Discussion > Who likes it hot?
OK, Raff. agreed, in neither domain can the cause of an individual cancer case/weather event be pinned down.
Here is the difference that I see between the two domains.
Smoking/Cancer
>>>Statistical evidence: The statistical evidence that smokers contract cancer at a far greater rate (eg cases per 100,000 people) than non smokers is rock solid. In any ordinary sense, smoking causes lung cancer, irrespective of what might go on at the cellular/DNA level. Anybody arguing that it does not is essentially off their trolley.
>>>Theory: The theory of what goes on at the cellular level explains what goes on. But it's the observation the statistics of real-life victims that makes the relation between smoking and lung cancer risk not open to question.
Extreme Weather Events
>>>Statistical evidence: The seems to be essentially no *statistical* evidence that increased atmospheric CO2 causes climate change. [my deleted essay went into depth about that]. And there is no *statistical* evidence linking extreme weather events to climate change.
>>>Theory: There can be no question that increased atmospheric CO2 will, on some time scale, lead to increased surface temperature. How much increase depends on a load of things that are not fully understood but that does not mean the their is any real doubt about some temperature increase resulting. But the link between a surface temperature increase and the rate of extreme weather events is essentially unknown. You can speculate that 'more energy means more extremes' but that is only speculation.
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So that's why I disagree that arguing against CO2 causing weather extremes** is like arguing that smoking does not cause cancer. In the smoking case, the statistical evidence is rock solid but, in the extreme weather case, it is nonexistent.
In neither case (smoking/extreme weather) can theory be relied upon to produce firm conclusions.
The impossibilty of finding a culprit in individual cases has no bearing on what I said above.
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Postscript. ** Anybody claiming CO2 does NOT cause extreme weather is on the same basis as someone arguing that it DOES. The most they can say is that there is no actual evidence either way.
Martin A
Radical Rodent
Basic physics.
Increase the temperature and you increase the water vapour content of the atmosphere. Precipitation increases, and with it flooding. The extra latent heat released when the water vapour condenses makes storms more energetic and more damaging.
Thermal expansion and ice melt raise sea levels, inundating coastal infrastructure.
Biome boundaries shift, changing local conditions and disrupting agriculture.
Etc, etc, etc but that is enough to make the point.
Entropic man
Marin A
" the link between a surface temperature increase and the rate of extreme weather events is essentially unknown. You can speculate that 'more energy means more extremes' but that is only speculation."
False.
There is a temperature gradient between poles and Equator. In warmer climates storms are more energetic and precipitation is more extreme than in cooler climates.
We already know the effect of increased temperature.There is no reason to expect the behaviour to be different when the temperature increases with time, rather than location.
Entropic man
So that’s why the rainfall tends to be higher in winter than in summer, because it is so much warmer in winter than…
oh…
There does seem to be a flaw in that argument.
And your examples of inundated coastal infrastructure?
Yes, biome boundaries shift, local conditions change, and agriculture can be disrupted. That may not necessarily be blamed on warble gloaming, but could be quite easily caused by the perpetual ebb and flow of all life, as well as changing agricultural practices.
Etc., etc., etc., but that is enough to make the point.
Radical Rodent
EM - as I have pointed out before, you imagine stuff, it becomes your reality and you present it as if it really were reality. Why not apply a basic sanity check to what you say before hitting the keyboard?
"Basic physics.
Increase the temperature and you increase the water vapour content of the atmosphere. Precipitation increases, and with it flooding."
Whenever I have driven down the Florida Keys, it has been around 90° F, with millpond turquoise green sea on either side of the highway, and nothing more than a few wispy white clouds high in the sky.
Obviously "basic physics" (™ EM) does not apply in Southern Florida.
"There is no reason to expect the behaviour to be different when the temperature increases with time, rather than location."
There is *every* reason to expect behaviour to be different when the temperature increases with time, rather than location.
Just look at even the one-dimensional heat diffusion equation. It's a 1st order partial derivative in t and 2nd order partial derivative in x. How can the behaviour in time and space possibly be the same?
Etc, etc, etc but that is enough to make the point.
Martin A
Radical Rodent
Overall rainfall is higher in Winter, because you get more depressions passing through. This is not the same as extreme precipitation, which occurs as individual storms. And example would be the difference between flooding due to extended winter rainfall saturating the ground and a storm event such as Boscastle.
"Inundated coastal infrastructure"
"That may not necessarily be blamed on warble gloaming, but could be quite easily caused by the perpetual ebb and flow of all life, as well as changing agricultural practices."
That turns out not to be the case. The biomes are expanding to higher latitudes and higher altitudes as one would expect from increasing temperatures
Entropic man
Miami Beach: rising sea levels or a sinking Florida? How are the sea levels in the Bahamas doing?
*sigh*
When have I denied that temperatures have risen? (Though why the shifting of biome boundaries should been looked on with such alarm is a mystery.) What I do doubt is that it has been or is likely to be catastrophic, or that it is likely to rise sufficiently to pose any serious “threat”. What I do fear is that the temperatures will fall, though you will no doubt greet that with glee… at least until the catastrophic results start to become evident.
Radical Rodent
Martin I read an entertaining book that doesn't fit with your image of Florida. It was a true story of a Labrador retriever called Marley (Marley and Me). The dog was terrified of thunderstorms and would tear up whatever room he was confined to when they occurred. Such storms appeared to be frequent and the owners took to sedating him when they were imminent. They later moved up north and were glad not to have the problem.
Raff
If you went with the original consensus, then it is already too late. And the log-response curve would mean that continued business-as-usual CO2 emissions won't actually make it much worse.
Dec 14, 2015 at 5:11 PM | Unregistered Commentermichael hart"[..] I would not rely on the log-response curve.
Dec 14, 2015 at 5:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man
Then you really ought to get out there and tell the consensus that they may be denying the basic physics of the Beer-Lambert Law. Maybe you don't think that. It seems confused, what you think.
Or did you mean that the entire climate history and future of the Earth is a bit more complicated than that? Or did you mean something else?
Whatever. It's not my consensus. It's your consensus.
michael hart
Raff,
"Martin I read an entertaining book that doesn't fit with your image of Florida. "
Now you admit to how high the bar has to be to affect what you "believe". A work of fiction, turned into a Holllywood film. Not even a good one, but it fits your little agenda.
Sad little person, fighting the good fight, to stop the poor being lifted out of poverty.
Well done, Raff.
jolly farmer
They later moved up north and were glad not to have the problem.
Dec 15, 2015 at 1:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterRaff
Interesting story Raff. There is somewhere in the North of the USA that does not have thunderstorms? Not the part I lived in. Nor New England.
My neighbour in England, a doctor, used to dose his dog with Valium on November 5th. Perhaps that would have been an easier solution for Marley's owners.
Martin A
Martin, there's no ambiguity in this map: https://community.fema.gov/sites/default/files/hurricanemap750w.jpg
Jolly farmer, go back to your crayons, there's a good boy!
Raff
Martin A
The Beer-Lambert law does not work with greenhouse gases.
They scatter IR by reradiation. They absorb across a range of wavelengths rather than being monochromatic. The radiation is omnidirectional , not a parallel beam. They saturate.
Any one of them would invalidate the application of the Beer-Lambert law to the atmosphere.
Entropic man
Michael hart
My last comment should have been addressed to you, not Martin A
Entropic man
Martin A
You may have noticed, Florida has warm,dry days. It also has hurricanes.
You missed my other point. Different latitudes have different temperatures. We know the water vapour content at different latitudes and the resulting weather. When a particular latitude warms we can extrapolate what happens from what happened when a lower latitude was at the same temperature.
Entropic man
Entropic man
Sorry about the delay in replying we're a bit busy this week. Thanks for the definition of the optimum temperature.
Couple of of points
On that basis I would suggest somewhere around 13.5 and 14.0C.
So the 20th century was the optimum? Reversing Climate Change any further would cause issues similar to the LIA? Or is what you think just natural human feeling that the times in which we live(d) are/were the best in human history and it's downhill from now on?
Go much higher and you lose land to desertification and rising sea levels.
Does the desertification correlate with the increased rainfall being touted as one of the problems associated with rising temperatures? Or are you assuming localised effects? For the rise in sea level, rainfall and the gain or loss in usable land the Eemian (+2'C) would make a good proxy for a marginal increase in GAT would it not?
SandyS
Raff, thank you for the map. A huge hurricane in 1935 washed a train off the track and destroyed the railroad line that until then ran from key to key down to Key West.
The only time I was close to a tornado was in Newark Delaware (a little university town). With my family we went for a stroll down the maind street into the town centre. The sky was very dark with distant lighting flashes, so we strolled back to the motel and turned on the TV just as the storm arrived. The announcer was saying "we are receiving reports of a tornado in Newark". Next day we drove down the main street and saw that huge trees had been toppled causing serious damage..
I once saw a tornado in New Jersey but a mile or more away and in open country
Martin A
SandyS
We've been lucky. The 10,000 years since the invention of agriculture have been remarkably stable by past planetary standards.
There have been a number of regional losses but nothing that really qualifies as a global disaster.
Entropic man
The 10,000 years since the invention of agriculture have been remarkably stable by past planetary standards.Is this a tacit acceptance that Earth might be returning to its more variable nature? If so, could it not be possible that humans might have very little to do with it? And, it being a planetary change to former behaviour, what can humans do to counter it?
Radical Rodent
SandyS
The period from 1850-1880 averaged 13.8C. It coincides with a rapid acceleration of global population growth.That strikes me as a good indicator of optimum conditions.
IIRC current thinking on the Eemian puts temperatures 2C higher than the Holocene, perhaps 16.4C. Sea levels were 4-6 metres higher and precipitation higher. Would you be comfortable with that?
Entropic man
Radical Rodent
We are the main planetary variable at present. What natural variation we see is small and, in our absence, would be producing a slow cooling trend. Instead we are warming rapidly.
Entropic man
What was the planetary variable before humans? How can you be so sure that it is still not in effect, now? It might actually be quite charming, seeing you so entrenched in your personal certainties, with not a shred of evidence to back you up, were it not for the fact that you are merely parroting others who have a more pernicious intent with the suspect information. No doubt you will still believe that this year (be it 2016, 2017, 2020 or 2050) is the "hottest evah", even as the Thames is ice-bound, and the farmers of Europe desert their permafrosted fields for warmer climes, as the first genuine climate refugees.
Radical Rodent
Every winter sees droves of temporary climate refugees from the tri-state area and New England converge on Florida.
Martin A
Entropic man
Is it me personally or the well being of the human race that is important? Where I live a rise in sea-level of 10 metres wouldn't cause much of a problem (235m asl to 225 asl) although the drive to the sea might be reduce by quarter of an hour. The Eemian seems to have been quite a benign climate so for humans in general (don't think we can deduce anything much about frequency extreme events), the greater good if you like, the productivity of the earth should be able sustain life pretty well. The problem lies in humans inability to resolve problems without spending at least 30 years killing each other, that part of our nature is the main problem not what the climate will be like whatever the future holds.
SandyS
Raff (Dec 14, 2015 at 1:43 PM)
Post deleted - too long and rambling. I might try again later.