TIPPING POINT: Climate change, habitat loss, population growth and other human impacts may be pushing the planet toward a critical transition to another ecological state.
Image: Flickr/NasaEarthObservatory
Human activities are pushing Earth toward a "tipping point" that could cause sudden, irreversible changes in relatively stable conditions that have allowed civilization to flourish, a new study warns.
There are signs that a toxic brew of climate change, habitat loss and population growth is dramatically reshaping life on Earth, an international team of researchers reported yesterday in the journal Nature.
Those pressures are greater than the natural forces that caused the end of the last ice age roughly 11,700 years ago, a time when half the planet's large mammal species went extinct and humans migrated out of Africa.
"We are doing enough to cause one of these tipping points," said lead author Anthony Barnosky, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley. "The question now is, how close are we? Is it inevitable? What are the changes that we see coming down the road that we should be aware of in order to make the best of it, essentially."
The answer provided by Barnosky and more than 20 other experts in paleontology, ecology, geology, population biology and complex systems isn't comforting.
The scientists say it's likely -- though not certain -- that Earth is close to another wholesale transformation, but when that will happen and whether it will be irreversible isn't clear.
"We know that at the landscape scale, if you disturb between 50 to 90 percent of patches, you see major changes in ones that you haven't disturbed directly," Barnosky said. "We know that we are at a point on the planet where you have more than 43 percent of the land surface wholesale transformed for human needs. If we transform more and more, we'll be at a point where even places we haven't transformed with our sledgehammers will go through major changes."
The researchers say there is a pressing need for better models and observations to help anticipate future changes and determine how close the planet is to a global tipping point.
The difficulty lies in developing methods to pinpoint the thresholds beyond which systems can flip from relative stability or slow, linear change to rapid transformation.
Scientists hope to reduce 'biological surprises'
"We need to be able to anticipate what are the worst-case scenarios and develop work-arounds in time to actually work around them," Barnosky said. "What we don't want are huge biological surprises that affect how we grow our food or where we get our water."
The idea isn't new. In recent years, scientists who study the climate have argued that humans have changed it enough to push Earth into a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene. Biologists have warned that accelerating rates of species loss suggest the planet is entering the sixth great extinction in its history, on par with the event that wiped out the dinosaurs.
In 2009, another international team of scientists publishing a study in Nature attempted to lay out a series of seven "planetary boundaries" to preserve conditions in which humans can thrive -- and argued that the world has blown by three of those boundaries already.
"They're all pieces of the same puzzle," Barnosky said. "What's different about what we've come up with here is that we've looked at the past. We talk about the Anthropocene and all of these changes, but there hasn't really been a context to put it in."
The new study uses seven major, undisputed planetary shifts as its benchmarks: the transition 11,700 years ago from the last ice age to the current "interglacial" climate; the five mass extinctions that occurred 65 million, 200 million, 251 million, 359 million and 443 million years ago; and the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago, when the number and type of species increased rapidly.
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73 Comments
Add CommentMost people won't believe it even after it's happened. If we cannot find a way to pitch conservation using only personal greed as inducement to change, change will never happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it is important to understand the difference between phenological variation and genetic variation before considering the sixth extinction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo late; tipping point was around 2005.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike watching a top series car race: the average fans see the car missing the corner, the experienced pros on the pitwall knew what was going to happen before the fans, the driver knew it before the pros on the wall. Very, very few may have noticed it at the same time as the driver and even maybe a split second before because they watched the car while the driver was possibly still concentrating on his downshifting. And it all happens in a very few seconds.
Watching climate happening these days is the same thing, except that the time scale is different where one year is equal to let's say half a second in racing. In short, half the climate pitwall saw it coming, the other half just realized it. And the fans? Are about to find out. Give it another "three seconds".
Wrong question then, we're already over the edge. Only idiots still want to debate how to avoid the chute or even refuse to acknowledge the falling motion because they look backwards and into the sky, mistaking their view for sunny weather. Time to refocus on the do-able.
But that will of course come too late also. So let's face it, we're on the steepest, longest slope of the biggest rollercoaster ever. Exciting times ahead, might as well "enjoy the ride".
agreeing with psittacid - WIIFM - what's in it for me - people don't usually go broke assuming human stupidity and greed
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisin a complex world of constantly changing weather, the average Joe cannot confirm in their own mind whether the weather is caused by God or Oil companies
yet a hopeful thought is Silent Spring - faced with a terrible pollution of our waterways with poisonous chemicals - people rose to the challenge and stopped it
this year I've been mystified that whereas in a usual season only a few of my work colleagues would be off with the flu/bug, this year everyone has been complaining of it and taken time off - whose fault - hmmm - Obama ?
and yes - I will enjoy the ride - in the chasm between birth and death, with now the only moment we have, I choose to be happy ...
It is interesting the author states that "We know that at the landscape scale, if you disturb between 50 to 90 percent of patches, you see major changes in ones that you haven't disturbed directly," and 43 percent of the land surface wholesale transformed for human needs. What if the surface transformation is the cause of global warming and CO2 has nothing to do with it? Maybe the real threat is destruction of natural landscape and spending time and resources on a perceived carbon threat is a complete waste of time. It could be kind of like taking shark cartilage for cancer. The cartilage doesn't hurt you but the fact that you take that instead of an effective medicine kills you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs David and Flea and a lot of good people have been trying to explain about feedback loops, as usual among complex systems, the planet will not remain stably at any arbitrary temperature but has saddle points of stability wherein negative (self-regulatory, as in living beings) feedback loops prevail. Outside these stable points (at intermediary temperatures) the positive (runaway) feedback loops prevail. Thus, it swings between stable points.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere are we going? Will we all bake? No. But we are likely to shift to the World Tropic of the Jurassic.
If you take my five favorite Contrarian websites (see below), you’ll see graphs of Earth’s temperature over the geologic ages. The first was copied from Nasa. They show how the temperature has swung over the last hundreds of millions of years between “cool” and “warm” temperature spots. These go from 12 to 15 degrees Celsius at the cool point and 25 to 27 at the warm.
The cool periods include Today (Quaternary), Ordovician, Silurian and Permian. The warm periods include Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, time of the giant insects due not to temperatures but to high oxygen levels, and the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous ages, of the dinosaurs.
It is quite possible that now, due to the Arctic methane we may have a runaway greenhouse effect until the next stable point (similar in being ‘runaway’ as to what happens in Venus for natural causes, but naturally with less dramatic effects because we only get half the sunshine)
We have a reasonable chance of ending up with not a 2 or 3 degree increase, up to around 18 degrees Celsius; we are may very well oscillate back up to the average “warmer” temperature, which was not 2 or 3 degrees, but 10 to 15 degrees higher than today, to the worldwide tropical world of the dinosaurs.
All perfectly natural. Just not very good for us. All thanks to fossil fuel peddling and the gluttonous greed of Big Oil. Who cares if it changes a little? Change is good for you!, says the oil baron or corporate suit; well, in that case, I am sure they will not mind when we bill them in court for any inconvenience, such as for coastal relocation and drought remediation.
http://strongasanoxandnearlyassmart.blogspot.com.br/2011/01/for-several-years-i-have-immersed.html
(12 C – 25 C)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/co2_fairytales_in_global_warmi.html
(12 C – 22 C)
http://www.stuffintheair.com/ancient-climates.html
(12 C – 27 C)
http://earthintime.com/earthintime.html
(15 C – 22 C)
http://www.nctimes.com/app/blogs/wp/?p=5373
(12 C – 25 C)
CO2 has everything to do with it, and surface transformation a little less; On the large scale, we have transformed our economy into that which plunders our ecology, and thus, the surface is a sidenote, but still an important variable to our future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere are Carlyle, Poker, and Prid?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Moss Boss,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo not worry. The horsemen of fake skepticism riding in any moment on their little ponies to strike fear with their cardboard weapons of corporate propaganda and idiot reasoning.
Here is the link to the peer reviewed article:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApproaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7401/full/nature11018.html
Abstract:
I've said this before, but here goes again:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA radical conservative in-law of mine insists that scientists are just egg heads with no business sense, and the malarkey they put out about risks of over-population, global warming, pollution of land and sea and water, is supported by hypochondriacs, lazy good-for-nothings who are jealous of successful people like himself who are not lazy and stupid, and just wish they could hamper that success.
You know the drill. He says Malthus was proved wrong, and that science (yes, the ones he just got through saying are egg heads who have no business sense, and are trying to justify being given money that taxes the "successful") have always found new ways to produce food and energy and always will. Scientists are naive villains, in one of this man's breaths, and geniuses when he needs them for another argument. It may surprise you that one of his brags is that he has never been so stupid as to vote for a Democrat.
Possibly you know someone like that guy.
Anyhow, one day, as I simply bit my lip, listening to this s--t being repeated by him loudly, and two feet from my face, I got an idea I hoped might cause him to rethink his stance on risk of human over-population at some future time. (Of COURSE it didn't register with him; but, hey, it was worth a try...)
I said, "Maybe you are right. Maybe the rate of INCREASE in rate of human population growth will continue for another century, and scientists will find a way for all those people to have plenty to eat. If so, I wonder how much space there will be for us to sit down or lie down, because mathematically, you are predicting a situation in which there will be STANDING ROOM ONLY; and, after that, being of the lower class will become literal fact -- because the only room for the upper class will be standing on the tops of the heads of the lower class."
My know-it-all in-law wasn't even phased. He didn't get it.
His response was:
"You're starting to sounds like you are one of the brainwashed ones."
I saw my wife giving me that look, so I shut up and went back to biting my lower lip, this time so hard I tasted blood.
We're in a lot of trouble, you and me.
My bro-in-law is, too.
The only difference is, he lives in blissful ignorance and probably will die as he has lived in luxury, leaving the math intact -- but leaving it to his great grand kids to deal with.
He, and you, and I have lived in the best of all possible times -- times when there was still some room to move around and have a little elbow room,& credit cards galore.
@Jeenios,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are two types of demographers in the world: those who are Malthusian and those who are bad at math.
Most cogently surface transformation IS a major source of CO2 emissions. Look at it this way. Any given area that has had reasonably steady conditions for centuries or 1000's of years is likely to be in a state where it supports about as much biomass as possible. If it could support more something would move in and take that niche. When you go in and disturb that ecology the chances that you reduce the biomass present, and thus reduce carbon fixing and sequestration is pretty high. Any disturbance is also likely to upset existing carbon stores and lead to CO2 release.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, degrading the landscape, really altering it in most ways unless you were very careful and really knew what you were doing, is almost bound to lead to some CO2 release and some AGW. The same observation holds for methane as well. Given that there are few ways to disturb a place and get a COOLING effect land use patterns are certainly a major source of warming. This has of course long been factored into analyses of probable future climate, there's whole sections on it in the IPCC reports.
My only other observation though is that climate change isn't the only thing going on here. It may not even be the most significant thing. Species dynamics, energetic relationships between organisms and communities, and all sorts of other factors are important as well.
LOL, yeah, I hear you. That's a good one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course it HAS always been dangerous to predict catastrophe so far. The problem is "it hasn't happened therefore (in these different conditions) it just never will" is no kind of argument. OTOH it is easy to see why in this time when we've achieved so much progress that it is pretty easy to assume it just has no practical limits.
IMHO what is happening in reality is we just keep using technology to up the ante. You can keep playing that game, but eventually you run out of chips and nature calls your hand. If nitrate fertilizers and pesticides hadn't been invented Malthus would have been correct. Those techs let us instead create a massively larger population overhang, now depending on that tech. We might well find another set of techs to deal with today's problems, but then we'll just run into the next challenge, except then we'll be 40 billion strong and the consequences of a mistake will be FAR worse.
If you look at it in the long run it kind of seems to me like mankind is both too dumb to know better and too clever to sit back and live within its means. It may well be a rather lethal combination, unless the trans-humanist's pipe dreams turn out to be reality.
Eh, I guess I'll be around another 30-40 years anyway. Maybe by then we'll have some idea of where this rabbit hole leads...
The many glaring errors in this article undermine the credibility of the researchers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Those pressures are greater than the natural forces that caused the end of the last ice age roughly 11,700 years ago, a time when half the planet's large mammal species went extinct and humans migrated out of Africa."
Earth is still in an ice age since it still has polar ice caps. Humans migrated out of Africa much earlier. There were humans in Australia 40,000 years ago.
"Biologists have warned that accelerating rates of species loss suggest the planet is entering the sixth great extinction in its history, on par with the event that wiped out the dinosaurs."
The extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs was a giant meteor impact. Are they predicting a giant asteroid will hit earth this century? This is at par with the 2012 doomsayers.
"The new study uses seven major, undisputed planetary shifts as its benchmarks: the transition 11,700 years ago from the last ice age to the current "interglacial" climate... and the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago, when the number and type of species increased rapidly."
These two events are different or contradictory to the present global warming. The interglacial transition was not due to high atmospheric CO2. It was below 300 ppm in the last 400,000 years. The Cambrian explosion occured when CO2 was 20x higher than today and the polar ice caps were completely melted. It should have been a mass extinction.
Nice to see you're off your Mama's couch again Trent 1492. Raiding her fridge again while telling everyone else how they need to live?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only comment that I have is that I agree with much of this article. As long as the BS about CO2 is left out, the issues of land use and population pressures are potentially true.
The question then becomes, what does one do about it?
a. Spend untold trillions on CO2 which will have virtually no impact on any aspect of the environment and would likely only exasperate the situation as it would impoverish further the poor; or
b. Spend billions on medicine, clean water, health care, GM foods and natural gas so that people can feed themselves and bvetter their lot in life.
Let me guess: You and your eco-corporate employers would pick A. Why? because the eco-corporations already have made hundreds of billions $$ at stake in re-making the world in Their Image. People? Disease? Fresh water? Accessible energy? No $$ in that for the eco-corps; they are purely in it for themselves.
The eco movement is anti-human to it's sick and twisted core.
Also, it's been learned that NASA and GISS have been cooking the U.S. historical temperature records. Now do you think that the cooking resulted in history being made warmer (minimize the CAGW issue) or do you think they have fudged the #'s to make the past look colder (maximize the CAGW issue).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnybody want to guess?
You are correct. They fudged the actual data to make it look colder, thereby making today's temperatures look warmer.
What else would Hansen do?
CO2 is the cause of global warming. We understand exactly why CO2 causes warming by scattering infrared. If you compare graphs of CO2 production, CO2 concentrations, El Nino/La Nina cycles, sunspot cycles (proxy for solar output), and stratospheric volcanic events, you can be left with little doubt about anthropogenic warming due to fossil fuel use. In about 30 - 40 years, human population will surpass what is environmentally sustainable (making the outrageous assumption of equitable distribution). At about the same time global warming will likely cause significant disruptions to food production. The population overshoot will mean that we dramatically rape and degrade the environment in a desparate effort to feed all of us. That will reduce the level of sustainability. The result could be a massive population collapse -- perhaps significantly more than a billion people. But you are right about us targeting the wrong culprit in some sense. Over-population is the primary cause -- just as religion and ideology gets the blame for war when resource scarcity (and thus overpopulation) is always the root cause. Only China has ever seriously attempted to address it, with mixed results. It would appear that their attempt was not nearly drastic enough. The longer we stick our heads in the sand, the more draconian the solution. It is rather clear to me that history will refer to a time in our near future as the generation without children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Shoshin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't you have some dilithium crystals to mine?
Now onto your patented nonsense.
Shoshin Says: . Spend untold trillions on CO2 which will have virtually no impact on any aspect of the environment and would likely only exasperate the situation as it would impoverish further the poor; or
b. Spend billions on medicine, clean water, health care, GM foods and natural gas so that people can feed themselves and bvetter their lot in life.
Trent Says: Allow me to introduce you to the logical fallacy of the False Dichotomy. This is not about having either one issue or the other. Further you ASSume that not addressing human induced climate will not have any consequences. Fooling and wrong headed in the extreme.
@Shoshin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour attempts at side tracking the conversation into another manufactured lie is laughable. When will you clowns learn that you have no credibility? You lot have been caught repeatedly in a web of deceit and corruption.
I mean really it is like you and your fellow ideologues are immune to the reality of a changing climate.
@Strangelove,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet us take a look at just a few of the many errors you managed to squeeze in on one post.
First of all no one is saying that they expect a sudden extinction event like an meteor strike to occur; that would be your malicious interpretation. Do you really think that willfully misinterpreting an article is going to gain you any credibility?
Then you claim in error that "The interglacial transition was not due to high atmospheric CO2. It was below 300 ppm in the last 400,000 years."
A. Your own argument makes the case for a more sensitive CO2 level. No one says that for serious climate change to occur it need to be above 400 ppm; that is you constructing a malicious straw man.
B. The science says otherwise about the ending of the last interglacial:
Global Warming Preceded by Increasing Carbon Dioxide Concentrations During the Last deglaciation
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
Abstract:
"The covariation of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and temperature in Antarctic ice-core records suggests a close link between CO2 and climate during the Pleistocene ice ages. The role and relative importance of CO2 in producing these climate changes remains unclear, however, in part because the ice-core deuterium record reflects local rather than global temperature. Here we construct a record of global surface temperature from 80 proxy records and show that temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation. Differences between the respective temperature changes of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere parallel variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation recorded in marine sediments. These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO2 concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age."
Then you shamble on to this stunner, "The Cambrian explosion occured when CO2 was 20x higher than today and the polar ice caps were completely melted. It should have been a mass extinction." Today's key word is "CHANGE" as in climate CHANGE. The biota of the Cambrian EVOLVED over long periods of TIME to survive in the climate of 16X the pre-industrial levels. That you fail to recognize the difference between climate CHANGE and climate is telling.
<what's in it for me - people don't usually go broke assuming human stupidity and greed>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat do you think causes all the stock crashes, most of the bankruptcies, the state of sub-saharan Africa and the future of China, not to mention the present state of the USA? But you are excused as I assume you to be USamerican, part of the 99% of brainwashed USamericans believing there is such a thing as the "american dream", as a result causing most of today's pollution. Wake up, you're too late, but not yet as late as far too late.
<All perfectly natural... Who cares if it changes a little?>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo things make it unnatural: the speed and the cause. And "little" is VERY relative. What's small for a bluewhale would make you a pornstar.
The only natural thing in our lifetime that could beat human environmental stupidity is a serious eruption of a major volcano.
Shoshin, your kind of people had the run of the place for so long and see what they did to it. It is only fair that the others now get their turn. Do you have a problem with that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShoshin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<Also, it's been learned that NASA and GISS have been cooking the U.S. historical temperature records.>
ONE single proof, ONE single link or you will look and agree to be treated like an idiot.
Comparing apples to oranges is not good science unless you plan to eat one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are the one with glaring errors in logic.
For example, all though there were people around 40,000 years ago there is no evidence there was 6 billion of them.
Another example; just because a meteor likely wiped out the dinosaurs, that is not the only type of cataclysm that can wipe out an ecosystem.
Oh, and one more; most plants and animals can survive a lot more then 20x the CO2. That's not the killer. The killer is starvation, drought, floods, crop failures, poison ground, water and air...well I hope you get the picture. The CO2 rise just traps heat and alters the ocean acidity. It's not the change in CO2 that causes the mass extinction, it's the speed with which it is happening that is the real problem.
Evolution takes dozens or hundreds (in some cases even thousands) of generations to make any significant changes. That's why humans could not adapt to the American diet in just a few generations. Look around, We are all dying of cancer, diabetes, drug abuse and heart disease. Our specie could not adapt and we are taking down thousands of others as we sit and argue about how it was "Gods" will or some other equally nauseating excuse. The real deniers insist it is man's destiny, or it's the survival of the fittest. The truth is, mankind is just not mature enough to face their own self induced emergency and do something about it.
There is a conspiracy in every story. Alex Jones is getting rich on it and he got only one right so far, Bush and Cheney did indeed conspired to turn the nation into a police state by pushing fear and ignorance and planning the destruction on 9/11; and the conservatives all bought their outright lies, even as they created the biggest bureaucracy in the history of the country, the Department of Homeland Security.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Alex Jones theory that global warming is just a money grab is not proving to be true. Americans aren't paying much attention to Al Gore, even though the evidence is overwhelming that the climate is changing faster then predicted and many species are in grave danger that were flourishing just a few decades ago. The carbon credit plan was never more then voluntary as intended. The climate deniers just keep saying it is going to be mandatory and their followers just keep lapping it up. Where is the proof?
I can see how the events on 9/11 were advantageous to the administration. I do not see how lying about global warming and cooking the books on global warming would be advantageous to NASA or the GISS. These scientists get paid no matter what their findings are. Why lie about it and risk ridicule from their own peers?
Some people are just inherently close minded.
Wrong data and fence mathmatics contrary to article evidence data shows stable world climate
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot to worry. Just as soon as the Greeks solve their fiscal dilemma, they'll sort this little problem out. After all, it's only Zeus teasing us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen it comes to the environment, human behaviour suggests that we have evolved to a new species called Homo sapiens stupidus!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/06/noaas-national-climatic-data-center-caught-cooling-the-past-modern-processed-records-dont-match-paper-records/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI stand corrected. It was NOAA cooking the books.
Happy now?
My "people" don't believe in twisting data to support a political view or agenda. Alarmists have no problem with that, as they have stated many times over, the ends justify the means.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yes, I do have a problem with eco-loonies running the place. They have demonstrated time anad again that there is no limit to the idiocy and suffering that they will foist upon others to satisfy their political agenda. More people have died due to wasting $$ on CAGW nonsense and the WWF's new found eco-imperial and eco-colonial actions in Africa than have died due to CO2.
Science is meaningless to the eco-corporations; you have obly to look at their constant twisting and turning, attemopts to control and frame the debate to see that this is how science is corrupted when lawyers and politicians are given rein to participate in scientific endeavours.
No, I don't trust them. And you shouldn't either.
I was being ironic, of course
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe entire sentence reads,
Who cares if it changes a little? Change is good for you!, says the oil baron or corporate suit; well, in that case, I am sure they will not mind when we bill them in court for any inconvenience, such as for coastal relocation and drought remediation.
Of course it is clear by now that those who profit from mucking up everybody’s planet, and their ideological lackeys, will not voluntarily quit even after disaster has struck. Perhaps we should stop bickering with the denialists and start getting together (those who agree something should be done) to do something more forceful.
>>More people have died due to wasting $$ on CAGW nonsense and the WWF's new found eco-imperial and eco-colonial actions in Africa than have died due to CO2.<<
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don’t think anyone died from any of these causes.
I am sure many people may have died for lack of public healthcare, however, but it wasn’t donating to WWF that caused this, and yes the conservatives blocking healthcare bills. And many people die from respiratory diseases in polluted regions, but it’s not the CO2.
I would count in severe storms as an offshoot of warming, and many have died from those, in Hurricane Katrina and many others worldwide.
Could you be a little clearer as to who you think may have died due to wasting $$ on CAGW nonsense and the WWF's new found eco-imperial and eco-colonial actions in Africa?
What is your suggestion, after all, that we keep doing exactly as we are doing and see what happens?
All the time people never worry until it has happened. What worse, people even not realize even if it happened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislook, ma, an idiot!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have also seen climate graphs over the last 500 mio. years. Apparently most of the time the earth was hot. The cold spells have been rather short. Even going back into the ice ages, most of the inter glacials were warmer than our present one. Why the climate changed in the past, does not seem well understood. What caused the end of the last ice age? and what has caused the temperature fluctuations since then. 4000 years ago it was supposed to have been 1 to 2 deg C warmer than now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere the Egyptians or Sumerians the cause?
I have no connections to any energy companies, I am all for environmental causes, very strongly against pollution. I also know the climate has always changed and always will, but I am not convinced that man is the cause of it.
If the earth is really heating up, and in some climate monitors in some places found that there was no warming over the last 15 years, could it not just go back to its hot normal?
Shoshin:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou call "http://wattsupwiththat.com" a source, a proof, a scientifically sound and integer site?
WoahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaahhahahahahahahahahahaha - now THAT is funny.
But seriously, I do like the site's self-promotion where one Fred Pearce, known to shamelessly plug himself with unverifiable laudatios, not a single one from a serious, let alone independent and/or knowledgeable backer, lauds that site as "... the world's most viewed climate website" which is a statement of mind-numbing stupidity.
That of course explains why NOAA and climate.nasa and EPA only have two visitors a day.
---
Are you aware that your comments could fatally dent your repu... oh, anything would enhance it? Sure, go ahead then!
Mark:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I was being ironic, of course"
I wasn't sure but since your comment was too intelligent for a denier I believed you were maybe a slightly ironic skeptic.
@Fanadala,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArguing that since climate change has changed before modern civilization existed and thus humans can not be responsible for it now; is like arguing that since forest fires happened before humans ever existed that forest arson is therefore impossible.
Fandala Says: If the earth is really heating up, and in some climate monitors in some places found that there was no warming over the last 15 years, could it not just go back to its hot normal?
Trent Says: This is a blatantly statement:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
The 2000's are the hottest decade on the instrument record. Why are you lot so credulous that you swallow such blatant lies without blinking?
Shoshin:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<My "people" don't believe in twisting data to support a political view or agenda.>
You're a genius. In the face of all heartland institute and similar evidence, despite all scientific data, you come here and say with extreme self-assurance that climate scientists have ganged and made it all up when not a single scientist this side of dementia will contest the data? and you talk of your "people"? Heartland institute chill talk of the lowest level. No, you're not paid to talk crap, they're dumb but not that dumb.
Climate science needs more people like you, people who are not afraid to write stupidly on high-profile sites. I mean, who cares what some Dick or Harry posts on one of your sites where nobody with a brain ever goes? No, sir, the way to go is to have you and your "people" come here where intelligent people come for information so that when they read your comments they immediately know, whatever they may believe about climate science, they do NOT want to be on your side, climate scientists can NOT be as dumb as you write, AGW can NOT be as wrong as "that stuff you come up". And you never ever have ONE single proof or even a link to a proof that makes ANY sense.
To me, you are the perfect advocate of AGW, you do for climate science what Stalin did for Democracy or Limbaugh does for education. You are to climate philosophy what the Shaggs' Philosophy of the world is the music. Pure genius.
Now, if you could do this on purpose...
I see that Shoshin is repeating more lies without a hint of skepticism. Shall we take brief tour of just a few skeptic lies that have been generated recently?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake this little manufactured scandal where the skeptics claim that a scientist's research shows the Medieval Warm Period was warmer globally. Yet, the scientist himself says that the research says nothing of the sort:
Zunli Lu:
“It is unfortunate that my research, “An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula,” recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has been misrepresented by a number of media outlets.
Several of these media articles assert that our study claims the entire Earth heated up during medieval times without human CO2 emissions. We clearly state in our paper that we studied one site at the Antarctic Peninsula. The results should not be extrapolated to make assumptions about climate conditions across the entire globe. Other statements, such as the study “throws doubt on orthodoxies around global warming,” completely misrepresent our conclusions. Our study does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend.”
Statement of Zuni Liu:
http://asnews.syr.edu/newsevents_2012/releases/ikaite_crystals_climate_STATEMENT.html
But hold it. I can hear you now saying, "But Trent! That is only one example of us repeating lies like a lemming!
Oh, I got plenty more. How about the fake skeptic Patrick Michaels deleting data from a graph to mislead Congress about the accuracy of models? Can we just get any more blatant folks?
Here is the original graph the Patrick Michaels falsefied:
http://www.skepticalscience.com
/pics/Hansen88Projections.png
Here is the falsified graph:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/MichaelsLie.gif
But I am guessing no lie to low swallow if it serves your ideology, eh?
I got plenty, plenty more that I can provide upon request. Not a week goes by that the fake skeptics are manufacturing a new one and their followers swallow it whole with enthusiasm and full credulity.
Since when is whatsupwiththat.com an unbiased peer reviewed since publication?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWUWT is a blog site that has no credentials and Anthony Watts is a blogger associated with the Heartland Institute.
He offers no education records and when asked will not disclose that information.
His claim to fame is that he worked as a TV meteorologist and we all know how wrong they can be.
Well, Anthony, what have you got to say for yourself. I'm fairly certain you are one of these shills here trying to send traffic to your blog. It's time you had to defend yourself on real award winning Science publication blog.
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Gee, I heard back in the 1990's that the tipping point was 2005 or so. Since it's come and gone, enjoy the ride. Those computer models couldn't have been wrong?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomething tells me, however, that conferences will be heald and 'the solution' will be to transfer billions of dollars to basket case countries run by tinpot dictators.
Silly humans think in terms of one life time or in terms of a 230 year nation like America. Climate is always changing warming or cooling - so tell me again how a ten year or one hundred year guess is valid?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe earth has cycles that are maybe millions of year long changes that occur at random times due to sun, moon and ocean currents. We do not even understand if there is a problem. Just silly ways to get government grant money to buy more power.
@Geo-Jelly-Brain,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCare to cite the Nature report that said so in the 90's? Something tell me I am never ever going to get a cite. I wonder why?
Arguing that since climate change has changed before modern civilization existed and thus humans can not be responsible for it now; is like arguing that since forest fires happened before humans ever existed that forest arson is therefore impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have said this many times before. All this scientific evidence is falling on deaf ears of financiers and politicians. The current world economy depends on 'growth' which entails ever increasing amounts of energy which, for the next several decades, will come from fossil fuels. Unless the human race can change its ways or find an alternative to the present fiscal system then we are doomed to whatever environmental fate awaits us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgeojelly:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<Gee, I heard back in the 1990's that the tipping point was 2005 or so. Since it's come and gone, enjoy the ride.>
Your mind definitely gone off now? You didn't hear that in 1990, you read that in 2012 in one of my comments on another article and I believe it was part of a chain of evidence resulting in you looking the perfect climate change denier idiot. I also said it here in message nr 3. It's the date I always give when "tipping point" comes up.
And "enjoy the ride", can't remember where you read that either lately? Look up the same message nr 3 above.
Your feet still hurt and now you shoot yourself in the head instead? How do you do it? You're like a chicken, cut its head off and you still wriggle out a comment. Man, you're really something else.
Lenedwin: "Unless the human race can change its ways or find an alternative to the present fiscal system then we are doomed to whatever environmental fate awaits us. '
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've always lived with our 'environmental fate'. And no, nothing is going to change so learn to live with it. If you truly believe your city is going to flood, famine and chaos will sweep the world or 'whatever', then get off your computer and start accumulating your survival gear.
Meanwhile, I'll keep contributing to my retirement fund,take vacations to doomed Pacific islands and drink coffee from Columbia. You can laugh at me and say 'told you so' when you are in your bunker and I'm banging on the door.
I warn readers to be very wary of computer modeling results. I'm an aerospace engineer and use 'models' to determine the characteristics of airplane structures. Of course, they are a great help and better than hand calculations but they very seldom produce the exact answer. Strain gauge measurements of the structure hardly ever agree precisely with the analytical result.(but don't be alarmed. We use large safety factors to ensure that the structure is safe)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not the fault of the mathematics or computer programs: these are beyond reproach. It's the fault of the input parameters. Many of these are empirical and can vary over a wide range and so may not match those of the actual structure. And since the computer outcome depends on the solution of thousands of simultaneous equations with the solution of each equation related to the solution of all the others,it can be imagined how errors can accumulate. I am not familiar with the 'Global Warming' model but I assume the same possibility of error exists. With the wide range of empirically measured environmental factors associated with the climate I would think that the possibility of a obtaining a meaningful answer is remote.
You don't get the point. I don't want the oceans to rise or the Earth turned into desert but unless our political and financial gurus heed the warnings then that's whats going to happen (assuming,of course,the science is correct).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShoshin, my intellectually untainted friend:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<I stand corrected. It was NOAA cooking the books.>
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=warmest-us-spring-on-record-noaa
There, NOAA's been cookin' again.
Must be the NOAA kitchen that heats up the climate!
It's already too late. It's like jumping off a cliff - everything seems just fine until you hit the bottom. That's where we are - irreversibly on our way to catastrophe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLenedwin:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisasking because I'm curious:
<computer modeling ... they very seldom produce the exact answer.>
a) could you CFD a plane that would lift off on the first attempt? (not requiring that it'd fly perfectly, simply testing a design to see if it is valid)
b) how close to "exact" is good enough for you? (from where on would you feel to be on the right track)
Very well put. As I understand, climate model parametric data requirements are often satisfied by proxy data and extrapolation of sparse sampling results. While more precise measurements are now being made, as I understand historical annual temperature data is often derived from ice cores samples, for example, which actually represent a summary of winter temperatures, if and when snowfall has occurred.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally, I have little doubt that significant global warming is in progress and that its immediate cause is the industrial byproduct incremental co2 produced by a population that has similarly increased seven-fold in the past ~200 years. I am very skeptical of conclusions drawn from climate model results, based on my experience in modeling computer systems and analyzing modeling methodologies.
That being said, while I'm not certain that the Earth itself is nearing an environmental tipping point, I am very concerned that continued growth in humanity's enormous demands on environmental resources is at risk of destabilizing our own support infrastructure... We must recognize that population growth is the most critical factor destabilizing all of Earth's systems and develop some effective method to control it.
Like every thing in this world Nature whispers her agreement but shouts her objections. Computer models lead us in the right direction even if they don't always give us an exact solution. We can't accept the results blindly. The human brain with its experience has to decide if a solution is reasonable or garbage. If it's reasonable then with some post processing ( and I don't mean fiddling ) something close to reality is attained. And to make sure, factors of safety are applied. Lots can go wrong with a model which can cause a bad result. Incorrect constraints, wrong connectivity, distorted elements, bad input data etc can cause havoc. But the math and computer don't care. They happily churn out a result regardless. It's up to the human brain to make sense of it all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCFD is slightly different. It's more pure. A computer solution of fluid equations that have been around for centuries but impossible to solve by hand. It has helped in creating more efficient airfoil section etc but there's more to assuring an airplane will fly. The aerodynamic forces calculated by CFD have to be balanced by the weight and balance of the structure and, of course, by the power of the engines. Balance is fairly straight forward but the trade off between weight,power and drag is crucial to producing the most efficient aircraft.
I agree. I have been communicating with Dr Robert Carter of Cook U in Australia. ( you can find him on the internet ). He has a vast knowledge of climate change and he considers the current observations as the result of computer games. Mind you these GW's aren't idiots. I came across one of their detail reports and it was very abstruse and contained lot more than just CO2 data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, like you, I'm skeptical about humans being the prime cause of it. The last thing I read about the Earth's mean temperature was that it hadn't changed significantly since 2000 in spite of big spike in the atmospheric CO2 content.
Ultimobo rightly says: "a hopeful thought is Silent Spring - faced with a terrible pollution of our waterways with poisonous chemicals - people rose to the challenge and stopped it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, back in Rachel Carson's day our nation was populated by a better sort of people. There is a reason that bunch is called the Greatest Generation. To borrow an apt term from another commentor, I think we are now seeing the WIIFM generation at work - particularly when it comes to our political and business leaders.
Lenedwin: "You don't get the point. I don't want the oceans to rise or the Earth turned into desert but unless our political and financial gurus heed the warnings then that's whats going to happen (assuming,of course,the science is correct). '
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, as a geologist I never assume the science is correct. I question the science. These computer models rely on arbitrary variables assigned arbitrary weight. Tweak a decimal and the difference in temperature is all over the place. the variables inputed and the weight given to them are educated specualtioin at best.
It's mind boggling that those with science backgrounds accept these models as anything but speculation. Then again, they want 'to believe'...faith is the antithesis of science. Most of these 'experts couldn't even draw a carbon based molecule let alone quantify with any accuracy it's interaction with 'x' number of variables both known and unknown.
I'm well past my threescore years and ten. With any luck I'll be gone before the catastrophe occurs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what chance has a baby born today of living out its full lifespan in peace and comfort, even in a civilized modern country?
We care about our children, grandchildren, even great grandchildren these days. But what of their great grandchildren? Apres moi le deluge.
Not to worry, another Toba eruption will wipe out most of the human species, as it did last time (70,000 years ago).
Something will be around to take over, perhaps the insects again.
"But what chance has a baby born today of living out its full lifespan in peace and comfort, even in a civilized modern country?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuite high. There's never been a time in history when a lower percent of humans have died from violence, famine or childhood disease. It's multiple times lower than when you were born as a child.
Hard to imagine anything wiping out humans. There's billions of us living in every ecological land niche. Wipe out 99.9% of us and that still leaves more humans than just a few thousand years ago.
Re insects...they already dominate macro life. Mammals. let alone humans, have never taken over from them.
Lenedwin:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<Computer models lead us in the right direction even if they don't always give us an exact solution.>
Good. Since climate model hard- and software are high tech and the people collecting and feeding the data are not exactly morons we can safely assume that even if the models are not 100% accurate, they are still good enough to point in the right direction. IOW and according to you, this means that for example climate change models may not be exact but they lead us in the right direction.
From your point of view, someone accepting results from the climate models is probably more correct than someone refusing them.
IOW, in application of what you wrote, those refusing the direction pointed at by the climate models which are based on the evidence accumulated over decades are "not thinking".
(BTW, did you ever notice/wonder why so many engineers don't "believe" in AGW?)
<We can't accept the results blindly.>
AFAIK the people behind climate science constantly check and verify their data, their input and their results. Accepting the direction may be one-eyed, refusing the direction is blind.
Are you sure you look the right way?
<The human brain with its experience has to decide if a solution is reasonable or garbage.>
Exactly. And if the best climate scientists with the best computers using the most accurate data possible point in a certain direction and if then some people who for whatever reasons like to not BELIEVE the models, then there is in application of what you said only one possible conclusion:
Climate models may not be exact but refusing their results is not reasonable. IOW, denying climate change is garbage.
<If it's reasonable then with some post processing (and I don't mean fiddling ) something close to reality is attained. And to make sure, factors of safety are applied.>
What do you think climate scientists are? Morons who don't know bad software from a hole in the ground? Or are you implying that climate scientists have agreed to dump scientific testing, validity, integrity?
<Lots can go wrong with a model which can cause a bad result. Incorrect constraints, wrong connectivity, distorted elements, bad input data etc can cause havoc.>
Agreed but do you seriously want to tell me that thousands of climate scientists have each independently made the same mistakes? And this over decades? And that they then all got together to cover it up for fifty years? Next you tell me that NOAA is responsible for making this the hottest spring in history simply to spite you.
You have one foot left.
As for your connection to Dr Robert Carter:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHis background was in sealife and he went potty a while ago when he left the maritime environment. With sea breeze withdrawal the Outback warming cooked what little was left upstairs. He then took to climate science like retired tramway conductors take to model trains.
He does NOT have a vast knowledge of climate change, he's an arrogant twit who BELIEVES that because he can differentiate between a mollusc muscle and a Monaro muscle he is a THINKER. He is NOT. He is a paid speaker for the "Institute of Public Affairs" which is paid for entirely by the polluter industry. He is also a paid member and speaker for the heartland institute, another polluter-paid PR company. IOW Carter is a pure shill.
<and he considers the current observations as the result of computer games.>
Who cares what he "considers"? He is to climate science what Mickey Mouse is to elementary physics. Citing him as a reference is a disqualifier of the highest magnitude.
But he knows how to make money. He actively participates, for cash, in that AGW denier fade to give every garbage collection a government-sounding title. As such he is directly or indirectly linked, against money, with these "organizations":
Institute of Public Affairs = OZ polluter industry lobby
Science and Public Policy Institute = private US shills
Heartland Institute = dito
Australian Environment Foundation = another Aussie dump
Galileo Movement = Aussie insult to Galileo/pure idiocy.
If you keep posting on this level and quoting more references like this = soon no foot left. You wouldn't happen to be a carlylelee sort of blokelee?
Excellent piece on the ego-tripping "climate-for-cash" Bob Carter (and the climate debate in general):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/27606.html
Lenedwin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe:
"The last thing I read about the Earth's mean temperature was that it hadn't changed significantly since 2000 in spite of big spike in the atmospheric CO2 content."
There is a tendency I've noticed amongst engineers to not be very familiar with statistical analysis of noisy data. Your statement is just a variation of the 'no warming since 1995' meme that was circulating around until enough time/data was collected to cross the statistical 95% threshold. This meme has shifted to become 'no warming since 1998' that is currently common. I'd encourage you to look at historical data and notice that there are several periods of no warming or actually a downturn overlaid on the longer picture of a larger warming trend. What is somewhat interesting is that, even with the other major factors, not CO2, in a cool phase, there has been no cooling.
Couple of links you might find interesting:
Related to what I just typed:
http://skepticalscience.com/still-going-down-the-up-escalator.html
Related to climate math from an engineer perspective:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/simple-question-simple-answer-no/
Just remember - We are passengers on the earth, not the pilots. At the end, humanity is temporary not permanent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI won't engage in a "debate" because I don't dispute AGW. That's a glaring error if that's what you think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Your own argument makes the case for a more sensitive CO2 level. No one says that for serious climate change to occur it need to be above 400 ppm; that is you constructing a malicious straw man."
That's your straw man not mine. I never claimed it has to be above 400 ppm. In fact the present global warming occured below 400 ppm. The role of CO2 is indisputable but the interglacial transition is incomparable to AGW because CO2 was more a feedback than a forcing that's why it's lagging temp. increase. Today CO2 is a forcing rather than a feedback.
"That you fail to recognize the difference between climate CHANGE and climate is telling."
No. It's telling the researchers are benchmarking on the Cambrian era when there were no mammals much less humans at that time. Whether it's extinction or explosion is irrelevant.
I think you pressed the wrong reply botton. Your reply does not address my points. Try to understand what you read before declaring your glaring error in logic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"no one is saying that they expect a sudden extinction event like an meteor strike to occur; that would be your malicious interpretation"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article said:
"Biologists have warned that accelerating rates of species loss suggest the planet is entering the sixth great extinction in its history, on par with the event that wiped out the dinosaurs."
Why compare AGW to the event that wiped out the dinosaurs if they do not mean sudden extinction like a meteor strike? The event referred to is precisely a sudden extinction and meteor strike. That would be a malicious statement. Willful misrepresentation will not gain them credibility.
I believe you do have a point (or a few).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI keep bemoaning the fact that climate scientists come to the right concludions but go public with the wrong wording. I disagree that this is done willfully, they simply don't look at their publications from the public's point of view and then wonder why the public misunderstands them. Then they say that they are not responsible for what the public understands. Which is an excuse that I absolutely refuse. Yes, they are responsible in my opinion, and yes, they should be more careful how they word their public releases.
East Anglia University climate mails are not a very good example in themselves but they illustrate perfectly what happens when the public misunderstands (and how the anti-AGW lobby then abuses the situation).
Fasinating to read the comments (and personal abuse, I wonder if people would be so abusive if they were standing face to face??)Anyway with 7 billion on the planet how could they have any influence on the planetary conditions? And all those scientists that study for years and dedicate their lives to finding the true buried in the data, hell they are ALL wrong....obviously! If you think humanity will survive this just think, most people have trouble with the day if they miss their morning coffee. Just think how many would survive if electricity dissappearred? Now your getting the picture...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I think you pressed the wrong reply botton. Your reply does not address my points. Try to understand what you read before declaring your glaring error in logic."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy bother? It was so poorly written I could drive a semi through it.