The CO2 Problem in 6 Easy Steps

[Kosh]

This thread is further proof that AGW is a religion not based on any real science.

 

[orogenicman]

How many trillions should we spend to prevent "deserts without water and food"?

When we're done, will CO2 be 550 ppm, instead of 560 ppm?

Will the "global temperature" be 0.1 degrees lower or 0.2 degrees lower?

What do you think will be the climatic response of significantly reducing the 30 billion tons of CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year? Will it happen suddenly, or gradually over many years? And if it is not suddenly, does that mean it is not worth it to our children and grandchildren to do? It took decades to reach the point we are at today. It will take many more decades to reverse the damage. To my mind, doing nothing is not an option.

What do you think will be the climatic response of significantly reducing the 30 billion tons of CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year?

When will that number be even slightly reduced?
How many trillions does the US have to spend to make up for next years increase from China and India?

And if it is not suddenly, does that mean it is not worth it to our children and grandchildren to do?

It is not worth it to our children and grandchildren if we ruin our economy and go ever deeper into debt for an unmeasureable decrease in future temperatures.

Since you are the one who is arguing that we will or have to ruin our economy in order to reduce emissions, perhaps you and westwall could consult Jean Dixon and maybe she could give us some inkling from her tea leaves exactly how that will happen.

The argument that we can't reduce our emissions because of something China and India are or may do is specious at best, and is a great example of poor leadership. If Thomas Jefferson had opposed the revolutionary war because, well the King of Sweden never recommended it, where would we be today?

 

[orogenicman]

This thread is further proof that AGW is a religion not based on any real science.

Well, that settles it. He proved it so I am convinced.
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Oh wait. I'm not...

 

[Iceweasel]

Right. If I want the weather forecast, I'll give him a call. If I need brain surgery, I'll call a neurosurgeon. If I want to know something about climate, I'll consult a climatologist. You people seem to think if a person has some random degree, say, in horticulture, that makes them an expert in some other random discipline, say, atomic energy. If only life worked that way, we'd all be living the conservative 1950 dream portrayed on black and white television.

So you don't believe a meteorologist knows anything about the climate and how it operates? Oh wow, looks like you need at least a college degree to become a climatologist.

How to Become a Climatologist: Education and Career Roadmap
Job Requirements

A bachelor's degree is the minimum required education to become a climatologist, and if you want to attain a high-level research position or teach at the postsecondary level, you'll need a master's or PhD in the field.

 

[RollingThunder]

This thread is further proof that AGW is a religion not based on any real science.

Your insane responses are further proof that you are severely retarded and extremely ignorant.

 

[orogenicman]

And stuff like this is why everybody can see that you're a retard, shitweasel.

Pointing out that both CO2 and water vapor are greenhouse gases doesn't magically make CO2 not a greenhouse gas. While it is true that there is more water vapor in the atmosphere, it is also true that because CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere and water vapor doesn't, increased CO2 is the forcing that causes temperature increases while water vapor is the feedback that responds to higher temperatures and amplifies the warming produced by the CO2.

I posted the opinion of a meteorologist that explained it better than I could. Since you weren't able to process the info, he said said CO2s were insignificant in warming the atmosphere. Sorry.

You are sorry, that's for sure.

The actual scientists who study all of the different aspects of the climate and atmospheric physics are virtually unamamous in saying that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas and that the 43% increase that mankind has caused is heating the planet. You find a wacko rightwing meteorologist from Texas who disagrees with the rest of the scientific community and who also has this oh-so-scientific material on his website.

DOES GOD CONTROL THE WEATHER?

METEOROLOGIST JEFF HABY

A. Possible reasons that God does control the weather:

1. An all knowing being must know how to control the weather. Since the weather is there He must be controlling it.

2. It is possible that there are extra dimensions in which the weather can be controlled but we can not tell. It is impossible to have a perfect analysis and perfect atmospheric model in our dimension but perhaps there are other dimensions this can be done from.

3. If God can control any other aspect of our lives then it must be possible that He can control the weather.

4. Since there is existence that we sense, then there is an ultimate reason for this existence (a creator). An entity with that power will have the power to control the weather.

He must have had a rich daddy. That is the only explanation for how this moron ever graduated from kindergarten. Why is it when you roll the rock over from which we find so many of these people, we find a conservative evangelical Christian (usually also a creationist)?

 

[orogenicman]

Right. If I want the weather forecast, I'll give him a call. If I need brain surgery, I'll call a neurosurgeon. If I want to know something about climate, I'll consult a climatologist. You people seem to think if a person has some random degree, say, in horticulture, that makes them an expert in some other random discipline, say, atomic energy. If only life worked that way, we'd all be living the conservative 1950 dream portrayed on black and white television.

So you don't believe a meteorologist knows anything about the climate and how it operates? Oh wow, looks like you need at least a college degree to become a climatologist.

How to Become a Climatologist: Education and Career Roadmap
Job Requirements

A bachelor's degree is the minimum required education to become a climatologist, and if you want to attain a high-level research position or teach at the postsecondary level, you'll need a master's or PhD in the field.

Sure, some meteorologists are very knowledgeable with regard to the planet. A man I've known for many years, Dr. Tom Wills, is one of them. He is a retired broadcast meteorologist from WAVE television, in Louisville, Kentucky. He was also physics professor at the University of Louisville who taught climatology. Got anything like that???

 

[Iceweasel]

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis


Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis - Forbes
It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

CO2 in One Easy Step

Show us a lab experiment where a 120PPM increase in CO2 raises temperature AND lowers Ocean pH and you'll finally have something to talk about

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I posted the opinion of a meteorologist that explained it better than I could. Since you weren't able to process the info, he said said CO2s were insignificant in warming the atmosphere. Sorry.

You are sorry, that's for sure.

The actual scientists who study all of the different aspects of the climate and atmospheric physics are virtually unamamous in saying that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas and that the 43% increase that mankind has caused is heating the planet. You find a wacko rightwing meteorologist from Texas who disagrees with the rest of the scientific community and who also has this oh-so-scientific material on his website.

DOES GOD CONTROL THE WEATHER?

METEOROLOGIST JEFF HABY

A. Possible reasons that God does control the weather:

1. An all knowing being must know how to control the weather. Since the weather is there He must be controlling it.

2. It is possible that there are extra dimensions in which the weather can be controlled but we can not tell. It is impossible to have a perfect analysis and perfect atmospheric model in our dimension but perhaps there are other dimensions this can be done from.

3. If God can control any other aspect of our lives then it must be possible that He can control the weather.

4. Since there is existence that we sense, then there is an ultimate reason for this existence (a creator). An entity with that power will have the power to control the weather.

He must have had a rich daddy. That is the only explanation for how this moron ever graduated from kindergarten. Why is it when you roll the rock over from which we find so many of these people, we find a conservative evangelical Christian (usually also a creationist)?

"You tell 'em Old Roc...er I mean Oregano-man!"

 

[RollingThunder]

I posted the opinion of a meteorologist that explained it better than I could. Since you weren't able to process the info, he said said CO2s were insignificant in warming the atmosphere. Sorry.

You posted the opinion of Jeff Haby, a conservative broadcast meteorologist, not a climate scientist. Next.

What are your credentials?

Meteorologist - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Definition of METEOROLOGY
1
: a science that deals with the atmosphere and its phenomena and especially with weather and weather forecasting

It doesn't matter what his credentials are, nutwad. What matters is the difference between the expertise and knowledge of the PhD climate scientists who study all of the aspects of long term climate and atmospheric physics, and the meteorologists with a BS or MS who study short term weather patterns. The fact that you imagine that the claims of a Texas nutbagger weatherman somehow trump the consensus of the world scientific community is a negative reflection on your intelligence (or lack of).

Why Some Meteorologists Still Deny Global Warming
MotherJones
—By Chris Mooney
Dec. 4, 2013
Just before Thanksgiving, many conservatives seized on a new study examining the climate views of members of the American Meteorological Society. It's no secret that there's a schism between climate scientists and weather forecasters over climate change, and the study captured this, to skeptics' delight. The fact that a sizable percentage of AMS members disagree with mainstream climate science represented "the latest in a long line of evidence indicating the often asserted global warming consensus does not exist," according to Forbes blogger and Heartland Institute fellow James Taylor.

Yet a closer look at the study—conducted by researchers at George Mason University, Yale, and the AMS itself—shows that its main punch line is quite different. The research was chiefly focused on trying to understand why the meteorological community as a whole (the AMS includes climate scientists, academic meteorologists, forecast meteorologists, and general atmospheric scientists, among others) features such disparate views on global warming. And one of its principal findings is that AMS members who publish less peer-reviewed climate research, or less peer-reviewed research in general, are more likely to be climate skeptics.

Far from undermining the scientific consensus on climate change, then, the new study could be said to strengthen it, by defining who's a relevant expert in the first place. "You listen to the scientists who really know the field in question," says George Mason's Neil Stenhouse, a Ph.D. student and the study's lead author. "And previous studies show that if you ask the scientists who really know climate change, there is high consensus on human causation."

Similarly, after sorting AMS members by their climate expertise as well as their scientific publishing record, Stenhouse's study found that this seemed to have a big impact on their views about climate change. "93% of actively publishing climate scientists indicated they are convinced that humans have contributed to global warming," noted the study's authors. By contrast, among "nonpublishing" climate scientists, only 65 percent believed that humans have contributed to global warming.

Something similar occurred with a different set of experts within AMS: meteorologists and atmospheric scientists. Those who published a lot on climate change, or a lot on other aspects of meteorological science, generally showed much higher conviction that humans are contributing to global warming (79 percent and 78 percent, respectively) than the "nonpublishing" experts (59 percent).

And there's more bad news for skeptics who want to cite this AMS survey to bolster their case. You see, the study also showed that conservative political ideology is a big factor behind the denial of climate science by some meteorologists—ideology was a consistently bigger influence on meteorologists' views, in fact, than their level of scientific expertise. This finding of a major role for ideology, write the researchers, "goes against the idea of scientists' opinions being entirely based on objective analysis of the evidence."

The irony, then, is considerable. Even as climate skeptics cite the new AMS survey to claim there's no scientific consensus on climate change, the survey itself calls into question whether disagreement among meteorologists has much to do with purely scientific considerations in the first place.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

How long do you think people can survive in deserts without water and food?

Ask the Bedouin, they've been doing it for centuries.....hell, millennia.

Soooo insane!!!

So the "Bedouin" have been living "without food and water" for millennia, eh walleyed? LOLOL. If you're not already in an insane asylum, you should be, since you are so out of touch with reality.

In the real world, that you and the other denier cultists have obviously gotten a divorce from, this is what is really happening....

Food and Water Shortages May Prove Major Risks of Climate Change
Poor people will suffer the most, unless the world exploits vanishing opportunities to adapt
Scientific American
By David Biello
Mar 30, 2014
The rich play with fire and the poor get burned. That sums up a report issued March 31 by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the worsening risks of climate change. Yet even rich nations will face serious challenges. "Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by climate change," said IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri at a press conference releasing the report in Yokohama, Japan.

According to Pachauri and the hundreds of scientists who prepared the report, climate change is no longer something that will happen in the future. It is already here, and it is already impacting people on all seven continents and seven seas. The world now has a different climate than it had only a few decades ago, thanks to fossil fuel burning, forest clearing and other human activities.

As a result, the need for nations everywhere to adapt is already here, according to the report of the second team of IPCC scientists (known as Working Group II), who assessed more than 12,000 scientific papers to deliver an authoritative consensus on the impacts of climate change, the vulnerabilities of society and the natural world, as well as how we might adapt to a changed climate. "We see impacts from the equators to the poles and the coast to the mountains," noted biologist Christopher Field of Stanford University, co-chair of Working Group II at the press event.

The opportunity to prevent catastrophic global warming has not disappeared, even if the world has burned through half the fossil fuels it can, according to the first team of IPCC scientists who assessed the fundamental physics of climate change and released their report in September. But the world must drop its carbon habit soon. Since 1880, 531 gigatons of carbon have been emitted, and the IPCC scientists estimate that no more than 800 gigatons should be emitted for a better-than-even chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. If warming rises beyond that threshold, the scientists say, serious harm will be done to ecosystems and societies everywhere. The more warming, the greater the risk of "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts," the new report states.

Unfortunately, in just the time between this report and the last iteration in 2007, climate change has grown 40 percent stronger thanks to ever increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Already, the world has warmed 0.85 degree C since 1880. Global warming is now "unequivocal" and concentrations of CO2 have reached levels "unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years." Or as Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organzation put it at the press conference: "Ignorance is no longer an excuse. We know."

In that light, climate change becomes a risk management proposition, particularly given the uncertainty about exactly how bad impacts might become and when. The worst risks include sea level rise for small islands and coasts, flooding, the breakdown of infrastructure in the face of extreme weather, loss of livelihoods for farmers and fishers, food insecurity and heat-wave deaths. Expect a big demand for energy for air conditioning as the 21st century continues.

Some of these impacts are already here, from a meltdown of polar ice and glaciers everywhere to higher rates of sea level rise than the IPCC predicted in the past. Crops, such as wheat and maize (corn), have been hurt more by heat waves and drought than helped by higher levels of CO2, which can sometimes permit more luxuriant plant growth. Some crop yields in places like northern Europe and southeastern South America where drought has not set in have actually improved.

The bad outweighs the good to date. Reductions in yields of wheat and maize have already had an impact on food prices, and some argue on the stability of nations as well. Extreme weather—from floods to wildfires—continues to take an increasing toll, and climate change will likely exacerbate existing health problems such as malaria and heat stroke. The biggest impact may prove to be changes to the availability of fresh water. All of these hazards, laid out in detail in the new report, afflict the poorest the most, particularly subsistence farmers throughout the world who depend on consistent rains for adequate food. "They are threatened in their very existence," Pachauri argued at the press conference.

Climate change will also raise the risk of conflict, whether civil war or fights between nation states over critical resources or boundaries, according to the new report. In short, climate change will make remedying existing poverty that much harder.

Opportunities still exist for adaptation, however. Communities, cities, states and nations have begun to adapt, whether improved water management in San Diego, Calif., or planting mangroves to stabilize seashores in the island nation of Tuvalu. Cimate change can be ameliorated both by cutting back on the pollution that causes it as well as by improving society to decrease vulnerability.

Future adaptation may include, for the poorest people, moving, either voluntarily or when displaced by disaster. And how societies choose to adapt will be vital as certain choices—geoengineering with artificial volcanoes or building sea walls, for example—may prove maladaptive in the long term.

The natural world has had to adapt as well, with animals and even plants moving or shifting seasonal behaviors or migration. Some marine animals have shifted their range by as much as 400 kilometers in pursuit of equally cold climes, and ocean acidification is accelerating. As the climate continues to change, species will face even greater challenges, and many may go extinct as global warming tips them into disaster when paired with other threats such as habitat loss. Entire ecosystems will be transformed, like the march of shrubs into the former tundra of Siberia and North America. "We may already be on the threshold or over the threshold of the sixth mass extinction in earth's history," Field noted.

Undercutting the optimism for ongoing adaptation is the fact that the IPCC has consistently underestimated the speed and scale of climate change. Continuing to improve the data about impacts is an ongoing challenge for the scientific community. And, in the larger view, as co-chair Field put it in his speech to open the session finalizing the new report: "Dealing effectively with climate change is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century."

Unfortunately, in just the time between this report and the last iteration in 2007, climate change has grown 40 percent stronger thanks to ever increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Wow, 40% stronger since 2007? LOL!

Holy measuring error Batman!!!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Love the fake "Deny" Standard.

That's another sure tell you're not dealing with real scientists

 

[bedowin62]

who is surprised the maniacally greedy Left wants to tax carbon; the building block of life on this planet?

there is simply NOTHING the Left wont do; or put you through to get their hands on other people's money; so they can change the world as their undeservedly smug brains see fit

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

What do you think will be the climatic response of significantly reducing the 30 billion tons of CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year? Will it happen suddenly, or gradually over many years? And if it is not suddenly, does that mean it is not worth it to our children and grandchildren to do? It took decades to reach the point we are at today. It will take many more decades to reverse the damage. To my mind, doing nothing is not an option.

What do you think will be the climatic response of significantly reducing the 30 billion tons of CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year?

When will that number be even slightly reduced?
How many trillions does the US have to spend to make up for next years increase from China and India?

And if it is not suddenly, does that mean it is not worth it to our children and grandchildren to do?

It is not worth it to our children and grandchildren if we ruin our economy and go ever deeper into debt for an unmeasureable decrease in future temperatures.

Since you are the one who is arguing that we will or have to ruin our economy in order to reduce emissions, perhaps you and westwall could consult Jean Dixon and maybe she could give us some inkling from her tea leaves exactly how that will happen.

The argument that we can't reduce our emissions because of something China and India are or may do is specious at best, and is a great example of poor leadership. If Thomas Jefferson had opposed the revolutionary war because, well the King of Sweden never recommended it, where would we be today?

The argument that we can't reduce our emissions because of something China and India are or may do is specious at best, and is a great example of poor leadership.

Speaking of poor leadership, Obama wants to damage our economy in order to make a tiny reduction in US CO2 emissions.
A tiny, damaging reduction that will be overwhelmed by the increase in India's and China's CO2.
Would you recommend he reduce our GDP by 2%, 5% or more, for this pointless gesture?

 

[bedowin62]

idiot; the fact that China and India aren't subject to reduced carbon emissions means two things; it wont help the planet anyway to place costly restrictions on a few Western nations AND

it will cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs

so if you want to delude yourself that scenario is less "specious" than have at it. you cant fix stupid

 

[RollingThunder]

The actual scientists who study all of the different aspects of the climate and atmospheric physics are virtually unamamous in saying that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas and that the 43% increase that mankind has caused is heating the planet.

Bullshit.

What a brilliant rebuttal.....NOT....

How did you get sooooo retarded, shitweasel? Did you get dropped on your head a lot when you were a baby?

The American Geophysical Union, a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 62,000 members from 144 countries, issued a position statement on global warming in 2003, revised it in 2007, and revised and expanded it again in 2013. This statement affirms that rising levels of greenhouse gases have caused and will continue to cause the global surface temperature to be warmer:

“Human activities are changing Earth’s climate. At the global level, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases have increased sharply since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel burning dominates this increase. Human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed global average surface warming of roughly 0.8°C (1.5°F) over the past 140 years. Because natural processes cannot quickly remove some of these gases (notably carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere, our past, present, and future emissions will influence the climate system for millennia.

While important scientific uncertainties remain as to which particular impacts will be experienced where, no uncertainties are known that could make the impacts of climate change inconsequential. Furthermore, surprise outcomes, such as the unexpectedly rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice, may entail even more dramatic changes than anticipated."​

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) issued a position statement in 2012 that concluded:

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.​

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Soooo insane!!!

So the "Bedouin" have been living "without food and water" for millennia, eh walleyed? LOLOL. If you're not already in an insane asylum, you should be, since you are so out of touch with reality.

In the real world, that you and the other denier cultists have obviously gotten a divorce from, this is what is really happening....

Food and Water Shortages May Prove Major Risks of Climate Change
Poor people will suffer the most, unless the world exploits vanishing opportunities to adapt
Scientific American
By David Biello
Mar 30, 2014
The rich play with fire and the poor get burned. That sums up a report issued March 31 by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the worsening risks of climate change. Yet even rich nations will face serious challenges. "Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by climate change," said IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri at a press conference releasing the report in Yokohama, Japan.

According to Pachauri and the hundreds of scientists who prepared the report, climate change is no longer something that will happen in the future. It is already here, and it is already impacting people on all seven continents and seven seas. The world now has a different climate than it had only a few decades ago, thanks to fossil fuel burning, forest clearing and other human activities.

As a result, the need for nations everywhere to adapt is already here, according to the report of the second team of IPCC scientists (known as Working Group II), who assessed more than 12,000 scientific papers to deliver an authoritative consensus on the impacts of climate change, the vulnerabilities of society and the natural world, as well as how we might adapt to a changed climate. "We see impacts from the equators to the poles and the coast to the mountains," noted biologist Christopher Field of Stanford University, co-chair of Working Group II at the press event.

The opportunity to prevent catastrophic global warming has not disappeared, even if the world has burned through half the fossil fuels it can, according to the first team of IPCC scientists who assessed the fundamental physics of climate change and released their report in September. But the world must drop its carbon habit soon. Since 1880, 531 gigatons of carbon have been emitted, and the IPCC scientists estimate that no more than 800 gigatons should be emitted for a better-than-even chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. If warming rises beyond that threshold, the scientists say, serious harm will be done to ecosystems and societies everywhere. The more warming, the greater the risk of "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts," the new report states.

Unfortunately, in just the time between this report and the last iteration in 2007, climate change has grown 40 percent stronger thanks to ever increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Already, the world has warmed 0.85 degree C since 1880. Global warming is now "unequivocal" and concentrations of CO2 have reached levels "unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years." Or as Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organzation put it at the press conference: "Ignorance is no longer an excuse. We know."

In that light, climate change becomes a risk management proposition, particularly given the uncertainty about exactly how bad impacts might become and when. The worst risks include sea level rise for small islands and coasts, flooding, the breakdown of infrastructure in the face of extreme weather, loss of livelihoods for farmers and fishers, food insecurity and heat-wave deaths. Expect a big demand for energy for air conditioning as the 21st century continues.

Some of these impacts are already here, from a meltdown of polar ice and glaciers everywhere to higher rates of sea level rise than the IPCC predicted in the past. Crops, such as wheat and maize (corn), have been hurt more by heat waves and drought than helped by higher levels of CO2, which can sometimes permit more luxuriant plant growth. Some crop yields in places like northern Europe and southeastern South America where drought has not set in have actually improved.

The bad outweighs the good to date. Reductions in yields of wheat and maize have already had an impact on food prices, and some argue on the stability of nations as well. Extreme weather—from floods to wildfires—continues to take an increasing toll, and climate change will likely exacerbate existing health problems such as malaria and heat stroke. The biggest impact may prove to be changes to the availability of fresh water. All of these hazards, laid out in detail in the new report, afflict the poorest the most, particularly subsistence farmers throughout the world who depend on consistent rains for adequate food. "They are threatened in their very existence," Pachauri argued at the press conference.

Climate change will also raise the risk of conflict, whether civil war or fights between nation states over critical resources or boundaries, according to the new report. In short, climate change will make remedying existing poverty that much harder.

Opportunities still exist for adaptation, however. Communities, cities, states and nations have begun to adapt, whether improved water management in San Diego, Calif., or planting mangroves to stabilize seashores in the island nation of Tuvalu. Cimate change can be ameliorated both by cutting back on the pollution that causes it as well as by improving society to decrease vulnerability.

Future adaptation may include, for the poorest people, moving, either voluntarily or when displaced by disaster. And how societies choose to adapt will be vital as certain choices—geoengineering with artificial volcanoes or building sea walls, for example—may prove maladaptive in the long term.

The natural world has had to adapt as well, with animals and even plants moving or shifting seasonal behaviors or migration. Some marine animals have shifted their range by as much as 400 kilometers in pursuit of equally cold climes, and ocean acidification is accelerating. As the climate continues to change, species will face even greater challenges, and many may go extinct as global warming tips them into disaster when paired with other threats such as habitat loss. Entire ecosystems will be transformed, like the march of shrubs into the former tundra of Siberia and North America. "We may already be on the threshold or over the threshold of the sixth mass extinction in earth's history," Field noted.

Undercutting the optimism for ongoing adaptation is the fact that the IPCC has consistently underestimated the speed and scale of climate change. Continuing to improve the data about impacts is an ongoing challenge for the scientific community. And, in the larger view, as co-chair Field put it in his speech to open the session finalizing the new report: "Dealing effectively with climate change is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century."

Unfortunately, in just the time between this report and the last iteration in 2007, climate change has grown 40 percent stronger thanks to ever increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.Wow, 40% stronger since 2007? LOL! Holy measuring error Batman!!!

And another blank uncomprehending response from ToadtheParrot, who is obviously too stupid to understand any of the science.

Feel free to show me the science that proves "climate change has grown 40 percent stronger since 2007".

Thanks!

 

[westwall]

Right. If I want the weather forecast, I'll give him a call. If I need brain surgery, I'll call a neurosurgeon. If I want to know something about climate, I'll consult a climatologist. You people seem to think if a person has some random degree, say, in horticulture, that makes them an expert in some other random discipline, say, atomic energy. If only life worked that way, we'd all be living the conservative 1950 dream portrayed on black and white television.

So you don't believe a meteorologist knows anything about the climate and how it operates? Oh wow, looks like you need at least a college degree to become a climatologist.

How to Become a Climatologist: Education and Career Roadmap
Job Requirements

A bachelor's degree is the minimum required education to become a climatologist, and if you want to attain a high-level research position or teach at the postsecondary level, you'll need a master's or PhD in the field.

Sure, some meteorologists are very knowledgeable with regard to the planet. A man I've known for many years, Dr. Tom Wills, is one of them. He is a retired broadcast meteorologist from WAVE television, in Louisville, Kentucky. He was also physics professor at the University of Louisville who taught climatology. Got anything like that???

In terms of actual work, it is far more difficult to get a PhD in meteorology than in climatology. Meteorology is a "hard" science while climatology is a "soft" science.

 

[Iceweasel]

You posted the opinion of Jeff Haby, a conservative broadcast meteorologist, not a climate scientist. Next.

What are your credentials?

Meteorologist - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Definition of METEOROLOGY
1
: a science that deals with the atmosphere and its phenomena and especially with weather and weather forecasting

It doesn't matter what his credentials are, nutwad. What matters is the difference between the expertise and knowledge of the PhD climate scientists who study all of the aspects of long term climate and atmospheric physics, and the meteorologists with a BS or MS who study short term weather patterns. The fact that you imagine that the claims of a Texas nutbagger weatherman somehow trump the consensus of the world scientific community is a negative reflection on your intelligence (or lack of).

The "consensus" hasn't been trumped, I chose an explanation that I thought you might be able to grasp. And 36% isn't a consensus in this universe.