The national science agency CSIRO and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have completed an in-depth study of the country's climate future and found Australia can expect to see temperature increases of about 5 degrees C by 2190, much worse than what is currently expected for the rest of the world. A news report states,
According to the report, this “business-as-usual” approach to burning fossil fuels is set to cook Australia more than the rest of the world, which will average a temperature increase of 2.6C to 4.8C by 2090.So, while Prime Minister Abbott continues to reject science and tell the pollution making industries they don't have to clean up their mess, the people of Australia continue to bear the brunt of the damage. But, then again, they are the ones that elected him.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/1363-1219-5279
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, for the fifth link, James Taylor completely misinterprets the study he pulls out as evidence. In fact, the AUTHORS of the study posted a comment rebutting Taylor's article (in a very polite way, quite impressive).
Thanks for pointing that out. Taylor is an absolute tool and I don't think he has ever written anything that hasn't been shown to be totally bogus. Now, even the sources he cites are saying it.
ReplyDeleteI agree, in my opinion, in general people get the government they deserve.
ReplyDeleteBut it is a hard environment crisis to bring to people's attention, it is so slow. I have had interesting conversations with people, they think temperatures here were hotter in the past and are now cooler - no amounts of graphs will convince them otherwise, it is odd.
I have certainly noticed the warmer nights but that is not an issue for most people, all you do is use one less blanket. And so many people have air conditioning now.
I suspect once we get a run of record-breaking heatwaves attitudes will change. Broken records get media attention.
I definitely don't want to sound like I'm picking on Australia. The quirky fact is we have our own Abbott to worry about here in Texas. The new governor, Gregg Abbott, is a terrible anti-science advocate - among many other faults. (Is there something about the name that makes them this way?) I think we will sorely regret electing this guy. Like you said, we get the government we deserve.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to convince people of the science as long as the media feels it must present a 'balanced' viewpoint and give pseudoscience proponents as much coverage as scientists. In the minds of the viewers, this makes them equally credible.
I am not sure I am exactly following your first rule because it is tangentially related. However, I will explain why I ask the question ...
ReplyDeleteWhat would be considered sufficient to "disprove" AGW.
Now there could be a hidden bias behind that question of looking for the hint to the correct answer, but that is really not my intent.
A scientific theory needs to be disprovable more than provable.
But not only that, if you look back at the history of non-Euclidean geometry you will find that Bolyai ( though Gauss did alot of work on it first but never published ) wanted to prove Euclid's fifth postulate -- that parallel lines never cross.
He thought if he could prove that it was impossible for them to cross, well then he proved the postulate by deduction.
By having a list of those things that would "disprove AGW" whether in part ( i.e. the postulate Global warming is true but not necessarily the anthropogenic part ) if it could be proven that those are impossible. One has by default proven AGW.
Well, there is at least two answers to your question.
ReplyDeleteFirst, what you say is true. This very question has been asked and, going strictly by memory, I think the answer was to show the 95% confidence of the IPCC was not correct.
But, the real issue is that I was not actually asking anyone to prove AGW was not real. I was challenging people to fulfill their claim that AGW was not real and they could prove it. On that basis, it is much broader. The very fact is, no one, and I REALLY mean no one, came anywhere even remotely close to proving AGW is not real. The so-called science provided was that bad. (All submissions and my responses are available on this blog.) So, the question of actually debating what constitutes 'proving' AGW is not real really was not anything that had to be considered. No one rejecting AGW was able to provide anything that amounted something that was reasonable under the scientific method. No one was able to provide any science, at all, that disputed AGW.
And, that is exactly the point I was trying to make.
Dr. Keating:
ReplyDeleteSince my Guest Submission was an invited submission, I would hope that you would allow me to respond to your major objections:
You stated that "There are two major flaws in his claim. The first claim is he equates U.S. SO2 emissions to worldwide emissions".
This is simply not true. See my paragraph No. 3: "the observed warming was actually a "side effect" of the American Clean Air Acts (1970, 1990) and similar efforts abroad" Worldwide data was used throughout my submission.
(But you are correct that the first American Clean Air Act was passed in 1963. However, time was required for widespread implementation to occur, and for its atmospheric effects to become noticeable. Later amendments strengthened the provisions of the Act. With respect to SO2, American reductions in SO2 emissions first became apparent in the atmosphere around 1972--see the graph "Global Anthropogenic SO2 Emissions" referenced in my submission).
Then you state "The second fatal flaw is his belief that SO2 in the atmosphere is the same as SO2 in the troposphere", that "SO2 emissions from industry creates an SO2 density of about 1 part per billion. Mt. Pinatubo created a density of about 15 parts per billion, about 15 times as great. For this reason, you cannot equate an amount of SO2 from Mt. Pinatubo to an equal amount of SO2 from industry. One lingers and builds higher concentratioin levels than the other".
It is true that intermittent emissions of anthropogenic SO2 into the atmosphere will generally settle out within a few days. The conversion of SO2 to Sulfuric Acid (the SO2 aerosol) happens very quickly, so it acts as a dimming aerosol even in that short time.
However, the bulk of anthropogenic SO2 emissions comes from relatively constant soures such as power plants, factories, foundries, home heating units, vehicle exhausts, maritime shipping, and the like. The atmosphere is never free of their dimming aerosols since they are constantly being renewed. As such, they have a much longer lifetime than aerosols injected into the stratospheric, ending only when the emitting sources are modified to reduce emissions, or are shut down.
With respect to the concentration of SO2 in the atmosphere, global emissions peaked around 1972 at about 130 Megatons, resulting in tropospheric concentrations of SO2 FAR exceeding those of the 17-22 Megatons of SO2 injected into the stratosphere by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The ongoing reduction in these dimming emissions by Clean Air Efforts HAD to cause surface warming, due to the cleaner, more transparant air.
As proved in my submission, the amount of that warming acounted for all of the warming that occurred 1972-2000, leaving no evdence of any warming due to greenhouse gasses.
No, Dr. Keating, the horse is not dead. It is not even wounded.
(If you have an alternative explanation as to how many Megatons of dimming SO2 emissions can be removed from the atmosphere without causing any warming, please advise us).
Mr. Henry, you have become the epitome of someone that has rejected science. You can have the last word here if you will simply go away.
ReplyDeleteNope
ReplyDeletehttp://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/land-ice/