Extreme Weather, Climate, and Responsibility

[gdlewen]

Judith Curry, Ph.D. said to the Senate in 2023, "In spite of the recent apocalyptic rhetoric, the climate “crisis” isn’t what it used to be. Circa 2013 with publication of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the extreme emissions scenario RCP8.5 was regarded as the business-as-usual emissions scenario, with expected warming of 4 to 5 oC by 2100. Now there is growing acceptance that RCP8.5 is implausible, and the medium emissions scenario is arguably the current business-as-usual scenario according to recent reports issued by the Conference of the Parties since 2021."
So, journalist & academics that still use that out-of-date, worst-case scenario come up with hyperbole that can alienate adults and scare kids.

This is just another example of why climate politicians are having such trouble. How can we know the outcomes of laws to counter climate change when even the proponents of anthropogenic GCWCC (Global Cooling/Warming/Climate Change) can’t even agree on things like the appropriate “emissions scenario” to assume? Similarly, an even harder question is, “How do we avoid the unintended consequences of laws to counter climate change?”

The best legislation, in my opinion, is independent of time. It does not require constant amendments to remain relevant. And the best legislation also minimizes unintended consequences. Aside from the obvious problems with unintended consequences that could negatively affect anyone, unintended consequences generally affect the disenfranchised the most.

Legislation likes a fixed target.

Legislation is written by men, not by angels. The kind of legislation that is independent of time and minimizes unintended consequences is time-consuming and very difficult to write. The climate debate does not offer much in the way of opportunities to develop this kind of legislation.

I haven’t researched this much, so I’m not inviting a tangential challenge that will sidestep and distract from the point of my remarks, but I think we should stop the imperious, command-and-control style of climate governance and strive for the kind of consensus that JFK created in his 1961 appeal to Congress to engage in the Space Race. As a country we did great things in reaching the moon in less than 10 years.

 

[John Farley]

The best legislation, in my opinion, is independent of time. It does not require constant amendments to remain relevant. And the best legislation also minimizes unintended consequences. Aside from the obvious problems with unintended consequences that could negatively affect anyone, unintended consequences generally affect the disenfranchised the most.

Legislation always requires amendments, as new information and unintended consequences come to light. But there are also plenty of unintended consequences to things that do not involve legislation, such as a century-plus of dependency on fossil fuels. Just as with legislation, we ignore those unintended consequences at our own risk.

 

[gdlewen]

Legislation always requires amendments, as new information and unintended consequences come to light. But there are also plenty of unintended consequences to things that do not involve legislation, such as a century-plus of dependency on fossil fuels. Just as with legislation, we ignore those unintended consequences at our own risk.

Yes but we strive to avoid it. I, at least, spend a lot of time considering them. But since we have imperfect foresight, amendments are inevitable. To engage in lawmaking in such a chaotic environment as climate policy should be a deliberate and thoughtful process. I don’t see that being the case.

In many cases, every new law deprives someone of liberty. Of course we surrender some liberty when we consent to be governed, but lawmakers should be cautious about every new encroachment on the liberties of their constituents.

Actually…are we mostly agreeing here?

 

[JamesCaruso]

… I remember reading Nassim Taleb’s “Black Swan,” in which he showed a line chart where the trend appeared to be steadily moving up and to the right. But then the next picture zoomed out, showing that the first picture was only a small portion of the total trend line in the second picture, which had multiple ups and downs to its left. Considering that daily weather observations go back less than 200 years, I often reflect on Taleb’s point when I hear people talk about what’s “normal” or “unprecedented” etc. If we say for example “this is the strongest hurricane ever,” is it really? And even if it is, it’s easy to forget that there was a previous “strongest” that likely seemed equally anomalous to people at that time.

Ultimately I just think it’s about intellectual humility, and not taking extreme actions based on things that we really can’t be certain about. There are countless things we thought we knew that have been proven wrong. We used to use leeches for medical treatment for goodness sake. By definition we cannot say what it is that we think we know today that will be proven wrong tomorrow. If we could, we would already know it’s wrong. Just like we can’t say for sure what will be invented tomorrow, because if we knew then we would have already invented it.

SPC forecaster Roger Edwards wrote this on his personal blog - he says much more eloquently what I was trying to say in my earlier post above. His post is not about climate change; it makes the broader point that nothing is beyond question just because it’s “science,” and we can’t know what we don’t know.

Truth vs. Bumper-Sticker Scientism

stormeyes.org

 

[John Farley]

SPC forecaster Roger Edwards wrote this on his personal blog - he says much more eloquently what I was trying to say in my earlier post above. His post is not about climate change; it makes the broader point that nothing is beyond question just because it’s “science,” and we can’t know what we don’t know.

Truth vs. Bumper-Sticker Scientism

stormeyes.org

I would amend/add to the Neil Tyson quote in Roger's blog thusly:

Change “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it” to “The good thing about science is that it’s true to the extent that it is supported by good data, whether or not you believe in it. But even the best science is subject to revision as new and/or better data becomes available.” Perhaps most of us, despite our different interpretations of the science on climate change, can agree on that much?

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I'd say science is more about seeking the truth, as opposed to being absolute truth. Half the world would probably say that climate change is in the state of hypothesis at this point, as the other half would say it is fact. That can all be wrapped in the word "science".

 

[JamesCaruso]

I would amend/add to the Neil Tyson quote in Roger's blog thusly:

Change “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it” to “The good thing about science is that it’s true to the extent that it is supported by good data, whether or not you believe in it. But even the best science is subject to revision as new and/or better data becomes available.” Perhaps most of us, despite our different interpretations of the science on climate change, can agree on that much?

Generally, yes! But… We all know that data can be cherry-picked to tell a desired story - we hear politicians do this all the time… Sometimes one set of data is contradicted by another that is not shown… And, as I noted in my original point from Nassim Taleb’s book, sometimes even what looks like a trend in one direction is not, when you zoom out and look at a longer time horizon. Finally, there’s the issue that correlation is not necessarily causation. My point is simply that a theory or argument is not immune to questioning, even by lay people, just because it is accompanied by data.

And of course the bigger issue with climate change, even when there is agreement that it is occurring, is the disagreement over what we should do about it, or whether we can even affect it.

For the record, I have the greatest respect for Roger Edwards as a meteorologist and as a person, so I feel compelled to mention that by posting his essay here I am in no way implying that he is on any particular side of the climate change debate! This particular essay of his has no reference to climate change whatsoever. From reading other posts of his, I know he acknowledges its occurrence. At the risk of mischaracterizing what he has written about elsewhere, I believe he thinks we should look more to private sector solutions and innovations that will naturally occur in response to changing conditions as needed, as opposed to sweeping government intervention with its unintended consequences and potential for financial waste. But I could be wrong about that.

 

[John Farley]

Generally, yes! But… We all know that data can be cherry-picked to tell a desired story - we hear politicians do this all the time… Sometimes one set of data is contradicted by another that is not shown… And, as I noted in my original point from Nassim Taleb’s book, sometimes even what looks like a trend in one direction is not, when you zoom out and look at a longer time horizon. Finally, there’s the issue that correlation is not necessarily causation. My point is simply that a theory or argument is not immune to questioning, even by lay people, just because it is accompanied by data.

The first part of what is said above is why I said "good data." The quality and completeness of data is always subject to critique. That said, I would add that, when I talked about ethics of research to students in my social research methods and statistics courses, one point I made is that if you have data contrary to your theory, hypothesis, or conclusions, it is unethical to withhold that data. I know it is done sometimes, but it is not good research ethics IMHO. And correlation by itself absolutely does not prove causation. You have to look at time order between independent and dependent variables and consistency with theory and past research to get a good sense of causation. I would argue that much of the data in support of climate change passes those tests, but in science there is usually room for debate on the meaning of data. Organized skepticism is a norm of science (both natural science and social science). That said, if you want to make an argument against consistent research findings, you had better have a good argument and some good data.

For the record, I have the greatest respect for Roger Edwards as a meteorologist and as a person, so I feel compelled to mention that by posting his essay here I am in no way implying that he is on any particular side of the climate change debate! This particular essay of his has no reference to climate change whatsoever. From reading other posts of his, I know he acknowledges its occurrence. At the risk of mischaracterizing what he has written about elsewhere, I believe he thinks we should look more to private sector solutions and innovations that will naturally occur in response to changing conditions as needed, as opposed to sweeping government intervention with its unintended consequences and potential for financial waste. But I could be wrong about that.

From what I have read of Roger's online material over the years, I would guess that this is a generally accurate description of his viewpoint. That said, I will disagree with the part about private sector solutions, whether it is Roger's opinion, yours, both, or neither. The purpose of the private sector is to make money, and in the case of corporations to make money for stockholders. It is not to solve the world's problems, although I find it admirable when businesses do take social and environmental consequences into consideration. But it is not what they exist to do, and we cannot count upon it. Which is why I strongly believe we need government involvement in some areas, to protect the public interest which often gets overlooked as businesses and corporations pursue their main reason for existence, i.e. to make money.

 

[William Monfredo]

We have local & regional situations no matter what, and we can experience success when we use resources towards adaptive & mitigating measures locally or regionally now, regardless of whether things will be better or worse in the future. IMO, we do a disservice to people around the world when we average the earth's temperatures: It's in the high 50s F incidentally.
People say buy locally; we can help solve locally, too. Problems of albedo (strong absorbers are strong emitters) would be less with less black-colored shingles or dark-colored asphalt. I know LA has planted gardens and trees on the roofs in spots.

 

[gdlewen]

First, I'd like to agree with @John Farley that we we should continually re-examine our conclusions as new data comes in. I hope that's common sense.

Now:

IMO, we do a disservice to people around the world when we average the earth's temperatures: It's in the high 50s F incidentally.

This is a point that bears repeating. It's where the changes occur that the matter to the biosphere. Again--this point should be common sense but it gets lost in the passions of the debate since the "average global temperature" is a simple and easy-to-understand measure of global climate change.

For example, this figure from a 2020 paper by Tierney, et. al., makes me very very uncomfortable:


It shows the locations of the temperature proxy data used to estimate the average temperature during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). What's missing? Interior continental sources. And a lot of non-coastal oceanic sources, for that matter. We would never trust a global climate model that was initialized only at these locations.

The method described in the paper will certainly yield an estimate of the mean global temperature during the last Ice Age but is it the value we should use? I get it: paleoclimatology is a tough field. Paleoclimatologists have to reconstruct climate data using indirect measures assuming whatever processes created the proxy are known and are the same today as millennia ago. And I am amazed at how much has been done researching various proxies for climate.

I mean--this is really cool:

Paleoclimatology Data

Paleoclimatology data are derived from natural sources such as tree rings, ice cores, corals, and ocean and lake sediments.

www.ncei.noaa.gov

But...driving global sustainability goals based on models that use data like this to extrapolate decades into the future? It really should make all of us uncomfortable, no matter where in the spectrum of debate we fall.

---

References:
Tierney, J.E., Zhu, J., King, J. et al. Glacial cooling and climate sensitivity revisited. Nature 584, 569–573 (2020).

 

[William Monfredo]

...locations of the temperature proxy data used to estimate the average temperature...

There's more than a few people that get "uncomfortable," as you mention. I've read quite a bit over the years, and I remember being surprised to find that in at least one instance a single tree was used to represent an entire hemisphere for one century. I thought that was a bit of a stretch.

 

[William Monfredo]

Maybe I should post this under “media misuse of weather terms,” but I roll my eyes a bit when I hear about a “blanket” of greenhouse gases. Spoiler alert--there's no blanket, and the earth's not truly greenhouse.

Life as we presently enjoy it would not be possible without a so-called greenhouse effect. “So-called” because the media popularized it as a colloquial expression, not entirely correct and often misunderstood. In order for the earth’s temperature to hover in the upper 50s Fahrenheit, we need this effect, yet oddly the ideal temperature for the planet remains unknown. How does the earth differ from a real greenhouse?

First, we have no ceiling on top of our planet like a greenhouse does. No blanket of carbon dioxide surrounds the world, because the gas remains well distributed in our atmosphere at less than 1/20th of 1 percent. Therefore, we call the earth’s system “open” with respect to energy, because the planet radiates heat upwards that readily escapes into outer space, especially on clear, calm nights. In a real greenhouse, much of that radiation remains trapped within the confines of the glass or plexiglass, a.k.a. the "blanket."

Secondly, the planet’s atmosphere transports hidden heat in water vapor not only upwards in the atmosphere, but towards higher latitudes and different longitudes through “convection,” and a real greenhouse does not. During convection, warmed air rises vertically through a cooler, more dense atmosphere, cools and condenses, travels horizontally, and descends. And during condensation, the air releases the exact amount of heat that it took to evaporate the water initially. Convection places both the heat and the water in different, new locations. A good example, hurricanes transport oceanic heat from tropical locations to higher latitudes through this process, but you won’t see a hurricane in a greenhouse.

 

[William Monfredo]

I'm a little surprised that we're still in ENSO neutral conditions, and that as of December 2nd, we still have a 57 percent chance of a La Niña. CPC also notes how late it has become for its arrival, and that it will be weak at best, persisting perhaps into March 2025. Nonetheless, it's a teleconnection that can have an effect and influence precipitation & temperature at far-flung location around the world, especially in winter w/ a time lag.
Remember that Heinz Ketchup TV commercial or Carly Simon's song "Anticipation?" Not that I've been waiting with bated breath, but maybe some of these models could get re-tuned, too, because the notion of 2024 La Niña has persisted for some time, and we're just not seeing it.

 

[William Monfredo]

Hydrofluorocarbons...There must be something better to smuggle into the US from Mexico than old-style refrigerants! Tequila maybe? Anyway...
The indictment alleged that Michael Hart of San Diego, CA "purchased refrigerants in Mexico and smuggled them into the United States in his vehicle, concealed under a tarp & tools...posted the refrigerants for sale on OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace and other(s)...and imported HCFC 22, an ozone-depleting substance." He was charged in 03/24, pleaded guilty in 09/24, and is scheduled for sentencing the morning of 12/9/24.
From 2020 onward, the personal-use allowance / allotment was dropped; Dept. of Homeland Security and EPA got involved on this one.
The outcome of this case will be interesting to watch; he could get a max of $250K fine and 5 years in jail (DOJ US Atty. S.D. CA.)

San Diego Man Receives First Conviction in Nation for Illegally Importing Harmful Greenhouse Gases into the United States

www.justice.gov

 

[John Farley]

New data from Copernicus:

2024 on track to be the first year to exceed 1.5ºC above the pre-industrial average | Copernicus

November 2024 was the second warmest month of November globally in the ERA5 reanalysis dataset, according to the latest monthly update of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

climate.copernicus.eu