote the growth of ice crystals, an important step in the formation of Arctic clouds.

“Clouds are super important in the Arctic,” said Jessie Creamean, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University and lead author of new research published in mid-July in Geophysical Research Letters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/ ... c-weather/

Another piece of the cloud formation puzzle. Much to be learned here.

[doogles]

That's sort of good news, TheVat, in that it's another acknowledgement that clouds could have an important role in increasing near-surface temperatures. Unfortunately the Washington Post now demands subscription to the magazine in order to view articles, so I am restricted to your excerpt for information.

I must admit that I'm fascinated by the mental image of bacteria on the ocean floor gorging themselves on phyto-planckton and then bursting upwards from the ocean floor up into the atmosphere where they act as nuclei for ice particle formation.

I've just had another look at the IPCC response to "What if the temperature rose by 1.5 degrees C?", which was published in 2018 after a request was received in 2016. It addresses carbon dioxide reduction as the only possible avenue of approach to controlling global mean surface temperatures.

A search for a mention of the word 'cloud' in the report produced no result. And this was in spite of the fact that their 2013 report acknowledged that cloud reduction resulted in more radiative forcing than carbon dioxide at the surface (4 W/m2 vs 1.6 W/m2). I don't understand why in 2013 the IPCC was talking about research into seeding the stratosphere with sulphurated compounds, and then failed to mention clouds in the above report. They did provide a sort of rider in their 2018 statement -- "C.1.4 Solar radiation modification (SRM) measures are not included in any of the available assessed pathways. Although some SRM measures may be theoretically effective in reducing an overshoot, they face large uncertainties and knowledge gaps, as well as substantial risks and institutional and social constraints to deployment related to governance, ethics, and impacts on sustainable development. They also do not mitigate ocean acidification. (medium confidence) {4.3.8, Cross-Chapter Box 10 in Chapter 4}" Obviously any attempts to indulge in solar radiation modification would involve cloud management.

And another obvious lack to my mind is that although they acknowledge that much of the cause of current Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) is anthropogenic, they have not suggested a single idea about controlling the rate of global population growth. There were 24 references to population as the word is used in sentences associated with effects on population. Their use of the acronym GMST by the way, in itself is also unscientific in my opinion. Those temperatures are taken four feet from the ground and in the shade of 'Stephenson Screens'. I've tended to use the acronym AGNST (Average Global Near Surface Temperatures) in my posts to date. To my mind, it's confusing for the IPCC to talk about temperatures four feet above the surface in the shade of Stephenson Screens when they also talk about Watts per square metre solar radiation, recorded at the surface.

It's just a personal thing.

[doogles]

While I'm on the job, I'd like to present another item of good news, something that's always lacking in IPCC reports.

Albert et al (2017; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 ... a7e68/meta) published an article titled Winners and losers as mangrove, coral and seagrass ecosystems respond to sea-level rise in Solomon Islands

Their Abstract states "A 2007 earthquake in the western Solomon Islands resulted in a localised subsidence event in which sea level (relative to the previous coastal settings) rose approximately 30–70 cm, providing insight into impacts of future rapid changes to sea level on coastal ecosystems. Here, we show that increasing sea level by 30–70 cm can have contrasting impacts on mangrove, seagrass and coral reef ecosystems. Coral reef habitats were the clear winners with a steady lateral growth from 2006–2014, yielding a 157% increase in areal coverage over seven years. Mangrove ecosystems, on the other hand, suffered the largest impact through a rapid dieback of 35% (130 ha) of mangrove forest in the study area after subsidence. These forests, however, had partially recovered seven years after the earthquake albeit with a different community structure. The shallow seagrass ecosystems demonstrated the most dynamic response to relative shifts in sea level with both losses and gains in areal extent at small scales of 10–100 m. The results of this study emphasize the importance of considering the impacts of sea-level rise within a complex landscape in which winners and losers may vary over time and space."

In spite of the differences in degree of recovery of corals, mangroves and seagrass, this does suggest that many species can adapt to rising sea levels and to whatever the change of temperatures may have been during that seven or eight year period.

We need more studies of this nature on the ability of species and ecosystems to adapt to change.

I say "Bring on the good news instead of 'Climate Change' pessimism.", and start/keep looking at alternatives to carbon emission reduction. Bring some human imagination into the problem.

[Graeme M]

Personally I am a bit nonplussed by the catastrophist argument. The near-surface atmosphere seems to have warmed by 0.8-1.0C since pre-industrial times and we don't observe truly worrying effects (although I know that scientists now claim there is the beginning of trends in some climate related events). Sea level rise appears stubbornly resistant to acceleration notwithstanding recent attempts to find that which have... succeeded, I suppose. Arctic sea ice has yet to fade away. On current trends, we can expect a rise of another, what, .12C each decade going forward? So it seems unlikely anything really drastic would happen any time soon. But who knows I suppose. Doogles, have you seen this? Reinterpreting Tyndall's experiments. I haven't watched nor read this stuff yet but the guiy has recently published it seems.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0IHKKkOwdU&t=860s

and

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... W3P57C-eTb

[TheVat]

Not sure there is a general catastrophist argument so much as an awareness in the climatology fields and atmospheric physics that positive feedback mechanisms can kick in and our problems would somewhat accelerate. For example, while fluffy white clouds are cooling, water vapor is a powerful GHG and can accelerate warming cycles over seas and wetlands, so it's important to monitor vapor saturation where it's getting even a little bit warmer. And, in Canada and Alaska, there has been massive sea ice melting, and permafrost melts, both which can liberate methane hydrates and outgassing 25 times more potent than CO2. And, of course, where ice rapidly melts there is another positive feedback effect with lowered albedo and immense thermal storage from open sea.

We may want to look at measures, as others have noted in various threads here, such as pumping sea water into the air to form those lovely high albedo fluffy clouds that help mitigate rapid warming.

[doogles]

Graeme M, I watched the video and had some trouble comprehending the message. My rough interpretation was that a method of Spectroscopy called 'Raman' demonstrated some vibrational efffects on N2 and O2 in the infrared range. I think the author is suggesting then that these two gases could be absorbing IR in the manner of greenhouse gases 'a la Tyndall', and if this is so, then it would change the whole current understanding of the Climate Change science.

I can't comment personally, because I don't understand the method, but I note that following the video, one blogger (Richard Rothwell) stated "The absorption of IR radiation via the Raman effect is much, much, much weaker than absorption of IR radiation via the normal method. This means IR absorption by gases that absorb only by the Raman effect can be ignored for the purposes of the greenhouse effect."

What I found intriguing about the reference is that the bloggers were referring back to Tyndall's 1859 crude work with a tin of hot water and a galvanometer as the authoritative work on GHGs. The only quantitative information Tyndall presented was a visual observation of the degree of deflection of the needle on the old galvanometer. He was measuring absorption of 'heat' rather than infrared radiation. As I've said before, we're investing much into carbon dioxide-emission reduction, and yet, no one appears to have repeated and expanded on Tyndall's basic science with modern equipment.

Of interest, Tyndall did record a 'fraction of a degree' of deflection of the galvanometer needle for oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen (see screen dump below).

Mmm. If that fraction was only a tenth of a degree, it may mean that N, O and H may have some greenhouse effect. N and O represent about 99.00% of our atmosphere, compared with 0.04% for carbon dioxide. That's about 2400 times as much. If Tyndall's absorption deflection for N and O was one tenth of a degree and that of carbonic acid (I assume it was nebulised) was 25%, then that's 250 times.

I'll stop my crude maths at that point, but Blair McDonald may have a point. Does this suggest to anyone else that we desperately need updated studies on the absorption and radiation properties on not only carbon dioxide now, but nitrogen and oxygen as well? This may just explain why Idso calculated that a doubling of carbon dioxide from 300 to 600 ppm cannot increase the near-surface average global temperature by more than 0.4 degrees C.

[Graeme M]

Doogles, I have no particular background in the science of GHGs, so can't really comment. It seems hard to believe there has been no experimental confirmation of Tyndall's findings though, are you sure this is the case? This said, I agree that IF N and O have some very slight absorption and radiation via the Raman effect (whatever that is), the fact that N and O predominate could mean sufficient amplification to produce a meaningful effect. On this tack, note the paper by Etminen et al, "Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing", which suggests a hitherto greater radiative forcing from shortwave absorption by methane. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 6GRLEDHIGH