berrens.nl: degree by degree review of CAGW

I came across an interesting, actually frightening article at http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm.  Though it seems like a conservative review since it assumes certain systems particularly transportation, power supply and global communications have a resilience that I don't think can stand up to the various challenges coming their way.  Still it's a sobering review of what the known Earth Sciences have to tell us about the direction we are taking our one and only home planet.

Here I share some excerpts - but I encourage you to read the entire nearly 5,000 word review. 

"A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms"

Ocean acidification already eating away at tiny creatures

Today the Seattle Times had a disturbing front page story by Craig Welch reporting on his four years worth of research into current impacts of an acidifying ocean on the life forms within our oceans.

"Acidification already eating away at tiny creatures along our coast" 

Craig Welch  |  Seattle Times  |  April 30, 2014 

http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2014/apr/30/pteropod-shells-dissolving/

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Documenting Sea Change: The story begins.

Scientific Debate vs Political Debate, Victor Venema

A couple days ago I posted some thoughts about the difference in debate styles over at my WUWTW.  Reflections on my years long and oh so futile efforts to engage climate science "skeptic(s)" in an actual on-point constructive "debate" focusing on rationally comparing our respective 'scientific facts' and "observations" in order to explore which arguments carry the most weight. 

On the same day Victor Venema posted his own observations comparing a "scientific debate" with the public debate.  Since Victor is a real scientist he does a nice in-depth dissection.  It's definitely worth reading - mine is earthier given my own simpler "spectator's" perspective.  Still I like to think they make a nice complement and I'm happy to share his article over here at CC.   

Worth adding is Ezra Klein's "How Politics makes us stupid" looking at Dan Kahan's work on the politics of how we process scientific information.:

"… The theory is particularly prevalent in Washington, where partisans devote enormous amounts of energy to persuading each other that there’s really a right answer to the difficult questions in American politics — and that they have it. 

But the More Information Hypothesis isn’t just wrong. It’s backwards. Cutting-edge research shows that the more information partisans get, the deeper their disagreements become. …"   E.Klein

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Variable Variability

Sunday, 27 April 2014

Are debatable scientific questions debatable?

By Victor Venema on Sunday, April 27, 2014 

SkyTruth, keeping an eye on illegal fishing, etc.

There's a website I like checking out once in a while, it's put together by William Hughes-Games off in New Zealand and it's called "Thoughts on the Roof" and it is consistently interesting, thoughtful, at times enlightening, stuff. 

Recently he wrote about the an organization called "SkyTruth" including a radio talk transcript from Michael Field that I've been meaning to post since receiving permission from Mr. Hughes-Games.

FEBRUARY 16, 2014

SkyTruth

Coursera.org free Science of Climate Change class

 There's a interesting online class about climate change starting at https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming? - 

It's free, so if you're curious and want to learn more about how our global climate system operates here's a great opportunity.  

Check out the following from their webpage:

Lecturer is David Archer 

Professor Geophysical Sciences

The University of Chicago

Global Warming: The Science of Climate Change

This class describes the science of global warming and the forecast for humans’ impact on Earth’s climate. Intended for an audience without much scientific background but a healthy sense of curiosity, the class brings together insights and perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, earth and atmospheric sciences, and even some economics—all based on a foundation of simple mathematics (algebra).

About the Course

We start with basic principles governing Earth’s temperature. The class begins with the nature of heat and light, then builds the very simplest conceptual—and algebraic—model for the climate of a planet, including the greenhouse effect.

Over the following weeks, we introduce complexities of the real world to this model: how greenhouse gases are selective about what light they absorb, how the temperature structure and weather in the atmosphere set the stage for the greenhouse effect, and how feedbacks amplify it. From this point on the exercises will be based on on-line interactive models for various aspects of Earth’s climate and carbon cycle, exploring the topics described in the video lectures. 

We then turn to the carbon cycle of the Earth, how it stabilizes Earth’s climate on some time scales but destabilizes it on others. The fate of fossil fuel carbon will be determined by its integration into Earth’s ongoing natural carbon cycle.

The class concludes with a look at the human impact on Earth’s climate: why we believe it’s changing, why we believe we’re changing it, the impacts that could have, and the options we have to mitigate the situation.

Course Syllabus

Week 1: Our First Climate Model

Week 2: On Greenhouse Gases and the Atmosphere

Week 3: More on the Atmosphere – and Feedbacks

Week 4: The Carbon Cycle

Week 5: The Perturbed Carbon Cycle

Week 6: The Smoking Gun and Paleoclimate

Week 7: Impacts

Week 8: Mitigation

Recommended Background

This course assumes no scientific knowledge and is geared toward a general audience. The problem sets require high-school-level algebra. The optional data assignments require a fair amount of number crunching, but this can be accomplished with a spreadsheet application such as Google Spreadsheets.

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund Needs Your Help!

I'd like to pass along the following public service announcement. 

Please if you can help can, do help, 

because the denialists are getting nastier by the minute.

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Climate Science Legal Defense Fund Needs Your Help!

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) was launched in January 2012 by Scott Mandia and Joshua Wolfe to provide valuable legal resources to our climate scientists who are in need. CSLDF needs your help.

CSLDF needs to raise $80,000. The great news is that philanthropist Charles Zeller has graciously offered to MATCH the first $40,000 that is raised and philanthropist Peter Cross has offered to put up the first $10,000. This means CSLDF already has the first $20,000 of the $80,000 goal. We need YOU to help CSLDF reach its goal.

For the previous two years, CSLDF has been managed by Scott and Josh  “from their kitchens” They both have full-time jobs and families with small children and neither receives compensation for their time. Scott and Josh have accomplished much over the years on a part-time basis. To date, CSLDF has:

·       Raised litigation fees to help Dr. Michael Mann defend climate science from politically-motivated witch-hunts. 

·       Provided resources to legal experts from PEER so they could offer free legal advice to scientists at professional conferences. 

·       Offered legal counsel to scientists hit with frivolous Freedom of Information Act requests. 

·       Provided legal workshops to scientists at professional conferences. 

·       Offered a series of legal education webinars partnering with American Geophysical Union (AGU).

But now it is time to “go professional” and that is where you can help. $80,000 can move the organization to this next level. CSLDF will use your tax-deductible donations to hire a full-time Executive Director who will manage the day to day operations of providing legal help to our experts as well as increasing fundraising efforts. Having the full-time professional helps to assure that CSLDF will be there for our scientists years down the road. After all, climate change is not going anywhere and the sad fact is that neither will the legal attacks on our scientists.

Donations are tax-deductible and can be sent by visiting the CSLDF website at climatesciencedefensefund.org and clicking the Donate button. Donations are sent to our fiscal sponsor PEER but are earmarked for CSLDF. Through PEER, a private non-profit organization organized under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue code, your contribution will be tax deductible.

You can also send a check made out to PEER, with Climate Science LDF on the memo line, to support effort to help scientists defend themselves:

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund

c/o PEER

2000 P Street, NW #240

Washington, D.C. 20036

International donors can use PayPal. Send to info@peer.org as the recipient and put CSLDF in the subject line of your payment.

Marcia McNutt's ill-considered endorsement of Keystone XL Pipeline

Looking more like Mordor than planet earth - Canadian tar sands mines larger than Greater Manchester dominate the landscape next to the Athabasca River, with no proven way to reclaim the boreal forest. Oil sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The province of Alberta has proven reserves of 174 billion barrels of oil, second in size only to Saudi Arabia. (WWF)

Credit: © Rezac / WWF-UK Source: WWF-UK

This image comes from an article that documents how Anthony Watts and friends blatantly misquotes and lies about what scientists have said.

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/03/hansen-this-is-game-over-and-anthony.html?

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Skeptical Science has published a story that takes Science Magazine's Editor-in-Chief, Marcia McNutt to task for her endorsement of the XL Pipeline.  In the process Andy Skuce has produced a concise review of the many reasons why this pipeline needs to be stopped.  It's something worth passing around, so thanks to their generous sharing policy, I'm reposting it here.

For myself, from the beginning the entire XL tar sands seemed a project out of touch with down to Earth realities.  The amount of land, wildlife, biosphere, fresh sweet water and fossil fuels that needs to be consumed (and destroyed) during the production of this alternate fossil fuel is something that could only be justified within a system run by people completely addicted to profits über alles, folks who possess a complete disregard, if not total oblivion, to the life support system that is our biosphere… and that we humans desperately need to stop destroying, if for no better reason than our own lives depend on it's health !  

But, I better stop and let Andy Skuce take it from here.

Posted on 3 March 2014 by Andy Skuce

The Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine is wrong to endorse Keystone XL (via Skeptical Science)

Posted on 3 March 2014 by Andy Skuce An editorial by the Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine, Marcia McNutt, conditionally endorses the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline. Her argument is that: the absence of the pipeline has not stopped oil sands development…

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