Coalition of the Confused
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Confused malcontents swilling Chardonnay while awaiting the Zombie Apocalypse.
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The debate on Climate Change General Confusion
From: ElDotardo
6/5/18
Climate Change Has Run Its Course
Its descent into social-justice identity politics is the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality.
Climate change is over. No, I’m not saying the climate will not change in the future, or that human influence on the climate is negligible. I mean simply that climate change is no longer a pre-eminent policy issue. All that remains is boilerplate rhetoric from the political class, frivolous nuisance lawsuits, and bureaucratic mandates on behalf of special-interest renewable-energy rent seekers.
Judged by deeds rather than words, most national governments are backing away from forced-marched decarbonization. You can date the arc of climate change as a policy priority from 1988, when highly publicized congressional hearings first elevated the issue, to 2018. President Trump’s ostentatious withdrawal from the Paris Agreement merely ratified a trend long becoming evident.
A good indicator of why climate change as an issue is over can be found early in the text of the Paris Agreement. The “nonbinding” pact declares that climate action must include concern for “gender equality, empowerment of women, and intergenerational equity” as well as “the importance for some of the concept of ‘climate justice.’ ” Another is Sarah Myhre’s address at the most recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in which she proclaimed that climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with the misogyny and social injustice that have perpetuated the problem for decades.
The descent of climate change into the abyss of social-justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality. Climate alarm is like a car alarm—a blaring noise people are tuning out.
This outcome was predictable. Political scientist Anthony Downs described the downward trajectory of many political movements in an article for the Public Interest, “Up and Down With Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention Cycle,’ ” published in 1972, long before the climate-change campaign began. Observing the movements that had arisen to address issues like crime, poverty and even the U.S.-Soviet space race, Mr. Downs discerned a five-stage cycle through which political issues pass regularly.
The first stage involves groups of experts and activists calling attention to a public problem, which leads quickly to the second stage, wherein the alarmed media and political class discover the issue. The second stage typically includes a large amount of euphoric enthusiasm—you might call it the “dopamine” stage—as activists conceive the issue in terms of global peril and salvation. This tendency explains the fanaticism with which divinity-school dropouts Al Gore and Jerry Brown have warned of climate change.
Then comes the third stage: the hinge. As Mr. Downs explains, there soon comes “a gradually spreading realization that the cost of ‘solving’ the problem is very high indeed.” That’s where we’ve been since the United Nations’ traveling climate circus committed itself to the fanatical mission of massive near-term reductions in fossil fuel consumption, codified in unrealistic proposals like the Kyoto Protocol. This third stage, Mr. Downs continues, “becomes almost imperceptibly transformed into the fourth stage: a gradual decline in the intensity of public interest in the problem.”
While opinion surveys find that roughly half of Americans regard climate change as a problem, the issue has never achieved high salience among the public, despite the drumbeat of alarmFrom: RRBud
6/5/18
I have to admit to having no confidence that efforts to "control" or "modify" our global climate would be beneficial.
This week is the first time this year that our local temperatures exceeded 40 degrees C. In the 15 years since I moved to this part of the California desert, usually that happens in late March to early April. So this year's weather patterns over out section of the desert are different than has been the recent normal.
And there's the important part - - it's this year's WEATHER, not necessarily a large-area climate change. Most people don't seem to understand the vast difference.
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From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
6/18/18
The rate of Antarctic melting has nearly tripled in the past five years
The Antarctic ice sheet has lost more than 2,500 billion tonnes of ice in the past 25 years and nearly half of that has happened since 2012.
An international team of polar scientists found that melting in Antarctica has jumped sharply from an average of 76 billion tonnes per year prior to 2012, to around 219 billion tonnes each year between 2012 and 2017.
That's adding 0.6 of a millimetre to sea levels each year. Antarctica stores enough water to raise global sea levels by 58 metres, and has contributed 7.6 millimetres since 1992, according to the research published in Nature today.
The latest data is a continuation of previous assessments known as the Ice sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE), which began in 2011 and tracks ice-sheet loss from 1992 onwards.
IMBIE was established with the support of NASA and the European Space Agency, to monitor the changes in ice-sheet cover around the world.
It uses combined satellite data to measure the Antarctic ice sheet's changing flow and volume.
The increase in melting should act as a wake-up call, according to project leader Professor Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds.
"The rapid increase in Antarctic ice loss is due to ocean melting of glaciers in the Amundsen Sea, and ice shelf collapse on the Antarctic Peninsula," he said in a statement.
"These events and the sea-level rise they've triggered are an indicator of climate change and should be of concern for the governments we trust to protect our coastal cities and communities."
Continued
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
6/18/18
Emerging Antarctic sea-level rise research points to 'worst case scenarios'
West Antarctica contributed the most ice loss from the continent, shedding nearly 160 billion tonnes each year since 2012.
Although the general trend was of reduction, there was some increase in ice cover in East Antarctica.
This region has grown by an average of around 5 billion tonnes per year over the 25-year period, although margins of error could put that figure into the negative.
The researchers attribute the increased losses in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula to changes in regional floating-ice shelves, which can provide a buffer to continental-ice sheets.
In a separate analysis piece in Nature today, climate scientist and Antarctic policy expert Professor Rob DeConto warned that Antarctica may contribute more to sea-level rise than previously thought.
"Emerging science is pointing to more extreme worst-case scenarios with regards to sea-level rise from Antarctica," he stated.
"But the good news is that a reduction in emissions in line with the aspirations of the Paris Climate Agreement dramatically reduces the risk of flooding our coastlines in future decades and centuries."
But there is also room for caution in how this latest data is interpreted.
It's too early to say whether this melting trend will continue or slow down, according to CSIRO physical oceanographer Dr Steve Rintoul, who wasn't involved in the study.
"It's a difficult one for us to answer because the time series is still pretty short," he said.
"There's still a wide range in projections between what is going to happen in Antarctica in the future."
However, he said that there is growing evidence that projections of Antarctica's influence on sea-level rise may have been underestimated.
"What we have seen as the climate has warmed is that more warm water is reaching the Antarctic ice sheet and that's what is melting the sea ice," he said.
Continued
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
6/18/18
The rate of Antarctic melting has nearly tripled in the past five years
The latest data paints a troubling picture of melting in Antarctica.
Read more from ABC NewsSeparate research points to devastating role of ocean swell
As sea-ice retreats, floating Antarctic ice shelves are more exposed to destruction by wave action, according to a separate paper also published in Nature today and not affiliated with the previous study.
However, the role of sea ice in buffering ice shelves and continental ice sheets is rarely factored into Antarctic ice-loss modelling, according to lead researcher Dr Rob Massom from the Australian Antarctic Institute.
His team analysed the Larsen A and Larsen B, and Wilkins ice-shelf disintegration events, and found that lack of sea-ice was a common factor.
"It just so happens that offshore from those ice shelves, it's a hotspot of sea-ice loss," Dr Massom said.
"Ice shelves play a significant role in buttressing the discharge of grounded ice from the ice sheet into the ocean, and it's that ice that contributes to sea-level rise."
He argued that sea-ice loss needs to be considered in future modelling in order to more accurately forecast the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea-level rise in coming decades.
"The disintegration was an eye-opening thing. The glaciers that were feeding into those ice shelves accelerated by up to eight-fold [after the disintegration] and that happened pretty immediately," he said.
"This is a concerning thing if you consider that ice shelves exist around 75 per cent of the periphery of Antarctica. If this kind of thing happens more in the future we have to be aware of that."
From: ElDotardo
6/29/18
Baloney!
Guardian: 205 Feet Of Sea Level Rise By 2095!
In case you forgot for a minute that the left lives in a mindless, fact-free fantasy world, the Guardian is predicting Florida will soon be underwater. Rising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’
Actual data from Florida shows no change in the slow rate of sea level rise over the past century.
Sea Level Trends – NOAA Tides & Currents
The beach at Fort Lauderdale looks exactly the same as 55 years ago.
1960
2014
People on the left (including many prominent climate scientists) simply make things up, refuse to debate, lie to policymakers, and attempt to force their insanity on the rest of the world.
SOURCE
From: ElDotardo
6/29/18
So a few degrees of atmospheric warming is supposed to melt it??
The coldest place on Earth is even colder than thought, a new study has found.
Researchers discovered tiny valleys near the top of Antarctica's ice sheet reach temperatures of nearly minus 100 degrees Celsius (minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit) in the winter.
The results could change scientists' understanding of just how low temperatures can get at Earth's surface, according to the researchers.
The coldest spot on Earth was found on the East Antarctic Plateau, a high snowy plateau in central Antarctica that encompasses the South Pole.
The record breaking temperatures occur occurred in small hollows 2 to 3 meters (6 to 9 feet) deep in the surface of the ice, on the southern side of high ridges on the plateau.
The record of minus 98 degrees Celsius is about as cold as it is possible to get at Earth's surface, according to the researchers.
Scientists used satellite data between 2004 and 2016 to come up with the minus 144 degrees Fahrenheit figure, as the eastern plateau of Antartica is a barren, snowy region where surface-based weather instruments aren't available .
Small low-lying dips in the Antarctic ice sheet had the most frigid temperatures, they found.
Because cold air is dense, it funnels into the dips where it may stay trapped for several days when skies are clear and winds are light.
This is similar to how cold air drains into valley locations at night elsewhere in the world.
Scientists first announced in 2013 they had found the lowest temperatures on Earth's surface in the area.
