donsutherland1

New research highlights the role “new media” is playing in promoting climate disinformation. That role underpins the importance of assuring the public a reliable and continuing source of climate science information. From Nature: We juxtapose 386 prominent contrarians with 386 expert scientists by tracking their digital footprints across ∼200,000 research publications and ∼100,000 English-language digital and print media articles on climate change. Projecting these individuals across the same backdrop facilitates quantifying disparities in media visibility and scientific authority, and identifying organization patterns within their association networks. Here we show via direct comparison that contrarians are featured in 49% more media articles than scientists. Yet when comparing visibility in mainstream media sources only, we observe just a 1% excess visibility, which objectively demonstrates the crowding out of professional mainstream sources by the proliferation of new media sources, many of which contribute to the production and consumption of climate change disinformation at scale. These results demonstrate why climate scientists should increasingly exert their authority in scientific and public discourse, and why professional journalists and editors should adjust the disproportionate attention given to contrarians. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09959-4

Yesterday’s 63 degree low temperature in Anchorage set a new August mark and tied that city’s warmest minimum temperature on record, which was set on July 10, 2005. Such exceptional warmth during what could be that city’s warmest summer on record is very likely linked to climate change.

The Great Wall of China at Badaling. Notice the smog due to an inversion in the distant right of the image.

Outliers, both low and high, are rarely the most likely scenario. It is extremely rare that the most extreme ensemble member verifies. That’s the nature of scenarios that lie in the tails.

Forbidden City on an infrequent day with little haze in Beijing:

The IPCC’s existence predates the Trump Administration. Its work predates it. The report was not prepared specifically for the Trump Administration. It was prepared for all global policy makers and relevant stakeholders. It is very likely that the IPCC will also continue to exist long after the Trump Administration has ended, as much of the world accepts the findings of climate science and finds the body, which summarizes and draws upon that large and growing body of work, to be useful.

In general, there is a direct relationship between solar insolation and temperature. There is peer-reviewed literature that Arctic solar insolation is in a long-term decline. Some fluctuations for internal variability can be expected. Also, today’s Arctic temperatures are dramatically warmer than they were during the 1930s and 1940s. https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/ZonAnn.Ts+dSST.txt (64N-90N)

Newly published IPCC report, “Climate Change and Land”: https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl-report-download-page/ Some excerpts: A 2. Since the pre-industrial period, the land surface air temperature has risen nearly twice as much as the global average temperature (high confidence). Climate change, including increases in frequency and intensity of extremes, has adversely impacted food security and terrestrial ecosystems as well as contributed to desertification and land degradation in many regions (high confidence). {2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 5.1, 5.2, Executive Summary Chapter 7, 7.2}... A 5. Climate change creates additional stresses on land, exacerbating existing risks to livelihoods, biodiversity, human and ecosystem health, infrastructure, and food systems (high confidence). Increasing impacts on land are projected under all future GHG emission scenarios (high confidence). Some regions will face higher risks, while some regions will face risks previously not anticipated (high confidence). Cascading risks with impacts on multiple systems and sectors also vary across regions (high confidence). {2.2, 3.5, 4.2, 4.4, 4.7, 5.1, 5.2, 5.8, 6.1, 7.2, 7.3, Cross-Chapter Box 9 in Chapter 6, Figure SPM.2}... D3.2. In future scenarios, deferral of GHG emissions reductions implies trade-offs leading to significantly higher costs and risks associated with rising temperatures (medium confidence). The potential for some response options, such as increasing soil organic carbon, decreases as climate change intensifies, as soils have reduced capacity to act as sinks for carbon sequestration at higher temperatures (high confidence). Delays in avoiding or reducing land degradation and promoting positive ecosystem restoration risk long-term impacts including rapid declines in productivity of agriculture and rangelands, permafrost degradation and difficulties in peatland rewetting (medium confidence). {1.3.1, 3.6.2, 4.8, 4.9, 4.9.1, 5.5.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.2, 7.3; Cross-Chapter Box 10 in Chapter 7}

Even as climate change receives coverage that is disproportionately limited relative to its societal impact in the United States (The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang is a notable exception), The Sydney Morning Herald is one major newspaper that now provides dedicated coverage to climate change. That newspaper’s coverage includes articles on recent events and even articles concerning new research published in scientific journals on the issue. The section can be found at: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change Perhaps similar coverage could be useful in the United States. A regular source of articles, including new scientific research findings, could weaken the ability of “denier activists” to confuse and mislead the American public. Certainly, the issue of climate change is at least as consequential to some of the other areas that receive dedicated coverage. The Washington Post might be ideally positioned to assume that role of journalistic leadership given the work of the Capital Weather Gang, the quality of its journalism, and its reach.

Absolutely. If AGW were not underway, the Arctic would continue to be cooling today. It isn’t. It’s rapidly warming.

A rainy Beijing:

No climate scientist has stated that “the past controls the future.” If you are aware of such a claim, can you provide a link given how extraordinary it would be? Moreover, during climate regimes different conditions are more frequent than others. The climate regimes offer useful descriptions. For example, drought does not cause weather events (setting aside feedbacks). It describes abnormally dry periods. And looking ahead, if droughts become more likely in a given area, one has some understanding of what to expect in a big picture sense, even as specific day-to-day events, magnitude, etc., cannot be forecast.

This is a wonderful and important summary of yet another historic period of warmth in the Arctic region. I suspect an attribution study will be published some time during the fall or winter. That study will almost certainly confirm the rarity of the summer (Alaska and probably much of the Arctic region) and very large role played by climate change.

The issue you cite concerning 300 mb developments has already been addressed in papers. It does not, in any way, disprove the reality that the Arctic is the fastest warming region of the world. For example: Another positive feedback is less well known and is based on the observation that the warming trend in the Arctic is mainly confined to the lower part of the atmosphere. This is still far below the levels where thermal radiation escapes from the atmosphere on average, which is around 5 km (3 miles) high. This implies that the radiative cooling of the warmer air near the surface is not as efficient as in lower latitudes where the trend at altitude is similar to (mid-latitudes) or higher than (tropics) near the surface. The reduction of radiative cooling due to the vertical structure of the warming trend is called the lapse-rate feedback. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/north-pole-nov-dec-2016/

By that severely stretched reasoning, biochemistry, astrophysics, etc, are not “real science.” That they are sub fields within larger fields does not render them “not real science.” Such claims amount in substance to ad hominem attacks, not against a person, but a scientific area. They are deployed, because those making such claims are unable to debunk the growing body of climate research using science, evidence, and peer review scrutiny. Finally, with its growth and increasing societal relevance, climate science could well become its own fully distinct field within earth science in a decade or two.

All known natural variables cannot adequately explain today’s global scale warming. There is an extremely close match when atmospheric carbon dioxide is added to the mix. That’s why scientists are now extremely confident about the matter with a few individual exceptions. The unmet (and likely unattainable) challenge for those who reject the scientific understanding is to identify a new natural mechanism and demonstrate that it offers at least as strong an explanation statistically as the AGW consensus explanation.

Impacts can have regional variation and also lags. Do you have the relevant global charts?

Two key parameters were omitted: 1. The Holocene Climatic Optimum was warmer than today in part of the Northern Hemisphere, not globally. 2. The excess warmth over today in those regions concerned the summer months. When everything is taken in context, a more accurate statement would read: the Holocene Climatic Optimum had warmer summers than today in part of the Northern Hemisphere.

Context matters. One could adopt a similar position toward, let’s say iron. Iron is an essential “nutrient” that is necessary for the formation of red blood cells. Too much iron can lead to some devastating health consequences. In excess, it is poison. A similar analogy holds with regard to carbon dioxide. In excess, it is pollution given its well-established properties.

As I continue to travel overseas, this is a short extension and update to my discussion just before the start of August. So far, the Middle Atlantic and southern New England areas are off to a warmer than normal start to August. One constant that has simplified things over the past two months is persistent blocking. Blocking will like persist in general through the next two to three weeks. At the same time, the ENSO evolution has continued toward neutral-warm conditions in Region 3.4. Nevertheless, there has been a significant change. Today, the SOI reached +22.94. During the most recent 10-year period, three years saw the SOI rise to +20.00 or above in August: 2008, 2010, and 2017. All three saw one or more 90-degree readings in September (two during the first week). Two (2010 and 2017) saw September wind up with a mean temperature of 70.0 degrees or above in New York City. As I visit the Great Wall of China in coming days, I will be thinking of something else that has seemingly survived the test of time: the ongoing blocking. Nevertheless, nothing is permanent if one extends the time horizon to sufficient length. Perhaps the big reversal in the SOI may be a precursor for a larger set of circumstances that could fray the blocking toward month’s end and then give rise to a nascent positive AO/NAO regime just in time to negate the impact of gradually lengthening wave lengths. That development would further reinforce the idea of a warm September consistent with the 1993 base case. For now, a period of near normal to somewhat cooler than normal temperatures is imminent. After mid-month warmth should begin to return. The potential for much warmer than normal temperatures during the last week of August and first week of September exists.

Central Park picked up 0.92” in about one hour.

The U.S. Tax Code is filled with tax expenditures that benefit specific industries and companies. Conventional energy producers also receive large tax benefits.

The scientists aren’t politicizing the science. The science is solid. Others outside the field have been doing so.

The anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to the rising atmospheric concentration of such gases. They made the marginal difference. That concentration is driving the ongoing warming. As for the world ending in 12 years, that’s nonsense that has almost nothing to do with climate change. It is exaggeration that exploits it for political ends that are largely disconnected from it e.g., an economic reordering that deals with non-climate goals. Such tactics fall on the opposite side of the spectrum as denial, with both undercutting the science. Denial ignores the science. The economic reordering gives life to conspiracy theories wielded to discredit the science.

“Trapping” is used to describe the slowing release of heat to space. On account of that process, some of the heat that would otherwise escape is re-radiated to the earth. The end result is the observed warming that is now underway and its evidence assessed by science as all but unequivocal. The deflection to common usage of technical terms—even by physicists to readily communicate complex concepts with the public so that they are readily understood—cannot undermine the breadth and depth of scientific understanding of contemporary warming and its principal cause.