Ken Fabian

Enthalpy - I was just curious and had hoped you might be aware of an existing explanation; I didn't expect you to take on the problem as a personal project! Or that you would have an existing interest in a related question of the affects of moisture films on the inner surfaces of woodwind instruments. Thank you for your replies.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Discussion goes better if you read what I wrote more thoroughly.

We seem to be talking about different things and I may not have been clear enough. I am talking about the kind of GSHP's where pipework is buried in the ground nearby (1 or 2 metres under) and relies on seasonal ground warming to replenish the heat. I had thought it was the most common sort of GSHP but I could be wrong there.

The British Geological Survey link supports what I said about this type of system - that efficiency declines if heat is not replenished quickly enough, which I (legitimately I think) take to mean GSHP's use lowers the temperature of the ground being used as thermal mass (when used to extract heat). I don't see how drawing heat out could have no affect on local ground temperatures radiating out from the pipework.

This kind of buried pipework -

Yes, there are variants that make use of geothermal heat that have nothing to do with seasonal ground warming - heat replenishment by local volcanic/hydrothermal sources, hot rock (heat from natural radioactive decay) or underground water, but for those relying on that seasonal warming of the ground the potential to deliberately add more heat over summer for use in winter is there. I think it might reduce the overall size and extent of underground pipework, reducing construction costs, to have seasonal warming supplemented this way. Note I am asking about inclusion of diverted energy to this type of thermal storage being done and if it would be beneficial - not insisting it is.

4 hours ago, Enthalpy said:

I've had somewhat similar thoughts but not for whistling. I need much more time thinking at it, and the physical model and maths aren't trivial.

If someone knows an answer, I'd be interested too!

Brass and woodwind players talk about their instrument playing better after being warmed up by the breath, but it also adds condensation inside the instruments, ie wetting the inside surfaces. Related perhaps?

Koti, Phi for All,  those could be contributing factors but it is such a distinct difference that I doubt they are the main reason -  I don't think my mouth shape is a lot different dry to wet but perhaps tiny changes due to stiffer skin or lip creases may be enough. Would it make much difference in airflow for brass/woodwind players? The seal between lips and mouthpiece should be good and tight either way although for brass the lips touch each other in "blowing raspberries" style and being dry would affect that. Recollecting vaguely my childhood encounters with a soprano cornet, playing with a dry mouth could give me sore lips but I'm not sure I was discerning enough to tell if the sound quality was much affected.

If this is being or were to be done - storing excess energy eg solar PV but other sources also, as ground heat during summer for winter - then I would think the efficiency of the system would improve if the electricity to heat part is not done with resistance heating, but uses air source heat pump type water heaters. Cost effectiveness would still be a question, although GSHP's are already one of the most cost effective forms of heating.

38 minutes ago, swansont said:

It’s a matter of how much. Heating air takes relatively little energy, as compared with a larger volume of ground, so the temperature drop is correspondingly smaller. Plus, the ground is coupled to its surroundings. Any significant drop in temperature would result in heat flow in from the area around the GSHP.

similarly, if you raised the temperature, heat would flow out. Any ability to store energy would be short-term. 

The essential nature of GSHP's is that (where they are reliant on summer warming of the ground, which I believe most are) the ground stores heat accumulated through summer which is used in winter - I would not call that short-term storage. During the summer phase the flow of heat would be outwards from the pipework, diminishing with distance but would not be lost except to the surface - or where groundwater flows are involved, lost to those, in which case it would not be suitable for the kind of use as storage I am talking about. The heat becomes part of the surrounding geothermal heat that replenishes what is taken by the pipework in winter. I don't see a lot of room for outright loss of that heat even through loss to the surface - because during the summer the temperature gradient through to the surface would be less, and closer to the surface, reversed.

Studiot, GSHP's take heat from the surrounding ground and has to reduce it's temperature.

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 As the GSHP is removing heat from the ground (for heating) or adding it (for cooling), the operation of the system can affect its lifespan. For example, if heat is extracted from the ground more quickly than it is replenished by solar or geothermal heating (or groundwater flow), the effectiveness of the system will diminish over time. (British Geological Survey)

I would read that as being replenished by solar warming of the soil surface. I recall reading that summer heat from the surface slowly replenishes the heat that was taken out over winter, and calculation of the ideal depth of the ground pipes is based on that. The source cited above mentions GSHP being used for summer cooling, which does return heat to the ground - but I am not aware of it used intentionally as thermal energy storage, eg. diverting excess solar PV through summer; I would expect raised ground temperatures should improve winter effectiveness for heating.

I live in a warm climate, where this technology is not in  common use and am not familiar with it - although air-source heat pumps are becoming common for efficient electric hot water systems. Those are becoming a popular and cost effective alternative to passive solar hot water for households with solar PV especially, using solar electricity that otherwise would go back to the grid, although also popular for those without rooftop solar who might otherwise use inefficient resistance type water heaters.

Descriptions of ground source heat pumps (GSHP's) talk about extracting heat from the ground for residential heating, but I haven't heard of putting heat back into the ground as thermal energy storage using these systems. Does anyone do that? Would it be efficient - or at least cost effective - where an oversupply of say, solar energy during warmer seasons can be used?

I whistle sometimes - a bit of bluesy stuff mostly, sometimes with roughly played guitar, sometimes by itself. I haven't found a good answer to why it is more difficult to whistle when my mouth and lips are dry. I've read claims it is because the mouth shape is easier to achieve with a lubricated mouth but was not convinced; I've seen harmonica players dip their instruments in a glass of water and recall school sports where the teacher/umpire dipped sports whistles in water like that ( to get more volume I thought), so I think it not just about the human mouth. I speculate that the wet film both smooths the texture of mouth surfaces and a wet surface reflects sound waves better - but does anyone have something more than speculation?

9 hours ago, Suzie said:

And please refrain from saying all scientist agree, because that is no different then saying all Christians believe in Jesus and all Muslims believe in Allah. 

Why would I refrain from saying there is high level of agreement amongst scientists? It is true. Experts always know more - with more accuracy - than non experts. Trust in experts is not about blindly believing them because they are experts but because of trust in the institutions and practices, the codes of conduct and professional standards within which science on climate is done. Being able to convince you or not is kind of irrelevant as well as, I expect, futile; we get similar posts with similar points quite often at this site. That there are things you don't understand, can't understand or choose not to understand about climate change does not make any difference to whether the mainstream science is correct. I would note that science based knowledge and expertise is almost always what courts of law use for deciding cases of negligence, reflecting that common sense truth that expert knowledge is not made false by refusing to accept it; if people with fiduciary duties - holding positions of trust and responsibilty - ignore expert advice they can be held negligent; "I am not an expert and I don't trust experts" will not get you any credit in court and it won't here.

The kind of faith I think is most at issue here is good-faith in this discussion; I could attempt to explain, for example, why your claim that science hasn't considered past historical climate change is incorrect or why what is likely to happen over the next decades and centuries is far more significant to people of the present and near future than climate changes of the pre-civilisation, pre-human past. But -  will you read and give real, thoughtful consideration and responses to arguments I or others make?

20 minutes ago, coffeesippin said:

And when government comes and takes your car and tells you to take public transit?  Will you be one of the few happy people on the bus?

I had in mind things like carbon pricing that make the externalised costs part of the pricing of various transport choices, not forced vehicle confiscations.

I want reasoned and reasonable responses to climate change from governments - preventing unreasonable responses as well as promoting reasonable ones is a legitimate thing ordinary people can do when they vote. Facing up to it - taking the expert advice seriously - should be the barest minimum to expect, not something an irate public has to demand from someone holding high office.

Climate change is not about socialist versus capitalist, it is about accountability and responsibility. It is not anti-free enterprise to want accountability and costing of climate externalities.

2 hours ago, naitche said:

 

Agree @Sensei

Never too young to learn about human impacts on earth and its resources, but over reliance on Govt. to solve problems that start with the individual and their own choices won't have the broader  reaching effects needed.

An expectation of responsible choice at the individual level works its way up.

I disagree - responsibility at the government department level is, in a very legal sense, obligatory (or should be), but individuals have wide discretion to believe whatever they like. Collective actions that are beyond the scope of individual choice are what governments are for. Our civic institutions are necessary to put responsibility and decision making beyond the reach of individual self interest.

I think a significant part of the counter-messaging by opponents of climate responsibility and climate action has been make the issue a will-of-the-people decision in order to justify those holding positions of trust and responsibility failing to take the expert advice seriously and failing to act, using a combination of widespread misinformation, apathy and denial to prevent appropriate policy from being developed, enacted or used effectively. That it appears that the tide is turning - a lot of people are informed and concerned and beginning to demand governments like Australia's act - doesn't let governments off the hook; they have had close to 3 decades of consistent expert advice, but many within governments not merely failed to act, they were (and many still are) active participants in misinforming their constituents.

I would expect anyone studying physiology would know that with respect to our senses you need to be able to count past five. I've seen counts that go as high as 21, but it depends on how you define a single sense. Take Touch for example; if you define touch as whatever the skin senses then it is one, but if you distinguish between feeling pressure on the skin and feeling something disturb the hairs on the skin or feel warming or cooling or pain as different to simple touch, you count more than one. These can have quite distinct and different nerve receptor endings as well as sensations - but, for example, it is quite common for direct skin contact (nerve endings under hairless skin) and contact with hairs (nerve endings within hair follicles) to blur together and be perceived as a single sensation, but that is a result of not really paying attention.

Accusations of deliberate, widespread bias and falsification of results, across every major institution (in several different nations) doing climate science and climate modelling really does require evidence.  Evidence of which, if this misconduct was really going on, would leave a much clearer trail than a couple of questionable phrases in one email exchange. There is no such evidence, just accusations or it would have come to light a long time ago.

Does anyone really think successive governments across the developed world, many with demonstrated hostility to climate science's reports and studies, could not uncover that extent of deliberate bias and collusion? Or that level of incompetence not be noticed within long running non-secret institutions where high standards - with everything on the record - are essential to everything they do? The claims of bias and incompetence are all accusation and no evidence.

We have agencies that can pick out guarded exchanges between anonymous terrorist conspirators but they can't catch out hundreds (thousands?) of published working scientists conspiring within and between legitimate government agencies? They haven't exposed this alleged conspiracy of incompetent science and world subjugation because it doesn't exist.

Making casual accusations against ordinary people doing their job (better than some people like) is, itself, a serious kind of wrongdoing (slander), besides being very insulting to people who, so far as evidence goes, have been doing their jobs with all the appropriate care and attention and honesty.

All that professional effort to work out how our climate system really works, only to be casually accused of being everything from colluding in incompetence to engaging in a global conspiracy!

What upsets me almost more than anything else, is that climate scientists have given us an extraordinary gift in the forewarning and foresight they have given. The window of time to transform the way we do energy has been precious beyond price; that we have been squandering it is not the fault of climate scientists failing to communicate. The persistent counter-messaging by opponents and obstructors is indicative of a far more insidious conspiracy of biased incompetence than even their made up version of conspiratorial climate scientists and green-socialist-globalists. In the face of that kind of politicking, and given the seriousness of the climate problem it is climate scientist who do not resort to advocacy that I find questionable.

Mistermack - I think you are too gullible and that you have been gulled. I don't expect you to believe anything from me even if you did give it due consideration. Or from Al Gore or from Greenpeace or whoever; however, I do think you should consider taking the Royal Society and National Academy of Sciences, the NOAA, NSIDC, NASA, CSIRO, Hadley CRU and so on, seriously.

On 22/11/2018 at 8:43 AM, Ken Fabian said:

Will you read and pay attention and give real consideration to what I write?

Mistermack, I take it the answer is NO?

10 hours ago, mistermack said:

Each model can be jiggled and massaged before it's announced to the world. You never see the ones that don't produce the politically correct result. Climate measurements can be massaged too, just by ignoring this or stressing that. If you're not getting the answer you want, move your equipment. If it's telling the required story, leave it be. Just little tweaks can completely change the picture. 

I used to trust the figures for climate. I don't any longer. Because you can't trust the people involved to be honest and unbiased. As I said, they are now all activists. 

Do you realise you are making a serious accusation of widespread serious professional misconduct to deliberately give false and misleading results? Do you have any evidence of this? Sounds to me like you are repeating unsubstantiated slander - the sort that probably originated from people engaged in climate counter-messaging, to undermine public confidence in all those consistent expert studies and reports. And it looks like it worked.

If you are going to make such serious allegations - Citations are definitely required!

21 hours ago, mistermack said:

Up to 1997 the models were saying rapid increases in temps. None of the models forecast a standstill of about 18 years.

I suggest you have been taking the counter-messaging about climate change science far more seriously than it deserves and you are getting things very wrong as a result.

Year to year variability since that particular 18 year slice of time (why 18 years? Why those particular 18 years?) has already caught up on all that "missed" warming - which indicates that warming did not pause or stop and that it always was, as the actual experts (not the counter-messagers) said, within the range of variability overlaying a consistent warming trend.

I could try and explain why 18 years is too short to judge if warming is continuing or not.

I could try and explain why starting at 1998 - a record breaking year with high grade el-Nino conditions - creates the illusion that what came after looks like cooling,  even years with temperatures above the predicted warming trend.

I could suggest that other measures of global warming - Ocean Heat Content for example - don't show any "pause" during that period; for it to be a real pause, OHC would show it.

------------------

I think this is an issue we really can't afford to get wrong. Will you read and pay attention and give real consideration to what I write?

I would note that a common theme of anti-climate action counter-messaging is to encourage distrust and resist arguments based on what climate science experts say. If you have internalised that message (from here it looks like you have) it may not be possible to use real world measurements and scientific reason to persuade you of anything about this.

10 hours ago, mistermack said:

If you got hold of a big computer, one of the biggest, and wrote a super program to forecast the lottery results, and then put all the previous lottery results into it, and tweaked and tweaked until the model correctly forecast all of the previous lottery numbers retrospectively, your chances of forecasting the NEXT result correctly would still be nearly nil. I wouldn't even spend a pound on a ticket. 

Start a gigantic bank account, and make all of the climate scientists put their pension money in it. When they come to retire, pay out on how successfully they predicted what the climate would be like on retirement day. You might see some more realistic efforts, if their own money depended on it.

Yet people who actually study climate and work on these problems do believe the nature and likely extent of climate consequences of human emissions can be predicted.  That you don't understand how that can be done (and doubt that it can) does not mean that they do not know how that can be done. Perfect prediction? No,  but the broad sweep of changes and their consequences can be well predicted.

The fundamental connection between greenhouse gas concentrations and global climate is well understood.

The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society -

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There are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes.

and

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Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

I expect people holding positions of trust and responsibility to take the expert advice seriously - that for such people to ignore or reject it, because they don't understand it, can't understand it or don't want to understand it is negligence.

Mistermack, you are free to believe what you like unless you hold such positions of responsibility. But that individual human "right" does not extend to those who do have fiduciary duties of care. The scale and long duration of the problem and the extent of influence of those who seek to avoid addressing it can work to effectively indemnify them - hard corruption bypassing legal requirement in exchange for bribes, or soft corruption influencing regulators to make it not-illegal and exempt them - but the essential legal principles for people being accountable are well established within common law legal systems.

14 hours ago, druS said:

IS a hindcast accurately reported as a projection?

Interesting question. I think it is mostly about choice of words and I can't see it as a big problem - but is running climate models from the conditions current 100 years ago to see how well they "project/predict" climate changes only up to where we have real world data to compare to really prediction? Well, it does get called hindcasting to distinguish it from models that start with near-present known conditions to see what future conditions might be.

Hindcasting is done to verify how well the models work given various inputs, such as including the known rise in things like GHG concentrations, solar input and occurrences of volcanic eruptions over the period. Or alternatively without the rising GHG to see how climate might have changed without them.

Is it a prediction (or projection) if it only projects from further in the past up to when real world data runs out? I don't think calling it that is completely unreasonable, but it probably deserves clarification.

_____________________________________

There are a lot of misunderstandings about climate model projections/predictions and, like claims of reasonable climate concerns being labelled alarmist, a lot of the claims about modelling getting it wrong originate in the counter-messaging by those opposed to climate action. The "pause/hiatus" controversy for example arose from mistaking - often on purpose and ignoring expert objections - the average of many model runs giving an 0.x degrees per year of warming as predicting that every year will be 0.x degrees warmer than the one before. Which is like saying because models of seasonal temperature changes based on Earth's axial tilt say that on average each Spring day will be warmer than the day before - and therefore, because we just had a string of cooler than that average days, the models are wrong and Summer won't be warmer than Spring. And then suggest it could be the start of a new ice age.

Each individual model run actually show similar year to year variability that the real world does - ups and downs, pauses and accelerations, within the range of expected variability; that they do so is indicative of how well they work, not how badly. They just don't have those ups and downs in the same place each time. Which is why temperature trends look at averages over enough time that the expected variability doesn't mask underlying longer term changes.

That variability from year to year averages out to a very wobbly line if the period averaged over is too short, such as with "The Pause" which showed less warming than the 0.x degrees per year - and large parts of that variability can be attributed to known climate processes. The largest would be ENSO - el Nino Southern Oscillation - which causes year to year temperature changes much larger than the underlying warming trend - take a ten year period and if there are more la Nina years than el Nino then global average temperatures will be lower, despite an underlying warming trend. The other way about and they will be higher and it could look like warming has speeded up - it takes about 20 years or more for averaging for them to see past the global average temperature swings ENSO induces. Climate scientists most often use 30 years to be sure and routinely point out that looking at shorter periods can be very misleading.

Of all measures of global warming I think this one most directly shows actual gain of heat by Earth's climate system - and whilst it has year to year variability a much shorter period for averaging is needed to see past it. Ocean Heat Content shows no sign of an early 21st century Pause in warming (and is not explainable as ".. a consequence of growth of a city, and paving over of land.")  -

Quote

Half a degree in my lifetime can hardly be called change. Tiny fluctuation would be closer.

I live somewhere where half a degree is often the difference between frost and no frost on any given winter night - and perennial weeds that were kept in check by frosts can and are becoming rampant with warmer winters and fewer frosts. More labour, more cost for weed control.

Around here the fire danger season starts sooner and finishes later with that "insignificant" half a degree of global average warming - and, significantly, the non-fire danger season is noticeably shorter. Burning during the cool season to reduce fuel loads is an important part of reducing the intensity and risks of out of control bushfires later - the opportunities for doing so are fewer and the risks of them escaping containment are increasing. More labour, more equipment requirements, more vigilance. The impacts of "hardly change at all" are actually very real. When I consider the likelihood of several more degrees I am legitimately alarmed.

This relates to one of the questions I asked - "If where you live appears to benefit from global warming but other places suffer does that have any influence on your thinking?" 

9 hours ago, DirtyChai said:

And it's that continued irresponsible exaggeration of extreme and unrealistic figures that makes people describe "reasonable climate change proponents" as alarmists!

Not irresponsible - looking at worst case scenarios is an essential part of risk management - although my own mention of 3-6 degrees of warming was not even looking at the worst case. I was asked for a citation for further temperatures rises reaching those levels and I gave one, and it showed the potential for higher temperatures than what I suggested.

The 2000ppm CO2 levels probably is unrealistic - well, it is clearly labelled as an EXTREME scenario - but there are still influential people who do advocate maximising the use of fossil fuels, who want no limitations placed on their use, who want and expect all known reserves of fossil fuels to get used, which could indeed take it to that 2000ppm level - so scenarios for very high emissions continuing for the rest of this century are not impossibilities.  A total breakdown of international agreements and internal policies to reign in emissions is something actively being campaigned for and undermining confidence in climate science has been a key theme being used to do so. I sort of presume views like Mistermack's, if widely shared by policy makers, would raise the likelihood of that, making "unlikely" and "extreme" scenarios more likely.

If we don't end up with the extreme scenarios it will be in large part because of people taking the science on climate change seriously enough to seek and campaign for alternatives.

One of the other themes of anti climate action campaigning is blaming the messengers - ie climate scientists and climate action advocates.

Who is it labelling reasonable climate change proponents as alarmist? I suggest it is predominately people campaigning against strong climate action, as part of counter-messaging efforts to undermine overall confidence in all those expert studies and reports - who want the whole issue to be seen (falsely) as exaggeration.

Suggesting we should try and avoid worst case scenarios (which, within those reports, are scenarios, not exaggerations) isn't what gets climate change proponents seen as alarmists, it is constant and widely disseminated counter-messaging claiming they are alarmists that is promoting the idea that they are alarmists. In the absence of constant counter-messaging what was in those reports - which is by any measure, genuinely alarming - would be much more likely to be taken seriously and acted upon. Which would, of course, make the extreme scenarios less likely.

Organised opposition engaging in counter-messaging to prevent strong climate action has never been a reaction to irresponsible alarmist exaggeration, it is a response to the legitimately alarming mainstream expert advice. That opposition chose to do so for their own reasons - I think mostly responsibility avoidance although they may well have alarmed themselves with their own alarmist economic fears of going without fossil fuels.

Mistermack - the numbers were from memory, but I believe, within the expected range, depending on how our emissions in the future go. Assuming widespread agreement with you we would have no broad effort to constrain emissions, so at the high end of projections. Like this - 

13 hours ago, mistermack said:

Meanwhile, here in the UK, we've had a nice spring, lovely sunny summer, and the autumn is nice too. So it's not all bad news. No water shortages, no floods. 

Thanks, climate change. 

Mistermack - if one degree C of global average warming looks good to you right now where you are, is that something you expect to be an enduring condition? Do you expect things to be just as good with 3 to 6 degrees - or to be even better? Or is that you do not expect that amount of warming can take place? If where you live appears to benefit from global warming but other places suffer does that have any influence on your thinking? Do you think what happens elsewhere will have no impact on UK prosperity or security?

Whilst there are other contributors here I could ask questions like this I don't think I would get a civil discussion let alone answers. I am okay with lively discussion and disagreement but make no mistake, my own views unashamedly reflect the mainstream science based advice - which is not a matter of faith, but of trust in the institutions, practices and practitioners of science.

I will say that I think your statement above trivialises the issues. We have had close to 30 years of consistent expert advice - unchanged by whether it was commissioned by Progressives or Conservatives (or however you want to label the 'sides'). I think that is a good indicator that the understanding of crucial climate processes is correct - but then, I am of the view that those reports and studies were competently done in good faith and genuinely represent what is known and not known. 

Olin, you can quibble over definitions of what is waste or pollution and what is not,  but the climate consequences of rapidly raising atmospheric CO2 content,  beyond the limits of natural variability in the absence of human influences, are real and they will have a profound effect on agriculture, infrastructure and economic systems - not my opinion, but the consistent conclusion of more than 3 decades of expert reports and studies. CO2 is a waste product from fossil carbon burning, and it is also modern civilisation's most abundant waste product.

No matter whether commissioned by Progressives or Conservatives, the expert reports continue to say essentially the same things - because there is now a genuine science based understanding of the fundamental processes involved in climate and what causes climate to change. That was not true in the 1970's, but the groundwork within mainstream science - programs to build climate data and get a good quantitative understanding of the various elements began even before then.

Your arguments are not consistent with the body of science based knowledge and it looks like you are burdened with some basic misunderstandings - mostly about the relative importance of things like CO2 to climate and to plant growth and how they are likely to impact human societies and economy. And it looks like you are resistant to being informed by people who are better informed about these things than you do - and I am not talking about the people posting here, or Al Gore or Greenpeace either, but about the people who have done the studies that raise this above mere differences of opinion. The IPCC reports, the State of Climate reports, National Academy reports, Royal Society, NOAA, NSIDC, CSIRO, BoM, CRU - well, every institution that studies climate and every peak science body says essentially the same.

But close to 30 years of science informing on climate/emissions/energy has been accompanied by nearly 30 years of vigorous, well supported counter messaging by those who don't want climate responsibility to be legally recognised or the costs of it impacting their near term activities. One of the themes popular amongst the counter-messaging is that adding lots of CO2 to the atmosphere is a good thing. As long as you don't look too deeply - don't actually study these things or base your position on those studies - it is easy to believe raised CO2 will deliver an overall benefit. But people who do study them know it is not so simple and that some greening from CO2 fertilisation will not make the other concerns about raised CO2 go away or, given those other other factors, will lead to an overall benefit.

Olin, I don't expect you to change your position or learn anything - teaching resistance to arguments based on science and reason, to reject the role of expertise, has been another major theme of climate change counter-messaging. You aren't making a good impression here by putting up false and misleading arguments and sticking to them no matter what.

It is because the climate system is susceptible to change that adding lots of CO2 is such a dangerous thing to do - it would take a climate that is unchanging to be unchangeable. It is the vehicle with bad steering that is most likely to run off the road and crash.

 Olin - The consistent expert advice - three decades of every institution that studies climate and every expert report governments have gotten on it is that this is a serious problem. Why should I set that aside and believe that you know better than they do? That the consequences of AGW can and will seriously impact human activities and prosperity. Not that it takes a genius to figure that destabilising something as fundamental as our planet's climate system is very unwise and - given that persistent expert advice - dangerously irresponsible.

I don't ask or expect anyone to take what environmental advocacy groups are saying on trust, but I do expect them to take what the world's leading science advisory bodies, like the US National Academy of Sciences and UK's Royal Society say about it very seriously. These organisations draw on the world's most accomplished and respected experts.

My personal experience - of about 0.5 C of global average warming as experienced in this location - is that vegetation has been effected; perennial weeds that were kept in check by hard frosts are becoming rampant with warmer winters, leading to more work and more costs to deal with them. Bushfires are a real problem here - and that is not new. What is happening is that the 'fire danger season' is, on average, starting earlier and finishing later and the opportunities for 'controlled' fires to reduce fuel loads ahead of the high risk periods are becoming shorter with increasing risk of escaping containment, requiring more vigilance, labour and equipment. Fires could, by picking the right conditions, be expected to go out overnight as dew added a natural fire retardant - but less cool nights, less dew and more fires that don't go out on their own. More work, more expense, more risk.This means less of that hazard reduction is getting done and the consequences in the hot, high risk periods is intensified. That is with a mere 0.5 degrees of global average temperature change; the prospect of 3 to 6 degrees is something I find terrifying. Regions like this could become so unsafe that people cannot live here permanently without an added expense of fire resistant construction and endless vigilance.

The appropriate perspective is needed - looking at too short periods, where normal variability appears to overwhelm gradual changes is a common way to get misled. So is looking at too long periods, where historic climate changes of great magnitude can make what is happening now appear inconsequential. Both blurr the reality and make it hard to see that gradual changes accumulate and will have serious consequences with dangerous economic and security implications.

7 minutes ago, NortonH said:

Sometimes we hear some claim about the future state of some system or other but without any reference to a model that can be scrutinised. Obviously no scientifically rational person would give such a claim any credence but there are a lot of people around who do. They seem to be caught up in the general mood and tend to go along with the crowd rather than adhere to the scientific method. It actually comes down to the decision - do I follow the scientific method or do I follow popular opinion?

Since humans are humans it is not always so easy do separate out human nature. I guess such situations can only be described in terms of religious faith - "I believe this because a lot of other people claim to believe it and if I disagree will be subject to ridicule and abuse."

Trust in scientific institutions, methods and practices - and practitioners working within professional codes of conduct - is not the same as believing something because random people claim something. People who study stuff and work with it full time are almost always more knowledgeable than those who don't. People who study stuff and commit to permanent records the data and the reasoning can  and do have their conclusions reviewed and critiqued by others before it gets accepted more widely. Ridicule and abuse is what people tend to get when they think they know better than the post-review and critique knowledge that has earned it's right to be widely accepted by other experts.

2 hours ago, NortonH said:

It is just the initial set up and the environment that changes each time.

NortonH - the problem is exactly that; the initial set up and the environment changes each time - and we have no means to determine the differences down to the precision that is required to predict the final outcome. As has been pointed out, if it were pre-determined, because of the physics of balls in motion with collisions, air flow turbulence etc, the result would be the same every time.

If anyone is accurately predicting lottery numbers it is news to me - and if they are, I would be looking for some kind of fraud before I would assume someone can calculate the outcome by predicting the motions of the balls.

19 hours ago, Menan said:

How, well some 5 or so billion years ago, the primordial Earth had no climate, it went from a ball of gas and dust to a lifeless solidifying mass with no atmosphere.  However (tell Al Gore) volcanoes began spewing gasses and gradually a climate emerged.  Thus climate change is older than the Earths climate.  20,000 years ago half of NJ and everything above that was under thousands of feet of ice.  Since this mostly melted by 10,000 years ago, the current rate of melt is well, babyshit.

So climate change is very real, and totally normal, and there is no change in the last 150 years that comes anywhere the last 20,000 years.  Which is why the pedophile from Penn State only looked at the last 1000 years

Luv ya kids

The "Climate has always been changing" argument actually has it backwards; like the vehicle with bad steering that is more likely to run off the road and crash, it is a climate system that is susceptible to change that is most at risk of change from things humans do.

The planet is warming - multiple different measures and indicators all show it. And - " There are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. " (The US National Academy of Sciences). 

The nasty bit of personal slander has no place in these discussions; if you have  evidence of serious criminal behaviour, you should inform the police. If not, it is your behaviour that looks criminal. Fake accusations from behind the safety of internet anonymity - I'm surprised it hasn't been deleted by moderators.

I recommend the Royal Society or National Academy of Sciences for non-partisan expert assessment; making sense of complex science for policy makers and public is their job. Their exemplary reputations are earned. The people they draw upon are not incompetent or biased. Or part of a conspiracy or driven by any political agenda apart from that of pursuing excellence in science for the benefit of humanity.

I see the science getting it mostly right. I see real world consequences of climate change in the landscape around me - weeds that had previously been kept in check by heavy frosts becoming rampant because there are fewer frosts, bushfire hazard reduction made more difficult by warmer winters and the fire hazard 'season' coming earlier and finishing later - that's with about half a degree C of average warming (of personally experienced change in this location). 3 to 6 degrees is terrifying to contemplate. Sure, if your region is mostly cold, rarely hot, that might not seem so terrifying, but most of the world's (too large) population lives in places that get very hot, where a few degrees can make the barely bearable conditions unbearable.

People ordinarily have a right to believe what they like, but if they hold positions of trust and responsibility ignoring or rejecting expert advice can be negligence. Should lives and fortunes be harmed, that can become criminal neglegence.