Subject: [Global Change: 1408] Re: What are they thinking? - msg#00029

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[Global Change: 1407] Re: Climate change impact on "extreme events"

Michael Tobis wrote: > James: > >> evidence is pretty much limited to model forecasts. > > No. > > There are apparently strong theoretical reasons to expect that total > precipitation will increase only a little while extreme precipitation > will increase a lot. There are some global constraints in play. I didn't mean to imply that expectation of future changes was not well-founded, merely that the current observational record doesn't have much to say about it. (Personally, I think the strong focus on D&A in climate science is badly misplaced and even misleading, but the punters seem to like it.) James

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[Global Change: 1409] Re: Climate change impact on "extreme events"

gerhaush@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: >> I'm not sure what you are getting at with "distance from the equator or >> the season of the year". > > The seasons and latitude give an idea of what to expect from 2-3C > temperature difference. What I am asking is whether there's good > evidence that extremes would change in a detrimental manner beyond > what would be expected from what we can observe in differences between > the seasons and in latitude? > > I've looked at the TAR summary, and I think all of the points there > are covered by what would be expected from seasonal/latitudinal > precedent. > > For example, look at rainfall. I am pretty sure that summer rainfall > is more concentrated in a few heavy precipitation events than winter > rainfall, and likewise, precipitation on the equator is extremely > concentrated into short events. Therefore this change in extremes is > entirely what would be expected either from moving 500 km towards the > equator or a few weeks in time during the year, wouldn't it? > My UK-centric background makes me think of winter as bringing most wind damage and flooding (although the latter isn't necessarily 1-1 with peak rainfall). IIRC heavy snow collapsed several buildings in Europe no so long ago - not that I'm saying it was due to climate change rather than inadequate construction, but just pointing out that this is when damage occurs. > On top of that, it's not necessarily a negative change at all. I > believe that people generally prefer sunshine to rain, and half an > hour of heavy rain a day to keep things lush, and the rest of the day > sunshine, would be preferable to constant drizzle. I don't think anyone is really that concerned about preferences, rather the issue is whether infrastructure is able to withstand it and the effects on agriculture, water supplies and stuff like that (or, to put a more positive spin, what we have to do to adjust). James

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[Global Change: 1406] Re: What are they thinking?

The US National Institutes of Health apparently has a consensus process: http://consensus.nih.gov/PREVIOUSSTATEMENTS.htm I really don't see why this word should constitute an issue, nor would it, I think, had Crichton and co. not made a fuss about it. mt On Apr 3, 2:46 am, James Annan <james.an...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I was rather alarmed to see the opening statement of the ice sheet group: > > "Polar ice experts from Europe and the United States, meeting *to pursue > greater scientific consensus*"

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[Global Change: 1411] Re: What are they thinking?

I tried posting something to this effect before, but it either got lost or the moderators in here believed that it didn't meet the test of acceptability for the group. So I'll try again in somewhat more restrained language. I'm quite appalled by the same thing that Michael Tobis finds appalling -- the continued denial by the GOP right of what looks like the reality principle -- at least as I see it. However, I don't think it's at all surprising that fairly large groups of humans will decide to ignore or deny, or possibly fight against, a new set of theories and/or facts that at least purports to be scientifically grounded, but that threatens either their ideological and political beliefs, or their economic self-interest, or both. If people in here who are persuaded that AGW is a big issue and a real environmental problem wish to counteract this tendency in their opponents to deny or distort what we think of as "the truth" about climate, therefore, I think we should think about addressing the roots of why so many of the GOP faithful, for example, are taking the denialist and/or contrarian stance. Meanwhing what? Well, first I think we AGW true believers need to face the facts that some people see the entire AGW issue as being cooked up to justify "big government," if not the dreaded word "socialism," and to diminish human liberty in the process. If we want to try to talk AGW science to these people, then, I suggest we find ways to think about cures to AGW that won't involve big government, socialism or major losses of individual liberties. Secondly, I think it's clear that some AGW skeptics/contrarians/ denialists are motivated to repudiate the IPCC because its finding threaten the fossil fuel industries, the American auto industry, etc. Personally, I think this is inevitable -- real curbs on CO2 emissions no doubt would threaten some large industries, especially in the US. But people who believe in AGW and the findings of the AGW researchers, as I like to think I do, might make the conflict a little less, and help to make proposed CO2 curbs more popular with a sector of the public, by addressing the legitimate economic interests of thousands of people who would be affected by any shift from a fossil fuel economy to either a nuclear one or a "greener" one fueled by solar, wind, biomass, etc. What can the AGW crowd say about, or lobby Congress about, the creation of new "green" jobs to replace those that a low-carbon future might destroy in the coal mining industry or the US auto industry, for example? The US government supposedly already provides some economic transition aid to working people whose jobs are lost to economic globalization, although the proferred aid is apparently not very effective. Could the AGW crowd help to think up, and join with other interests to lobby for, US government aid to working families displaced by the transition to a greener energy economy? What about a "Superfund for Workers," as the late Tony Mazzocchi of the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers once called it, to provide job retraining funds and a daily living stipend to workers in obsolete and dirty industries, as they went back to college or trade school to learn new job skills? Alternatively, would it make sense for AGW believers and other environmental and labor groups in the USA to lobby for the imposition of a 35-hour work week, such as they recently have had in France, in hopes of spreading available working hours around more broadly -- so that the transition to a greener energy future doesn't threaten people with unemployment? What about some kind of program to provide limited government-funded relief to small business owners who are threatened by the economics of a post-carbon world? Since society as a whole should ideally benefit from the shift to a post-carbon energy economy, should society as a whole help small distributors of heating oil and natural gas, for example, to adjust to our Brave & Green New World? What about publicly funded programs, or government tax breaks, to small oil field services companies in Texas and Oklahoma? I'm mentioning specific policy proposals here only as hypothetical examples; I'm not saying that any one of them is "the" answer, and perhaps some of them can't contribute to "the" answer; perhaps some of them are wrong-headed. But the question I hope to raise is how AGW true believers like myself (for better or worse) can help the transition to a post-carbon economy become less threatening to thousands of Americans, or maybe even millions of Americans, who today have some very real short-term reasons for rejecting it. I don't know if this non-scientific, non-climate-oriented issue is a valid one for this group to discuss. But then, we're already discussing political attitudes, which are certainly not completely rooted themselves in existing climate science. If we hope to influence political attitudes and keep them from hampering people's appreciation of new scientific information, I think we need to address the political values (e.g. Libertarian worries about individual liberties) and the economic interests (e.g., the worries of coal- and oil- and auto-dependent communities about unemployment) that are affecting those attitudes.