Obama administration scientist says climate ‘emergency’ is based on fallacy

[MisterVeritis]

There was rapid warming in Greenland from 1920 to 1930 that is comparable to the warming in Greenland in recent decades which caused a similar amount of surface mass loss. Koonin is right about that.

After around 1933, Greenland began to cool and it wasn't until around 1990 that Greenland's summers became hotter than 1933. There are natural factors as well as anthropogenic factors

affecting Greenland's summer temperatures and what we should be concerned about is what the future will be like. We should be concerned about the loss of Arctic sea ice during the late

summer months and the potential for warmer winds to melt Greenland at a faster pace, along with the positive feedback processes that will accelerate Greenland's meltdown.

What do the numbers look lie of one goes back 100,000 years?

[MisterVeritis]

Hurricanes are getting stronger and there is evidence that humans are increasing sea surface temperatures where hurricanes form and make land fall. The evidence may not be compelling enough

to state with a high degree of certainty that this is happening but it is at least strongly suggestive of a link.

Long-term data show hurricanes are getting stronger -- ScienceDaily


In almost every region of the world where hurricanes form, their maximum sustained winds are getting stronger. That is according to a new study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Center for Environmental Information and University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, who analyzed nearly 40 years of hurricane satellite imagery.


A warming planet may be fueling the increase.
"Through modeling and our understanding of atmospheric physics, the study agrees with what we would expect to see in a warming climate like ours," says James Kossin, a NOAA scientist based at UW-Madison and lead author of the paper, which is published today (May 18, 2020) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research builds on Kossin's previous work, published in 2013, which identified trends in hurricane intensification across a 28-year data set. However, says Kossin, that timespan was less conclusive and required more hurricane case studies to demonstrate statistically significant results.
To increase confidence in the results, the researchers extended the study to include global hurricane data from 1979-2017. Using analytical techniques, including the CIMSS Advanced Dvorak Technique that relies on infrared temperature measurements from geostationary satellites to estimate hurricane intensity, Kossin and his colleagues were able to create a more uniform data set with which to identify trends.

"Our results show that these storms have become stronger on global and regional levels, which is consistent with expectations of how hurricanes respond to a warming world," says Kossin. "It's a good step forward and increases our confidence that global warming has made hurricanes stronger, but our results don't tell us precisely how much of the trends are caused by human activities and how much may be just natural variability."
This work was supported by NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Climate Program Office.

It is more likely that we are better able to measure the winds rather than they are greater. Let's watch for another hundred years or so.

[MisterVeritis]

Koonin: ”while global atmospheric CO2 levels are obviously higher now than two centuries ago, they’re not at any record planetary high—they’re at a low that has only been seen once before in the past 500 million years.”

That's so obviously true by the graph you provide:



As my red line shows, it is "higher now than two centuries ago" but are "not at any record planetary high—they’re at a low that has only been seen once before in the past 500 million year"


"'The rate of sea-level rise has not accelerated.' - Steve Koonin" is terribly out of context and looks like a book jacket cover blurb. A rise in rate from 0.1 inch to 0.13 is not all that significant.

One wonders what the margin of error is?

[mamooth]

Koonin: ”while global atmospheric CO2 levels are obviously higher now than two centuries ago, they’re not at any record planetary high—they’re at a low that has only been seen once before in the past 500 million years.”

So?

The point we're making is that's irrelevant. CO2 isn't the only thing driving climate. The fact that CO2 levels were higher in the distant past doesn't prevent rising CO2 from being what's driving the fast warming now.

[Peter1469]

So?

The point we're making is that's irrelevant. CO2 isn't the only thing driving climate. The fact that CO2 levels were higher in the distant past doesn't prevent rising CO2 from being what's driving the fast warming now.

What fast warming? It has leveled off the last several decades.

[MisterVeritis]

"many scholars who study existential threats agree that the probability of doom is higher today than ever before in humanity’s 300,000-year history. From nuclear weapons to killer drones to designer pathogens, humanity is acquiring much more efficient methods of bringing down civilization or causing our extinction than in the past. Lord Martin Rees, a world-renowned cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, estimates that human civilization has a 50/50 chance of making it through this century intact.

Given the ominous possibility that Rees and others are right, the key question is how to talk about global catastrophic risks in ways that inspire people to become activists, rather than nudge them into fundamentalist beliefs or an attitude of defeatism.

In the book Enlightenment Now!, the psychologist Steven Pinker worries that the “drumbeat of doom” will ultimately backfire: “Humanity has a finite budget of resources, brainpower, and anxiety.” When these resources are used up, brainpower has been drained, and anxiety reaches a tipping point, the result may be a paralyzing sense that “humanity is screwed.” And if humanity is screwed, then “why sacrifice anything to reduce potential risks? Why forgo the convenience of fossil fuels, or exhort governments to rethink their nuclear weapons policies? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!” In other words, Pinker is afraid that people will succumb to nihilism rather than activism."

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/scar...ave-the-world/

Doom prophets cannot be believed. They have always been around. Many people love their porn, especially fear porn.

[Peter1469]

Yes there are doom profits out there. But Micho Kaku, theoretical physicts and co-founder of String Theory, says the most dangerous time for a civilization is the transition from a Class 0 to a Class 1 society. That is where we are at now.

"many scholars who study existential threats agree that the probability of doom is , humanity is acquiring much more efficient methods of bringing down civilization or causing our extinction than in the past. Lord Martin Rees, a world-renowned cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, estimates that human civilization has a 50/50 chance of making it through this century intact.

Given the ominous possibility that Rees and others are right, the key question is how to talk about global catastrophic risks in ways that inspire people to become activists, rather than nudge them into fundamentalist beliefs or an attitude of defeatism.
In the book Enlightenment Now!, the psychologist Steven Pinker worries that the “drumbeat of doom” will ultimately backfire: “Humanity has a finite budget of resources, brainpower, and anxiety.” When these resources are used up, brainpower has been drained, and anxiety reaches a tipping point, the result may be a paralyzing sense that “humanity is screwed.” And if humanity is screwed, then “why sacrifice anything to reduce potential risks? Why forgo the convenience of fossil fuels, or exhort governments to rethink their nuclear weapons policies? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!” In other words, Pinker is afraid that people will succumb to nihilism rather than activism."

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/scar...ave-the-world/

Doom prophets cannot be believed. They have always been around. Many people love their porn, especially fear porn.

[MisterVeritis]

Yes there are doom profits out there. But Micho Kaku, theoretical physicts and co-founder of String Theory, says the most dangerous time for a civilization is the transition from a Class 0 to a Class 1 society. That is where we are at now.

I love his books but count him as a doom profit. He will be proven wrong as all have before him.

[Peter1469]

I love his books but count him as a doom profit. He will be proven wrong as all have before him.

He thinks we will make the transition from Class 0 to Class one. But he allows for the possibility that we won't make the jump. Or that it may be delayed.

I find him to be a very positive person.

Side note: I met him at a book signing at the National Air And Space Museum. Probably 10-12 years ago. Very small man.

[MisterVeritis]

He thinks we will make the transition from Class 0 to Class one. But he allows for the possibility that we won't make the jump. Or that it may be delayed.

I find him to be a very positive person.

Side note: I met him at a book signing at the National Air And Space Museum. Probably 10-12 years ago. Very small man.

There are some things we cannot yet prepare for. An Apollo body strike is overdue.