Economist on Global Warming

[Kevin Druff]

Despite a frenzied last-minute drive involving snowstorms in Europe and the eastern United States, planet Earth failed to save itself from another last-place finish in 2010: once again, it was the least cold year on record.

... for a decade and a half after Mr Hansen made the call, global mean temperatures kept going up and up. They bounced around a bit in the mid-2000s, and have now resumed rising again.For people my age or older who were paying attention over the past couple of decades, that really ought to be convincing. But for people who just joined the conversation when "An Inconvenient Truth" came out, things are different. For them, the evidence of global warming was presented at the same time as the theory. And so they're susceptible to people trying to poke holes in the data or the theory. The temperature rise from 1998-2008 isn't statistically significant, tree ring data is unreliable, and so forth. Give them another two decades, and they'll probably come around. Unfortunately, by that time an enormous amount of damage will already have been done.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/01/global_warming

[skierinvermont]

Very true. People laugh at Hansen's forecasts and take them lightly because he didn't get it exactly right way back in 1988. In reality, calling for continued rapid warming given how high temperatures already were in 1988 was an incredibly bold call. People act as if that was an easy forecast to make.. when in reality if you're sitting back in 1988 predicting global temperature change would have been a daunting task. People still can't agree on what to predict over the next 20 years with forecasts ranging from dramatic cooling (-.3C) to continued warming (.3C) He made a hypothesis, and it has been tested over the last 20 years, and by and large it has verified. Show me someone else who made a forecast remotely comparable to Hansen's 20 years ago. Sure he was slightly too high, and he has admitted that the climate sensitivity used in his model of 4.5/doubling is higher than the modern consensus of 3C/doubling, he even said in the original 1988 paper that the climate sensitivity he was using could be incorrect, but the fundamentals were correct.

The thing older folks have going is that they were around 20 years ago when Hansen made these forecasts and nobody believed them and they have witnessed them come true, by and large, over the last 20 years.

[nzucker]

Very true. People laugh at Hansen's forecasts and take them lightly because he didn't get it exactly right way back in 1988. In reality, calling for continued rapid warming given how high temperatures already were in 1988 was an incredibly bold call. People act as if that was an easy forecast to make.. when in reality if you're sitting back in 1988 predicting global temperature change would have been a daunting task. People still can't agree on what to predict over the next 20 years with forecasts ranging from dramatic cooling (-.3C) to continued warming (.3C) He made a hypothesis, and it has been tested over the last 20 years, and by and large it has verified. Show me someone else who made a forecast remotely comparable to Hansen's 20 years ago. Sure he was slightly too high, and he has admitted that the climate sensitivity used in his model of 4.5/doubling is higher than the modern consensus of 3C/doubling, he even said in the original 1988 paper that the climate sensitivity he was using could be incorrect, but the fundamentals were correct.

The thing older folks have going is that they were around 20 years ago when Hansen made these forecasts and nobody believed them and they have witnessed them come true, by and large, over the last 20 years.

Why was it a bold call? We were in a +PDO/Strong El Niño regime with very high solar activity, not to mention the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Even without anthropogenic warming, anyone with a brain in his head would have called for a shift towards a milder climate. You had a record strong Niño in 82-83, then a multi-year strong Niño in 86-87/87-88, record +PDO, massive +AO/+NAO devastating the arctic cryosphere, and temperatures already having warmed a bunch in the early 1980s. Seems like an obvious prediction to me...in my opinion, he deserves more rebuke for the mistakes he made than credit for what he got right.

Where is the semi-permanent Bermuda high making every East Coast summer torrid? Where is the flooding of NYC and 100' of sea level rise coming from? Sounds as if these were exaggerated predictions, once again confusing the temporary heat wave of Summer 1988 with a long-term climate trend.

I'm sick of your Hansen hugging. It's disgusting..

[skierinvermont]

Why was it a bold call? We were in a +PDO/Strong El Niño regime with very high solar activity, not to mention the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Even without anthropogenic warming, anyone with a brain in his head would have called for a shift towards a milder climate. You had a record strong Niño in 82-83, then a multi-year strong Niño in 86-87/87-88, record +PDO, massive +AO/+NAO devastating the arctic cryosphere, and temperatures already having warmed a bunch in the early 1980s. Seems like an obvious prediction to me...in my opinion, he deserves more rebuke for the mistakes he made than credit for what he got right.

Where is the semi-permanent Bermuda high making every East Coast summer torrid? Where is the flooding of NYC and 100' of sea level rise coming from? Sounds as if these were exaggerated predictions, once again confusing the temporary heat wave of Summer 1988 with a long-term climate trend.

I'm sick of your Hansen hugging. It's disgusting..

No you're being disgusting.

You know very well that he never predicted 100' of sea level any time soon and that this is due to your poor reading/imagination. You're just making stuff up - lying in essence. You should be ashamed.

The PDO wasn't even known about in 1988.. and there was very little data on the cryosphere.. and even if there was the cryosphere was actually in pretty good shape. I don't even know if the AO had been discovered yet. You're basically just listing off alphabet soup to make yourself sound smart without constructing any sort of detailed thoughts about what information Hansen (or anybody else) had available back then. Sort of like the way you are claiming the GL s/w is phasing with the trough, which it isn't, to make yourself sound smart. You don't even know what phasing would appear like on WV... you don't even know what phasing is really.

If it was so obvious.. why was he the only one to predict it?

It was a ground-breaking study that has completely changed the way we look at climate. The whole point of the study was that increasing GHGs such as CO2 would warm the atmosphere.. up until that point that was not widely recognized. So it was a bold and groundbreaking call.

Nobody can even agree what climate will do over the next 20 years today, even with VAST amounts of research that have been done and super-computer models.. all of which Hansen was lacking.

[nzucker]

No you're being disgusting.

You know very well that he never predicted 100' of sea level any time soon and that this is due to your poor reading/imagination. You're just making stuff up - lying in essence. You should be ashamed.

The PDO wasn't even known about in 1988.. and there was very little data on the cryosphere.. and even if there was the cryosphere was actually in pretty good shape. I don't even know if the AO had been discovered yet. You're basically just listing off alphabet soup to make yourself sound smart without constructing any sort of detailed thoughts about what information Hansen (or anybody else) had available back then. Sort of like the way you are claiming the GL s/w is phasing with the trough, which it isn't, to make yourself sound smart. You don't even know what phasing would appear like on WV... you don't even know what phasing is really.

If it was so obvious.. why was he the only one to predict it?

It was a ground-breaking study that has completely changed the way we look at climate. The whole point of the study was that increasing GHGs such as CO2 would warm the atmosphere.. up until that point that was not widely recognized. So it was a bold and groundbreaking call.

Nobody can even agree what climate will do over the next 20 years today, even with VAST amounts of research that have been done and super-computer models.. all of which Hansen was lacking.

This is just a horrid way to talk to your best friend. Why do you always insist on being so arrogant and unfriendly when we're supposed to be having an intellectual discussion about meteorology and climate? BTW I do know what phasing is and several meteorologists in the NYC thread have commented how the storm is being affected by the northern stream energy.

Hansen wasn't the only one to predict it; Arrhenius said in the 1860s that the climate would eventually warm due to carbon dioxide emissions, just not to the extent of Hansen's predictions since no one knew in the 1800s how much CO2 would end up being pumped into the atmosphere. Anthropogenic global warming wasn't a new idea; it had been extensively discussed in the 1860s/1870s, and the NCAR/Jason report of 1979, called "The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate," predicted 2-3C of warming during the coming century. This report was also well-known in the Carter Administration, which was concerned about climate change itself. James Hansen was basically a figurehead who made the movement mainstream, but the Jason report and the Carter administration had already studied global warming extensively, and it was an old chemistry idea dating back to the 1800s. Nothing revolutionary about Hansen if you actually study the history, which you have failed to do.

Even if Hansen wasn't intimately acquainted with terms like the PDO and AO, I'm sure he knew we'd been having lots of El Niños, there were warm water currents in the Pacific Ocean feeding the continuous +ENSO events, and that would lead to warming. I'm sure he realized solar activity was high relative to historic standards, also adding more legitimacy to an argument for warming. By this point, the "Little Ice Age" controversy spurred on by the cold winters of 76-77, 77-78, and 78-79 had largely passed anyway...the Jason report had made it obvious we were warming in the long-term.

[skierinvermont]

I'm sick of your Hansen hugging. It's disgusting..

This is just a horrid way to talk to your best friend. Why do you always insist on being so arrogant and unfriendly when we're supposed to be having an intellectual discussion about meteorology and climate?

Oh I don't know, it might have been the following. if you're trying to be "intellectual" I suggest you refrain from calling people and their arguments disgusting.

I'm sick of your Hansen hugging. It's disgusting..

BTW I do know what phasing is and several meteorologists in the NYC thread have commented how the storm is being affected by the northern stream energy.

Hansen wasn't the only one to predict it; Arrhenius said in the 1860s that the climate would eventually warm due to carbon dioxide emissions, just not to the extent of Hansen's predictions since no one knew in the 1800s how much CO2 would end up being pumped into the atmosphere. Anthropogenic global warming wasn't a new idea; it had been extensively discussed in the 1860s/1870s, and the NCAR/Jason report of 1979, called "The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate," predicted 2-3C of warming during the coming century. This report was also well-known in the Carter Administration, which was concerned about climate change itself. James Hansen was basically a figurehead who made the movement mainstream, but the Jason report and the Carter administration had already studied global warming extensively, and it was an old chemistry idea dating back to the 1800s. Nothing revolutionary about Hansen if you actually study the history, which you have failed to do.

Even if Hansen wasn't intimately acquainted with terms like the PDO and AO, I'm sure he knew we'd been having lots of El Niños, there were warm water currents in the Pacific Ocean feeding the continuous +ENSO events, and that would lead to warming. I'm sure he realized solar activity was high relative to historic standards, also adding more legitimacy to an argument for warming. By this point, the "Little Ice Age" controversy spurred on by the cold winters of 76-77, 77-78, and 78-79 had largely passed anyway...the Jason report had made it obvious we were warming in the long-term.

It was not widely accepted when Hansen published his study. I never said nobody had ever discussed the Greenhouse effect of CO2 before. Learn to read.

You are kidding yourself if you think you could predict there would be many El Ninos in the 1990s based off the information available in the 1980s. You don't really seem to understand how science works. And no.. they did not have good solar reconstructions back in 1988 and even if they did solar has a small effect because it represents a minute change in incoming energy.

[nzucker]

Show me someone else who made a forecast remotely comparable to Hansen's 20 years ago.

"In 1979 they produced their report: coded JSR-78-07 and entitled The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate. Now, with the benefit of hind-sight, it is remarkable how prescient it was.

Right on the first page, the Jasons predicted that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would double from their preindustrial levels by about 2035. Today it’s expected this will happen by about 2050. They suggested that this doubling of carbon dioxide would lead to an average warming across the planet of 2-3C. Again, that’s smack in the middle of today’s predictions. They warned that polar regions would warm by much more than the average, perhaps by as much as 10C or 12C. That prediction is already coming true – last year the Arctic sea ice melted to a new record low. This year may well set another record." (The Sunday Times, 2008).

"The 1983 National Academy of Sciences report entitled "Changing Climate"...was an early comprehensive view of the effects of human caused increases in the levels of atmospheric CO2" (JSTOR, Tschinkel)

You were wrong. There were plenty of other people making these predictions about global warming during the 1980s. Your view that Hansen's testimony was original and groundbreaking is fundamentally incorrect if you study the history of the movement. I used to write a weekly environmental column for my college newspaper, there's no way you can try to debate me on this stuff. Sorry.

It was not widely accepted when Hansen published his study. I never said nobody had ever discussed the Greenhouse effect of CO2 before. Learn to read.

Stop with the "learn to read" line. It is condescending and rude. I think you are incorrect on the point that Hansen's work was particularly revolutionary or important. He was just a figurehead. And I know how to read; that's how I found all this out

[skierinvermont]

"In 1979 they produced their report: coded JSR-78-07 and entitled The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate. Now, with the benefit of hind-sight, it is remarkable how prescient it was.

Right on the first page, the Jasons predicted that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would double from their preindustrial levels by about 2035. Today it’s expected this will happen by about 2050. They suggested that this doubling of carbon dioxide would lead to an average warming across the planet of 2-3C. Again, that’s smack in the middle of today’s predictions. They warned that polar regions would warm by much more than the average, perhaps by as much as 10C or 12C. That prediction is already coming true – last year the Arctic sea ice melted to a new record low. This year may well set another record." (The Sunday Times, 2008).

"The 1983 National Academy of Sciences report entitled "Changing Climate"...was an early comprehensive view of the effects of human caused increases in the levels of atmospheric CO2" (JSTOR, Tschinkel)

You were wrong. There were plenty of other people making these predictions about global warming during the 1980s. Your view that Hansen's testimony was original and groundbreaking is fundamentally incorrect if you study the history of the movement. I used to write a weekly environmental column for my college newspaper, there's no way you can try to debate me on this stuff. Sorry.

Stop with the "learn to read" line. It is condescending and rude. I think you are incorrect on the point that Hansen's work was particularly revolutionary or important. He was just a figurehead. And I know how to read; that's how I found all this out

I didn't say original. You don't get to just insert words into my comments wherever you feel like. Hansen's work was groundbreaking. It was received with skepticism. Few scientists acknowledged the effect of CO2 at the time. I will continue to tell you to learn to read until you stop inserting words and meaning into my comments that is not there.

[nzucker]

I didn't say original. You don't get to just insert words into my comments wherever you feel like. Hansen's work was groundbreaking. It was received with skepticism. Few scientists acknowledged the effect of CO2 at the time. I will continue to tell you to learn to read and stop inserting words and meaning into my comments that is not there.

It wasn't groundbreaking. "Groundbreaking" and "original" are synonyms, get an English teacher to help you. Hansen's study wasn't groundbreaking if both Jason and the NAS had come up with the same findings about carbon dioxide creating significant global warming in the last 10 years. It was a well-accepted idea among many of the top scientists at that point, and Jimmy Carter's administration was well in tune with the idea of global warming. It wasn't anything new when Hansen made his testimony/report in 1988. Also, natural indicators were all showing warming anyway, so it wouldn't have been difficult to predict.

[skierinvermont]

It wasn't groundbreaking. "Groundbreaking" and "original" are synonyms, get an English teacher to help you. Hansen's study wasn't groundbreaking if both Jason and the NAS had come up with the same findings about carbon dioxide creating significant global warming in the last 10 years. It was a well-accepted idea among many of the top scientists at that point, and Jimmy Carter's administration was well in tune with the idea of global warming. It wasn't anything new when Hansen made his testimony/report in 1988. Also, natural indicators were all showing warming anyway, so it wouldn't have been difficult to predict.

It was not a well accepted idea. Hansen's study was greeted with skepticism. And it was groundbreaking in many ways... it was the first time a GCM of that kind had been used to predict global climate.

Natural indicators were not showing warming. Not if you understand what natural indicators he would have been aware of and the effect they were believed to have. There was no PDO, no understanding of Pacific Ocean circulation patterns, no good solar reconstructions (and even if they did have them there was no way predict what solar was going to do, and even if solar had stayed high, that wouldn't have caused much increase since there is very little lag effect). We still don't know what solar is going to do, and even if he had known it would remain high for the next 20 years, that would induce little additional warming since there is little lag effect. Which is precisely why few other researchers agreed with Hansen. I guess you just think they were all stupid though and if you were alive back then you would have had all the answers.

[Mello]

Many people including myself are going to have to see this "enormous amount of damage" and believe it is better for them to endure the financial and sociological impacts we would have to go through to significantly reduce CO2 emissions before we agree to anything beyond minor cheap changes. The average global temperature has risen almost 1C since 1900. What enormous amount of damage has this caused? Sea levels have risen some, but it's been a liner change over our measured records. The ocean is very slightly more acidic. There are claims of increased weather damage, but the numbers don't really show it. Societal issues dwarf any climate signal.

[skierinvermont]

Many people including myself are going to have to see this "enormous amount of damage" and believe it is better for them to endure the financial and sociological impacts we would have to go through to significantly reduce CO2 emissions before we agree to anything beyond minor cheap changes. The average global temperature has risen almost 1C since 1900. What enormous amount of damage has this caused? Sea levels have risen some, but it's been a liner change over our measured records. The ocean is very slightly more acidic. There are claims of increased weather damage, but the numbers don't really show it. Societal issues dwarf any climate signal.

I can certainly agree that a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis is the way to go about making decisions like this. Some have already been done but I am not that familiar with them. Part of the reason we haven't experienced too much effects yet is that the rate and magnitude of change has been much less than is expected to occur this century. For another, although we have warmed nearly 1C, much of that was natural and was from a starting point well below the normal climate of the last 1000 years. We are only just now beginning to surpass the bounds of climate the last 1000 years.

The predicted effects of this change include:

- sea level rise of 2-4' by 2100 (some people think it could be as high as 9' but I find more evidence for the conservative estimates)

-sea level rise likely to be 30+ feet over the next 300-500 years as the Greenland ice sheet melts. There's strong evidence for this because we know the ice sheet has melted in the past and at what temperatures.

-droughts damaging agriculture and water supply

-floods

-coral reef die off due to bleaching

-widespread extinction

-severe disruption of ecosystems upon which humans are dependent

[Mello]

I can certainly agree that a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis is the way to go about making decisions like this. Some have already been done but I am not that familiar with them. Part of the reason we haven't experienced too much effects yet is that the rate and magnitude of change has been much less than is expected to occur this century. For another, although we have warmed nearly 1C, much of that was natural and was from a starting point well below the normal climate of the last 1000 years. We are only just now beginning to surpass the bounds of climate the last 1000 years.

The predicted effects of this change include:

- sea level rise of 2-4' by 2100 (some people think it could be as high as 9' but I find more evidence for the conservative estimates)

-sea level rise likely to be 30+ feet over the next 300-500 years as the Greenland ice sheet melts. There's strong evidence for this because we know the ice sheet has melted in the past and at what temperatures.

-droughts damaging agriculture and water supply

-floods

-coral reef die off due to bleaching

-widespread extinction

-severe disruption of ecosystems upon which humans are dependent

You just explained very well why the quote from the Economist in the OP is likely incorrect. A couple of decades aren't going to make much a difference. These are long term projections. The reality that has occurred and will in the next 20 years isn't going to make any of these projections obvious truth. Scientists will say temps have gone up .2 - .3 C and people will look around and say "So? You really sure those numbers are right?" More likely, something mostly unrelated to climate change such as a dramatic increase in fuel prices will do far more to motivate people to move toward cleaner energy sources and further conservation. Activists have gone about the political aspects of this all wrong.

[skierinvermont]

You just explained very well why the quote from the Economist in the OP is likely incorrect. A couple of decades aren't going to make much a difference. These are long term projections. The reality that has occurred and will in the next 20 years isn't going to make any of these projections obvious truth. Scientists will say temps have gone up .2 - .3 C and people will look around and say "So? You really sure those numbers are right?" More likely, something mostly unrelated to climate change such as a dramatic increase in fuel prices will do far more to motivate people to move toward cleaner energy sources and further conservation. Activists have gone about the political aspects of this all wrong.

Yep - I agree with you for the most part. I do think some progress will be made in the minds of the public over the next 20 years as there will be less and less dispute about how much we have warmed as the warming becomes more obvious. There probably won't be a 'silver bullet' in the next 20 years or so. Things won't become really obvious until the sea level rise becomes noticeable or the droughts/flooding and changed weather becomes really obvious which might not be for a while.

[Mencken_Fan]

It wasn't groundbreaking. "Groundbreaking" and "original" are synonyms, get an English teacher to help you. Hansen's study wasn't groundbreaking if both Jason and the NAS had come up with the same findings about carbon dioxide creating significant global warming in the last 10 years. It was a well-accepted idea among many of the top scientists at that point, and Jimmy Carter's administration was well in tune with the idea of global warming. It wasn't anything new when Hansen made his testimony/report in 1988. Also, natural indicators were all showing warming anyway, so it wouldn't have been difficult to predict.

As you note, the global warming theory has been around a while; probably longer than you know...

As a student at Western Junior High School in Bethesda, Maryland during the mid 1960s I was taught the global warming theory (that man-caused increases in CO2 may warm the planet) along with the plate tectonics theory and the Big Bang theory.

We were also taught that these theories would be refined in the future; and indeed, over the last 50 or so years, they have been.

Earth is warmer today than it was in the 1960s; so it appears my teachers were on the right track. Perhaps that's a coincidence, perhaps not. I've been patient for decades...it's possible you too may have to endure such hardship before fully accepting or rejecting the theory of global warming.

Whatever the case, it sure would be nice if y'all were more civil to each other in the meantime.

Thank you.