# Guys What is your take on the climate change deal situation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2009, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737 "2009-12-18T14:30:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/81 "2009-12-24T01:42:51Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > **Polycarp** > > 1. As far as I know even the Pro-AGW scientists predict that the sea levels will rise at 1" per year. That’s one meter in 39 years, assuming that the trend won’t experience any sort of levelling off or anything of that kind. It’s not nearly that bad. The IPCC’s range of ‘best estimates’ for sea level rise by 2100 is somewhere around 200-700mm. The highest estimate I’ve seen was 880mm in the next century. In the last century, sea level rose by about 1.8mm per year. Current estimates are that it’s close to 3mm/yr. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/82 "2009-12-24T03:02:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > When global warming skeptics point out that there has been very little warming in the last decade, the AGW crowd (rightly) points out that the short-term variance in climate can easily cause a 10 year flat or cooling trend even if substantial warming is happening. But then, if some effect happens that looks bad, like an apparent acceleration of ice melting, suddenly they have no problem whatsoever in blaming it on global warming. One does not deny the other, there was not very good data dealing with the masses of ice, recently that is beginning to change, but the atmospheric temperature was a different deal, trying to see both predictions on atmospheric warming and ice loss as equal is misleading. The last IPCC report actually punted regarding the effects of dynamic acceleration due to a loss of Ice. The latest reports are not so encouraging regarding the wanted low level estimation of ice loss. > **[Ice Sheet Behavior Much More Volatile And Dynamic Than Previously Thought,...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090423205104.htm)** > > Fossilized corals from tropical Tahiti show that the behavior of ice sheets is much more volatile and dynamic than previously thought, scientists have found. > **[Lasers From Space Show Thinning Of Greenland And Antarctic Ice Sheets](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090923143331.htm)** > > The most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has been created using satellite lasers. The findings are an important step forward in the quest to make more accurate... > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If one assertion is false, so is the other. Nope. > **[RealClimate: The IPCC sea level numbers Os números do nível do mar do IPCC](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/)** > > RealClimate: The sea level rise numbers published in the new IPCC report (the Fourth Assessment Report, AR4) have already caused considerable confusion. Many media articles and weblogs suggested there is good news on the sea level issue, with future... > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If you want to claim that November being the hottest month or arctic ice summer melt is the fault of global warming, then you can’t hand-wave away the fact that warming in the last decade was either nil or at least tracked way under what the models predicted. Again, that is misleading, the “pause” on the warming was explained by the modelers. > **[Key excerpts from Mojib Latif’s WCC presentation](https://deepclimate.org/2009/10/02/key-excerpts-from-mojib-latifs-wcc-presentation/)** > > The following is an edited transcript of key excerpts from Dr. Mojib Latif’s presentation at the World Climate Conference 3, held in Geneva in September 2009. Also see my subsequent post on m… > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As for the Medieval Warm Period - this is still in dispute, no matter what the people at RealClimate want to claim. Until the late 1990’s, it was assumed by the scientific community that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were global phenomenon. It was Mann’s hockey stick that was the outlier, and since then there have been several papers that attempted to show that the MWP and the LIA were local phenomena. But there is other evidence that this is not the case. So you don’t get to just dismiss this out of hand. Not an outlier according to NOAA > **[Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology)** > > NCEI manages the world's largest archive of climate and paleoclimatology data. Our mission is to preserve and make this data and information available in order to understand and model environmental variability on an interannual to millennial time... Regarding proxy reconstructions, this is the item that convinced me that deniers have no logic (Remember also the stupidity from Rush and Fox news telling us that proxy temperatures = actual temperatures (They hided the decline!!)) and drove me to become an unwilling investigator of this subject. The evidence of the medieval warm period shows that it was mostly a local phenomenon, I myself noticed; even before seeing the National academy of sciences report and Nature’s take on the controversy, the spectacle of denier sites telling right wingers to dismiss the temperature proxy evidence. Yet even then I noticed something peculiar:\*\* the more one dismisses the tree ring proxy evidence, the more one should also dismiss the medieval warm period as it was also obtained with the same methods\*\*. That in essence was the criticism the Academy had with Mann; still, they supported the main conclusions obtained with his proxy analysis. But it was clear, after all the investigations that: Medieval warming, not so much, current temperature being higher than the past 1000 years? You bet. More recent research is pointing that indeed the medieval warm period was more local than global: > **[Was there a Medieval Warm Period?](https://skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html)** > > The Medieval Warm Period spanned 950 to 1250 AD and corresponded with warmer temperatures in certain regions. During this time, ice-free seas allowed the Vikings to colonize Greenland. North America experienced prolonged droughts. So just how hot was... > [@](#): > > The Medieval Warm Period found warm conditions over a large part of the North Atlantic, Southern Greenland, the Eurasian Arctic, and parts of North America. In these regions, temperature appears to be warmer than the 1961–1990 baseline. In some areas, temperatures even even as warm as today. However, certain regions, such as central Eurasia, northwestern North America, and the tropical Pacific are substantially cooler. > > So the Medieval Warm Period was not a global phenomen. Warmer conditions were concentrated in certain regions. Some regions were even colder than during the Little Ice Age. For this reason, the paper’s authors refer to the Medieval Warm Period as the more technical sounding ‘Medieval Climate Anomaly’ (the MCA in Figure 1). Personally, I don’t see the term becoming ubiquitious. > > There is also an examination of temperature patterns during the Little Ice Age. There is pronounced cooling over the Northern Hemisphere continents. However, some regions such as parts of the Middle East, central North Atlantic, isolated parts of the United States and tropical Eurasia displaying warmth comparable to present day. > > What does this all mean? To claim the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today is to narrowly focus on a few regions that showed unusual warmth. However, when we look at the broader picture, we see that the Medieval Warm Period was a regional phenomenon with other regions showing strong cooling. Globally, temperatures during the Medieval Period were less than today. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/83 "2009-12-24T03:36:14Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s not nearly that bad. The IPCC’s range of ‘best estimates’ for sea level rise by 2100 is somewhere around 200-700mm. Once again, the IPCC in 2007 reported that their “Model-based range [is] excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow” [http://www.ucsusa.org/global\_warming/science\_and\_impacts/science/findings-of-the-ipcc-fourth-2.html](http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/findings-of-the-ipcc-fourth-2.html) What I see now is a tactic to ignore new and current research dealing with those dynamical changes. [http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/16/us-geological-survey-stunner-sea-level-rise-in-2100-will-likely-substantially-exceed-ipcc-projections-sw-faces-permanent-drying-by-2050/](http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/16/us-geological-survey-stunner-sea-level-rise-in-2100-will-likely-substantially-exceed-ipcc-projections-sw-faces-permanent-drying-by-2050/) > [@](#): > > It is unclear whether this imbalance is a short-term natural adjustment or a response to recent climate change, but processes causing accelerations are enabled by warming, so these adjustments will very likely become more frequent in a warmer climate. The regions likely to experience future rapid changes in ice volume are those where ice is grounded well below sea level such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet or large glaciers in Greenland like the Jakobshavn Isbrae that flow into the sea through a deep channel reaching far inland. Inclusion of these processes in models will likely lead to sea-level projections for the end of the 21st century that substantially exceed the projections presented in the IPCC AR4 report [http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/321/5894/1340](http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/321/5894/1340) > [@](#): > > More plausible but still accelerated conditions lead to total sea-level rise by 2100 of about 0.8 meter. Video showing Fox news once again misleading the public: [http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=greenman3610#p/u/7/kffsux-ifKk](http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=greenman3610#p/u/7/kffsux-ifKk) ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/84 "2009-12-24T06:34:39Z")
For what it’s worth, California is taking seriously [A Report on Sea Level Rise Preparedness](http://www.slc.ca.gov/home_page_docs/SEA_LEVEL_Report.pdf). It’s a PDF but nicely done. > [@](#): > > According to a paper prepared by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of California San Diego, the U. S. Geological Survey, Santa Clara University, the California Department of Boating and Waterways, and Hydrologic Research Center, sea level is projected to rise 16” by 2050, and 55” by 2100. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/85 "2009-12-24T19:26:06Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Once again, the IPCC in 2007 reported that their “Model-based range [is] excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow” > > [http://www.ucsusa.org/global\_warming/science\_and\_impacts/science/findings-of-the-ipcc-fourth-2.html](http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/findings-of-the-ipcc-fourth-2.html) > > What I see now is a tactic to ignore new and current research dealing with those dynamical changes. You know, there’s also new research that calls into question some aspects of AGW. When I’ve brought those up in the past, I get told that the IPCC is the final authority, and that referring to new papers is an exercise in cherry-picking. The IPCC is to be used as final authority because it’s a meta-survey of the state of the science overall. But when a paper is issued that makes global warming look worse, suddenly the IPCC is out of date and its more moderate predictions are to be ignored in favor of the latest scary paper. I hope you can see the level of confirmation bias going on here. The same exists with the constant appeal to RealClimate as the final authority on all matters regarding global warming. I get very tired of posting a real, peer-reviewed paper, and the rebuttal being a link to RealClimate’s rebuttal, as if that closes the issue. Science doesn’t work that way. We do not have a council of elders who vote thumbs up and thumbs down on every possible bit of evidence or research. I can point you to dozens of papers written in major peer-reviewed journals, many written in the last couple of years, which call into question some aspects of the accepted theories of global warming. It’s funny that every time I do, it turns out that somehow it’s a bad paper that somehow slipped through the peer-review process. Why? Because the guys at RealClimate say so. And Lord knows, _their_ opinions are never wrong, and they’ve _never_ gotten the science wrong themselves. BTW, the IPCC didn’t factor in rapid dynamical changes to ice quantities because the science wasn’t good enough to be able to make _any_ predictions about it. I point you again to the 2007 summer ice extent in the arctic, which was the lowest recorded, and which scared a lot of people. There were papers written in 2007 to explain it in terms of global warming. But the ice extent completely recovered to its regular levels by January 2008, and the summer ice extent was back within normal ranges in 2008 and 2009. NO ONE predicted that. Just like they never predicted the rapid retreat of ice in the summer of 2007. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about how polar ice levels respond to short and long term changes in climate. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/86 "2009-12-24T19:37:57Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You know, there’s also new research that calls into question some aspects of AGW. When I’ve brought those up in the past, I get told that the IPCC is the final authority, and that referring to new papers is an exercise in cherry-picking. The IPCC is to be used as final authority because it’s a meta-survey of the state of the science overall. > > But when a paper is issued that makes global warming look worse, suddenly the IPCC is out of date and its more moderate predictions are to be ignored in favor of the latest scary paper. > > I hope you can see the level of confirmation bias going on here. Nope, what you are doing is precisely that, you are indeed attempting to say that no new research is valid or that it does not overtake the past conclusions. I already made the point before that the report made for Copenhagen was made by many of the members of the IPCC report, but that was deftly ignored by you. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The same exists with the constant appeal to RealClimate as the final authority on all matters regarding global warming. I get very tired of posting a real, peer-reviewed paper, and the rebuttal being a link to RealClimate’s rebuttal, as if that closes the issue. Science doesn’t work that way. We do not have a council of elders who vote thumbs up and thumbs down on every possible bit of evidence or research. So you ignore now that the contributors to RalClimate are climate scientists? I wonder why. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I can point you to dozens of papers written in major peer-reviewed journals, many written in the last couple of years, which call into question some aspects of the accepted theories of global warming. It’s funny that every time I do, it turns out that somehow it’s a bad paper that somehow slipped through the peer-review process. Why? Because the guys at RealClimate say so. And Lord knows, _their_ opinions are never wrong, and they’ve _never_ gotten the science wrong themselves. Nope, the reality is that the papers you quote were already rebutted like \*\*jshore \*\*showed before. It is not my problem that you insist on ignoring those rebuttals. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > BTW, the IPCC didn’t factor in rapid dynamical changes to ice quantities because the science wasn’t good enough to be able to make _any_ predictions about it. I point you again to the 2007 summer ice extent in the arctic, which was the lowest recorded, and which scared a lot of people. There were papers written in 2007 to explain it in terms of global warming. But the ice extent completely recovered to its regular levels by January 2008, and the summer ice extent was back within normal ranges in 2008 and 2009. NO ONE predicted that. Just like they never predicted the rapid retreat of ice in the summer of 2007. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about how polar ice levels respond to short and long term changes in climate. :rolleyes: I mentioned before, extent does not equal volume. And even if one concentrates on just the surface, the Ice just returned to the expected levels, that is the expected levels of **decline**. [http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/a/029130BFDC78FA33/1/Y3dYhC\_AlYw](http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/a/029130BFDC78FA33/1/Y3dYhC_AlYw) And that video points to yet again to the misleading tactics that the denial media uses to deceive people like you. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737/87 "2009-12-24T20:12:43Z")
And I noticed that you avoided dealing with the Medieval warm period explanation. (And I think hell will freeze over before we see Fox news and others post a retraction on how they continue to mislead the American public). The reason why I mentioned the proxy reconstructions is that it was thanks to the early proxy reconstructions that many thought that there was a hotter medieval warm period, the graphs showing that warm period were on one of the earliest IPCC reports. _That early incomplete picture was grabbed by the deniers in an attempt to discredit the new research_. That new research was supported in the latest IPCC report, the medieval warm period still shows, but it remains at lower temperatures that the ones from today. Here one can see another big flaw on how deniers think, they ignore that “the lord give it, the lord took it away”. Later research overtakes the ones made in the past. Except to the denier media and blogs. Peter Sinclair explains that in this short video the history of this crock from the deniers: > **[greenman3610](https://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/c/029130BFDC78FA33/15/vrKfz8NjEzU)** > > Knocking down the nonsense of Climate denial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-what-is-your-take-on-the-climate-change-deal-situation/521737.md?page=4)