Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Al Gore keeps getting fatter
Back in 2013 (remember the good old days?) Joe Romm wrote about the consequences to South Florida of sea level rise of 2 meters or a bit less. That was the consensus expectation at that time for the end of this century. Okay, you and I don't expect to be around that long, but with just a three foot rise, half of southern Florida will be under water. By the time we hit the six foot mark, Miami Beach will be completely gone, as will most of Miami. Past the turn of the century, sea level will continue to rise, ultimately by 70 feet if the Antarctic ice sheet largely vanishes -- which, at the rate we're going, it will.
Well, it looks like it's happening even faster. New projections say that 3 meters in sea level rise is possible by the turn of the century. That's about 10 feet. So Miami Beach will be gone long before then. By the way, so will Mar-a-Lago, which sits about 3 feet above present sea level. Whaddya know.
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"This is the first time that robust statistical techniques have been used to develop a scenario like this, whereas previous high-end sea level projections have always been based on subjective expert judgment," said Professor Drijfhout.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html
Anyone who has read the 2014 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change knows that, while the modest (0.85 degrees Celsius, or about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warming of the Northern Hemisphere since 1880 is indisputable, as is the human influence on that warming, much else that passes as accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities.
That’s especially true of the sophisticated but fallible models and simulations by which scientists attempt to peer into the climate future. To say this isn’t to deny science. It’s to acknowledge it honestly.
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Claiming total certainty about the science traduces the spirit of science and creates openings for doubt whenever a climate claim proves wrong. Demanding abrupt and expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions. Censoriously asserting one’s moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.
None of this is to deny climate change or the possible severity of its consequences. But ordinary citizens also have a right to be skeptical of an overweening scientism. They know — as all environmentalists should — that history is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power.
What ridiculous twaddle. Yes, there are uncertainties in the models, but they are just as likely to underestimate the amount of warming and its effects as to overestimate. And by the way, the sole "fact" cited in that tendentious essay is false -- that is not the amount of warming in the northern hemisphere, it is the total land and sea surface warming of the entire globe.
The reason we treat skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables is because their deplorable imbecility threatens the survival of civilization.
Here's a response to the Stephens piece by somebody who actually knows what he is talking about.
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