Climate Change - General Discussion : Read the Mod Note in post #1 before posting

Turtwig

It's very difficult to say weather patterns are unusual when records in Ireland are not even a thousand years old. What exactly is unusual weather for Ireland?

sryanbruen

Turtwig wrote: »

It's very difficult to say weather patterns are unusual when records in Ireland are not even a thousand years old. What exactly is unusual weather for Ireland?

That's my whole skepticism with climate change, we can only go back so far.

dense

Turtwig wrote: »

It's very difficult to say weather patterns are unusual when records in Ireland are not even a thousand years old. What exactly is unusual weather for Ireland?

http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/weather.html

Anything goes really, we've had it all.

The good news is that globally, climate related deaths keep falling.

Turtwig

sryanbruen wrote: »

That's my whole skepticism with climate change, we can only go back so far.

We can but we can still use past records and that of other planets to make predictions and test them. Science is a remarkable discipline for making indirect observations through skepticism and inquiry. From that hypothesis and theories emerge. Don't forget that most climatologists aren't idiots. They've probably had similar skepticism. The thing is over a century or so, a sum of observations and models from a broad range of disciplines all start pointing one way - and thus far no better explanation has been provided.

dense

1016 ‘A great soughing wind in the autumn of
the above year, and it broke down woods
and houses, and people well-nigh died of
terror.’
Annals of Inisfallen

1121 ‘A great wind-storm happened in the
December of this year, which knocked off
the conical cap of the cloictheach (round
tower) of Ard-Macha (Armagh), and
caused great destruction of woods
throughout Ireland.’
Annals of the Four Masters

1191 ‘Violent wind this year, and it blew down
churches, houses, and woods, and caused
great mortality of people and of the stock
of the men of Ireland.’
Annals of Inisfallen

1363 ‘A very great storm in this year threw down
several churches and houses, and also sank
many ships and boats.’
Annals of the Four Masters; also Annals
of Connacht, Annals of Lough Ce´

1477 ‘A great wind on the eve of St. John the
Evangelist this year, which demolished
many stone and wooden buildings and
crannogs and (hay)ricks all over Ireland.’
Annals of Connacht; also Annals of the
Four Masters

1478 ‘A mighty wind arose on the eve of
Epiphany, and this was a night of
destruction for all owing to the number of
men, cattle, trees, lake and land buildings
which it laid low throughout Ireland. It
broke nine score glazed windows in
Dublin.’
Annals of Connacht; also Annals of
Ulster, Annals of Lough Ce´, Annals of
the Four Masters

1528 ‘A great wind blew on the Friday before
Christmas this year. It felled many trees
and tumbled many wooden and stone
buildings all over Ireland, and especially it
demolished the convent-house at Donegal;
and it swept away and wrecked many
vessels on land and at sea.’
Annals of Connacht; also Annals of
Lough Ce´, Annals of the Four Masters

1547 ‘A great wind arose the night before the
festival of St. Bridget. Scarcely had so great
a storm occurred from the birth of Christ
until then. It threw down churches,
monasteries, and castles, and particularly
the two western wings of the church of
Clonmacnoise.’

https://encrypted.google.com/url?q=http://irishgeography.ie/index.php/irishgeography/article/download/33/33&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjj59S10-zZAhVkDcAKHfERAk84FBAWCBIwAw&usg=AOvVaw2TOD4iijTAsE_W37uPt-Vf

Key Findings
● From the documentary sources (the Gaelic Annals)
there is much evidence for extremes of climate
through the centuries. The data is qualitative and it is
not yet possible to ascribe return periods to extremes
events. A proportion of cold events in the Annals is
linked to volcanic events

http://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/research/climate/ccrpreport5.html

piuswal

"There was no unusual setup with Ophelia. Slightly colder upper air increased and an upper trough to storm's northwest both provided the instability and ventilation tonsustain Ophelia slightly longer than average. It's happened before and will happen again; Debbie in 1961, Frances in 1980 (that we know of). Here's a detailed analysis https://irishweatheronline.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/hurricane-ophelia-a-detailed-analysis/"

Nicely constructed article.

I know Bates qualifications, a serious meteorologist but what are the qualifications of the author of the above report? I just do not know.

dense

piuswal wrote: »

"There was no unusual setup with Ophelia. Slightly colder upper air increased and an upper trough to storm's northwest both provided the instability and ventilation tonsustain Ophelia slightly longer than average. It's happened before and will happen again; Debbie in 1961, Frances in 1980 (that we know of). Here's a detailed analysis https://irishweatheronline.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/hurricane-ophelia-a-detailed-analysis/"

Nicely constructed article.

I know Bates qualifications, a serious meteorologist but what are the qualifications of the author of the above report? I just do not know.

"Make no mistake, Ophelia is what climate change looks like. Every storm now bears the fingerprint of global warming." Oisín Coghlan
Director, Friends of the Earth

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/make-no-mistake-ophelia-is-what-climate-change-looks-like-3650682-Oct2017/

What's Oisín's agenda I wonder?

Even NOAA was reticent about pinning it to climate change.


https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/former-hurricane-ophelia-batters-ireland

Interesting that in that article it does appear to avail of the opportunity to partake in the usual huckster talk that's appearing, blaming global warming for causing more snow and an increase of ice.

In the western North Atlantic, record-breaking snow in eastern Greenland from the remnants of Hurricane Nicole in October 2016 appears to have contributed to a small increase in the mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet this past year.

But if that's not wacky enough, that extra ice is good news AND bad news for climate "scientists".

“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said.

“But this is also bad news.

If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”

The settled science.

dense

If CO2 induced global warming resulting in man made "climate change" is being blamed for recent "unprecedented" snowfalls, what's to "blame" for Met Eireann's list of historic snowfalls:

There are many historical references to severe winters in Ireland. A huge snowfall which lasted three
months is reputed to have occurred around 764 A.D., and in 1433/1434 Ireland suffered another
severe winter. There was a great snow in 1635 (Boate, 1652). From the late 17th
century onwards
weather diaries and newspapers provided information on the weather. From 1800 onwards
meteorological observations were made regularly at an increasing number of locations. Daily
observations commenced at the Phoenix Park, Dublin in 1829.
The following is a record of only the most outstanding snowfall events in the past two centuries.
Many other events may have merited inclusion but records are scant.
Outstanding snowstorms of the 19th century:
1807 On 19th and 20th November, a disastrous blizzard swept the country and many people
were killed. Two transport ships were wrecked on the east coast. Heavy snow
prevented the crews from realising how close they were to land. Records at the
Phoenix Park detail heavy falls of snow during the winter and many people died.
1831, 1836-8 Records at the Phoenix Park detail heavy falls of snow during these winters.
1853 In a violent snowstorm on the 14th February a ship, the “Queen Victoria” struck rocks
off Howth Head with a loss of 55 lives.
1855 February was a cold month at the Phoenix Park, with snow on the ground from the 7th
to 23rd
.
1881 The records at the Phoenix Park, Dublin recorded remarkable snowstorms in January
(O’Reilly, 1981).
1886 A great blizzard with snow depths up to 60cm struck Northern Ireland. Later between
April 7th and 10th there was heavy snow, especially in the Tipperary area.
1891/92 This winter saw snowfalls which were greater than those previously recorded.
Railway traffic was seriously disrupted in the third week of February. Snow to a
depth of 46cm was recorded in Cork, the greatest fall since 1855.
1895 Heavy falls occurred in February, particularly in the West and South.

https://encrypted.google.com/url?q=https://www.met.ie/climate-ireland/SnowfallAnal.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwje7e-tke7ZAhWoJ8AKHRlvAccQFggLMAA&usg=AOvVaw34Ttl9OCShHRCqSizI9wd_

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

All hearsay, Your Honour.

There was no unusual setup with Ophelia. Slightly colder upper air and an upper trough to storm's northwest both provided the instability and ventilation to sustain Ophelia slightly longer than average. It's happened before and will happen again; Debbie in 1961, Frances in 1980 (that we know of). Here's a detailed analysis https://irishweatheronline.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/hurricane-ophelia-a-detailed-analysis/

Harvey got stalled by a weak jet. Happens all the time, only this is time by chance it happened to occur over land. Hurricane Sandy, while unusual, was not unprecedented. The real discussion about Sandy was the poor handling by all the models except the ECM, which nailed its westerly track well in advance while the others screamed an easterly turn out to sea.

The recent easterly is not unprecedented either. It too has happened before. Suddenly stratospheric warnings are a natural occurrence and have delivered such late cold before.

You seem to be making wild statements of individual events being linked to this and that without any shred of evidence. You dismiss Bates' paper "from memory " because it doesn't fit the hype (and probably because it's Bates). The link I posted contains the link to his paper so have a read of it again to refresh your memory and then come back with all the evidence to back up your claims.

There is evidence that the decreased temperature gradient is affecting the jet stream and this is affecting how storms behave

A paper just published in Nature a couple of days ago shows that the winter storms that are currently bombarding the north eastern USA are being exasperated by the rapidly warming Arctic.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02992-9

Variability in the day-to-day weather is due to a combination of forced and natural variability. Forced variability results from boundary conditions, such as sea-surface temperatures, and natural or internal variability results from the chaotic nature of dynamical systems1,2. While the tropics are usually considered the main driver of boundary-forced variability3,4, recent studies have argued that the Arctic is playing an increasingly important role as a boundary-forcing agent owing to its accelerated warming relative to other regions of the globe5,6,7,8,9......

.... Previous studies have shown qualitatively that anomalously high geopotential heights across the Arctic are linked with extreme weather events across the mid-latitudes in winter18,26 and even into spring27. However, those studies were limited to just a few months of one particular year. Here we present a more extensive, quantitative analysis of the link between Arctic variability and severe winter weather across the mid-latitudes. In this study we find a robust relationship between Arctic temperatures and severe winter weather in the United States. When the Arctic is warm both cold temperatures and heavy snowfall are more frequent compared to when the Arctic is cold. We also found that during the period of accelerated warming when the Arctic warming reaches into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere during mid-winter to late-winter severe winter weather has been increasing.

Regarding tropical cyclone and ex tropical cyclones and how they are affected, there hasn't been enough data yet to come to strong conclusions, but we can see the Jet stream changing, it's happening now, and the jet Stream along with the other atmospheric currents, the polar vortex etc, are major drivers of weather. We can't reduce ice volumes in the Arctic by 80% in one generation and not expect there to be consequences further down stream.

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

There is evidence that the decreased temperature gradient is affecting the jet stream and this is affecting how storms behave

A paper just published in Nature a couple of days ago shows that the winter storms that are currently bombarding the north eastern USA are being exasperated by the rapidly warming Arctic.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02992-9

We're talking about tropical systems during the summer/autumn, and more precisely, Ophelia, Harvey and Sandy. You said these were affected by climate change.

As I posted before, this paper, from one of the most prominent NHC forecasters, has found the trend in tropical cyclones worldwide to be nothing like the doomsday forecasts put out in the aftermath of the 2005 Atlantic season. The trend is, in fact, the opposite, and the apparent increase was merely due different observational techniques. It's ironic that after 2005 we had some of the quietest seasons for over a decade.

This is from that paper:

Quote:4. Conclusions

It was suggested by Klotzbach (2006) and Landsea et al. (2006) that technological improvements during the 1970s and 1980s were primarily responsible for the dramatic increases in the frequency and percentage occurrences of category 4–5 hurricanes worldwide reported in Webster et al. (2005). With 10 additional hurricane seasons now available to analyze, the long-term (1970–2014) trends showed reduced trends in category 4–5 frequency and percentage globally. When restricted to the most recent 25 years (1990–2014) with the most reliable and homogeneous records, the following conclusions are reached from this analysis:

Small, insignificant decreasing trends are present in category 4–5 hurricane frequency in the Northern Hemisphere and globally, while there is no virtually no trend in Southern Hemisphere frequency.

Small, insignificant upward trends are present in category 4–5 hurricane percentage in the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere, and globally.

Large, significant downward trends are present in accumulated cyclone energy in the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere, and globally.

These results provide more evidence that the changes reported by Webster et al. (2005) that occurred in number and percentages of category 4–5 hurricanes globally during the 1970s and 1980s were likely primarily due to improved observational capabilities. These results are more in line with expectations from climate models (Knutson et al. 2010, 2013; Camargo 2013; Christensen et al. 2013; Bender et al. 2010), which suggest that no appreciable change in category 4–5 hurricane numbers or percentages would be detectable at this time due to anthropogenic climate change.
Because of the additional evidence provided here about the artificial impacts of technology on the best-track databases, it is recommended that global studies addressing trends in extreme hurricanes (as well as combined metrics like ACE) begin around 1990. Before this time, the records are currently incomplete and lead to a distorted view of the actual activity that occurred before that time. We would also encourage the further development and extension backward in time of satellite-only homogeneous databases (Kossin et al. 2013) suitable for trend analysis.

Trends in category 4–5 hurricane numbers and percentages and ACE should be revisited whenever historical TC databases are reanalyzed (Hagen et al. 2012) and when another decade or so of additional seasons are recorded. However, given the large natural variability driven by ENSO and other natural phenomena, it is likely to be challenging to confidently ascribe an anthropogenic signal to changes in the most intense tropical cyclones for the next several decades

Regarding tropical cyclone and ex tropical cyclones and how they are affected, there hasn't been enough data yet to come to strong conclusions, but we can see the Jet stream changing, it's happening now, and the jet Stream along with the other atmospheric currents, the polar vortex etc, are major drivers of weather. We can't reduce ice volumes in the Arctic by 80% in one generation and not expect there to be consequences further down stream.

Again, there are plenty of data out there, none of which support your theory, which seems based on a lot of ifs and "bound to bes". If you have specific scientific arguments on each of those storms then let's discuss them.

Akrasia

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

We're talking about tropical systems during the summer/autumn, and more precisely, Ophelia, Harvey and Sandy. You said these were affected by climate change.

As I posted before, this paper, from one of the most prominent NHC forecasters, has found the trend in tropical cyclones worldwide to be nothing like the doomsday forecasts put out in the aftermath of the 2005 Atlantic season. The trend is, in fact, the opposite, and the apparent increase was merely due different observational techniques. It's ironic that after 2005 we had some of the quietest seasons for over a decade.

This is from that paper:






Again, there are plenty of data out there, none of which support your theory, which seems based on a lot of ifs and "bound to bes". If you have specific scientific arguments on each of those storms then let's discuss them.

None of that addresses my point which was that the storm tracks are apparently changing.

https://nsidc.org/about/monthlyhighlights/2009/09/arctic-amplification

The implications of Arctic amplification are only beginning to be understood. Scientists at NSIDC are working with groups around the world to understand the likely impacts of Arctic amplification and whether they are already emerging. Wind patterns are expected to spread the warming over high-latitude land areas, warming the tundra and its underlying permafrost. There is growing recognition that this could thaw permafrost and release the carbon stored in these soils back to the atmosphere, further accelerating climate warming. Some numerical simulations indicate that loss of the sea ice cover may lead to changes storm tracks and rainfall patterns over Europe or the American West. Still other studies find that the effects of Arctic amplification on atmospheric circulation will be largely limited to the Arctic itself. While there is tantalizing evidence that the atmospheric circulation is already responding to the loss of ice, the answers are not yet in.

I fail to understand how someone who understands so much about weather doesn't see the risks attached to major changes in key elements of the atmospheric circulation systems.

Arctic amplification has only really kicked off since about 1990,

Climate models, supported by a growing body of observational data, have demonstrated that storm tracks shift poleward as the climate warms. But the dynamical mechanisms responsible for this shift remain unclear.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00404.1

A poleward shift in the extratropical storm tracks has been identified in observational and climate simulations. The authors examine the role of altered sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on the storm-track position and intensity in an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) using realistic lower boundary conditions.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00174.1

An interdecadal weakening in the North Atlantic storm track (NAST) and a poleward shift of the North Pacific storm track (NPST) are found during October–March for the period 1979–2015.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0650.1

And here's a paper that refers to future projections for hurricane activity that will affect western europe as SSTs increase. This is from models rather than observations but it's from the Danish Met office and uses high res meterological models to show that in a warmer world, there will likely be more hurricanes coming our way.

[1] We use a very high resolution global climate model (~25 km grid size) with prescribed sea surface temperatures to show that greenhouse warming enhances the occurrence of hurricane-force (> 32.6 m s–1) storms over western Europe during early autumn (August–October), the majority of which originate as a tropical cyclone. The rise in Atlantic tropical sea surface temperatures extends eastward the breeding ground of tropical cyclones, yielding more frequent and intense hurricanes following pathways directed toward Europe. En route they transform into extratropical depressions and reintensify after merging with the midlatitude baroclinic unstable flow. Our model simulations clearly show that future tropical cyclones are more prone to hit western Europe, and do so earlier in the season, thereby increasing the frequency and impact of hurricane force winds.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50360/abstract

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

And here's a paper that refers to future projections for hurricane activity that will affect western europe as SSTs increase. This is from models rather than observations but it's from the Danish Met office and uses high res meterological models to show that in a warmer world, there will likely be more hurricanes coming our way.

SST anomaly for September 1961, a month that saw the strongest Autumn storm (classed as a Cat 1 by NOAA) in living memory, and which made Ophelia, which travelled over warmer SSTs, look spectacularly tame by comparison.

piuswal

"We are close to the tipping point, where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees [Celsius], and raining sulfuric acid," he told BBC News, referring to the president's decision in June 2017 to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal.

just a quote from Stephen Hawkins

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

SST anomaly for September 1961, a month that saw the strongest Autumn storm (classed as a Cat 1 by NOAA) in living memory, and which made Ophelia, which travelled over warmer SSTs, look spectacularly tame by comparison.

This is like pointing at a car crash caused by a tyre blowout as an argument that drink doesn't cause car crashes.

Every weather event has unique elements. Using high res weather models to see how changing SSTs will affect storms is a scientific way of assessing how weather. Will react to changing certain elements of the atmosphere/ocean. It allows multiple runs to allow for controlling variables and statistical significant results. Individual examples are useful case studies but that sample size is too low to build a model based on individual examples

Akrasia

piuswal wrote: »

"We are close to the tipping point, where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees [Celsius], and raining sulfuric acid," he told BBC News, referring to the president's decision in June 2017 to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal.

just a quote from Stephen Hawkins

Steven Hawking was a clever guy but not a climate scientist or an astronomer

Rather than listen to him, we might look towards the considered opinion of expert climatologists who are much better placed to assess the latest climate literature. Michael Mann for example. The interview on the link below is well worth listening to

“In reality,” he says, “it's much more subtle than that. There isn't one tipping point. There isn't one cliff that we go off. It's more like we're stepping out onto a minefield and we don't know exactly where those mines are, but the farther we step out into the minefield — the more we warm the planet — the more likely it is that we do set off these mines, that we do encounter devastating tipping point-like changes in the climate.”......

..... Just in the last few years, Mann points out, researchers have measured record global ocean temperatures, which have led to the strongest hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere, Hurricane Patricia; the strongest hurricane in the Southern Hemisphere, Hurricane Winston; and the strongest storm ever recorded in the open Atlantic, Hurricane Irma.

“It’s not a coincidence,” Mann says. “As these ocean temperatures continue to warm, we are going to see the strongest storms get stronger.”
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-04/humanity-has-entered-global-warming-minefield-climate-scientists-say

Oneiric 3

piuswal wrote: »

"We are close to the tipping point, where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees [Celsius], and raining sulfuric acid," he told BBC News, referring to the president's decision in June 2017 to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal.

just a quote from Stephen Hawkins

I wonder how much his political leanings, whatever they might be, influenced this statement of his? My guess is a lot.

Turtwig

Mann's analogy there was rather eloquent.

Oneiric 3

Turtwig wrote: »

Mann's analogy there was rather eloquent.

Which contains a factual error regarding Atlantic Hurricane strength, the most powerful and strongest of which was 'Allen' back in 1980, and not 'Irma', as stated by Mann.

Turtwig

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Which contains a factual error regarding Atlantic Hurricane strength, the most powerful and strongest of which was 'Allen' back in 1980, and not 'Irma', as stated by Mann.

Don't really see the significant of that error as the spirit of the analogy still carries.

That said, it's implied that Mann stated that but is there a direct quotation? Could it just be Adam Wernicks words attributed to Mann. Or Wernick intrepeting Mann as stating definitively one characteristic of a hurricane and conflating that with another. He's not quoting at that point, he's paraphrasing and paraphrasing is often dangerous when it comes to any science. It could of course be an error by Mann. There's not enough in the article to really determine who made the claim and what that claim specifically was with certainty.

Akrasia

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Which contains a factual error regarding Atlantic Hurricane strength, the most powerful and strongest of which was 'Allen' back in 1980, and not 'Irma', as stated by Mann.

It depends on what metric you are using. Irma broke lots of records, what Mann was talking about was the open Atlantic, ie, outside of the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico, where Allen stayed during it's strongest phase.

Irma also sustained it's max winds for 37 hours, which is record breaking duration anywhere in the world, it was the joint longest ever duration cat 5 hurricane

Irma was a monster storm. Whether it was the actual record breaker in one category or other isn't really the point. It's the fact that there were so many immense storms forming in different parts of the world in a short space of time. This is what is so shocking. One storm here or there is explainable by natural variability.

Akrasia

Turtwig wrote: »

Don't really see the significant of that error as the spirit of the analogy still carries.

That said, it's implied that Mann stated that but is there a direct quotation? Could it just be Adam Wernicks words attributed to Mann. Or Wernick intrepeting Mann as stating definitively one characteristic of a hurricane and conflating that with another. He's not quoting at that point, he's paraphrasing and paraphrasing is often dangerous when it comes to any science. It could of course be an error by Mann. There's not enough in the article to really determine who made the claim and what that claim specifically was with certainty.

The article was based on an interview which you can hear on that page. (there's a play button at the top of the page)

Turtwig

Akrasia wrote: »

The article was based on an interview which you can hear on that page. (there's a play button at the top of the page)

Ahh woe is me.

Akrasia

Turtwig wrote: »

Ahh woe is me.

Must be snow blindness from all the excitement recently

dense

I wouldn't get too alarmed about it.


https://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2018/0220-weather-should-remain-predictable-despite-climate-change/



Weather should remain predictable despite climate change

Simulations of jet stream behavior in a warming climate suggest ranges of forecasts in the mid-century will be similar to those in present day, MU study finds.

Gaoth Laidir

dense wrote: »

"Make no mistake, Ophelia is what climate change looks like. Every storm now bears the fingerprint of global warming." Oisín Coghlan
Director, Friends of the Earth

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/make-no-mistake-ophelia-is-what-climate-change-looks-like-3650682-Oct2017/

This is the nonsense I'm talking about. Obviously he has an agenda to promote this misinformation, but he's not the only one.

Gaoth Laidir

Akrasia wrote: »

None of that addresses my point which was that the storm tracks are apparently changing.

https://nsidc.org/about/monthlyhighlights/2009/09/arctic-amplification

I fail to understand how someone who understands so much about weather doesn't see the risks attached to major changes in key elements of the atmospheric circulation systems.

Arctic amplification has only really kicked off since about 1990,

The NSIDC paper is from 2009, written after the record low sea ice of 2007. Almost a decade later and we're still waiting to see any major effects of Arctic amplification.

The poleward shift of only 0.8 ° (around 90 km) with a doubling of CO2 is not exactly something to get overly concerned about. Surely that's not what you're basing your argument on?

And here's a paper that refers to future projections for hurricane activity that will affect western europe as SSTs increase. This is from models rather than observations but it's from the Danish Met office and uses high res meterological models to show that in a warmer world, there will likely be more hurricanes coming our way.

Again, very slight shifts are forecast in this paper, but even then there are huge ifs and buts with the findings, as conceded by the authors themselves. The model can't even get the present conditions right. Given that the trend in severe hurricanes is slightly downward (as I quoted yesterday) then there really is not much certainty what will happen, one way or the other.

[18] For the current climate, the model simulates 18.3 hurricane days (> 32.6 m s–1) per season, which is slightly less than the observed long-term mean of 23.8 [Gray and Landsea, 1992]. The number of simulated intense hurricane days (IHD) (> 49.2 m s–1, Cat 3–5) is 0.7, much smaller than the observed long-term mean of 5.7, illustrating the inability of the model to simulate the most severe hurricanes. The model simulations depict a more than fourfold increase in major hurricanes over the 21st century, with IHD increasing to 3.1 (see also Figure S1). More intense hurricanes are generally able to survive longer in a nonsupportive environment [Hart and Evans, 2001]. The consequence of the underestimation of IHD in the present climate is that even more hurricanes could hit western Europe, but higher resolutions would be required to properly investigate this.

[19] Another caveat is that the model uses fixed SSTs, which prevents the possibility of negative feedback on intensity due to SST cooling associated with vertical ocean mixing or latent heat fluxes, which might significantly reduce the intensity of hurricanes.

[20] The results of this study are based on two samples of 30 years. Although we argue that the main conclusions are not affected by the small sample size, we realize that more extended simulations are needed to further test our results.

Turtwig

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

This is the nonsense I'm talking about. Obviously he has an agenda to promote this misinformation, but he's not the only one.

The part that infuriates me is these are the sort of folk that get picked by broadcasters to communicate the issue with the general public.
I recall once a tv discussion on the potential impacts for Ireland ( very important you'd think). On one side this Greenpeace guy on the other this Ireland's Dragon den guy.

Don't get me wrong, these people could have a really good depth of knowledge on the issue. It was obvious within two minutes that they didn't - the discussion went on for twenty minutes. It probably is best described as two pigeons trying to play chess against one another. Neither of them know the rules. They are both equally convinced they do and that the other doesn't.
It's an absolute mess.

Although I suppose to be fair, that is most television discussions these days.

dense

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

This is the nonsense I'm talking about. Obviously he has an agenda to promote this misinformation, but he's not the only one.

Socialist politics.

Here he is listed chairing meetings about water privatisation in Bolivia, alongside the better known socialist, Joe Higgins, and sponsored by Communities against Water Tax on the local "Workers Solidarity Movement" website:

https://www.wsm.ie/content/meeting-water-privitisation-bolivia-might-have-relevence-whats-coming-us-next


But I'm sure he'd say his agenda is just one of the utmost importance, to save the planet.

I'm pretty sure he'd point to the UNIPCC and their reports to back up his concerns.

He, just like Professor Sweeney and Mary Robinson, is terribly keen on achieving climate justice for those for whom they perceive the climate has been unjust to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression that you suspect there's something a bit fishy about the whole thing?

dense

Turtwig wrote: »

The part that infuriates me is these are the sort of folk that get picked by broadcasters to communicate the issue with the general public.
I recall once a tv discussion on the potential impacts for Ireland ( very important you'd think). On one side this Greenpeace guy on the other this Ireland's Dragon den guy.

Don't get me wrong, these people could have a really good depth of knowledge on the issue. It was obvious within two minutes that they didn't - the discussion went on for twenty minutes. It probably is best described as two pigeons trying to play chess against one another. Neither of them know the rules. They are both equally convinced they do and that the other doesn't.
It's an absolute mess.

Although I suppose to be fair, that is most television discussions these days.

It was filler TV, because the bottom line is no one knows.

The question was already asked in this thread and the same thing ensued.

Nobody knows. It can be said quickly, in one line, or can be said in a number of paragraphs.

Nobody can say what impact Ireland can expect to experience from climate change, how much climate change Ireland is responsible for causing, or, how much climate change Ireland can avert if their C02 reduction/elimination policies are implemented here.

In any other science or field this would be pretty basic information to be in possession of Before any intelligent discussion could occur.

That is why you were let down watching that programme.

And the quality and deficit of logic in the climate movement here causes some people to question whether there is acually some other agenda at play.

piuswal

Quote:
Originally Posted by piuswal View Post
"We are close to the tipping point, where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees [Celsius], and raining sulfuric acid," he told BBC News, referring to the president's decision in June 2017 to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal.

just a quote from Stephen Hawkins

Arkasia
"Steven Hawking was a clever guy but not a climate scientist or an astronomer"

I would suggest Stephen Hawkins was a bit more than just a clever guy.

A remarkable physicist, who would have very carefully assessed all the evidence before making such a statement.