- At first, after, where we are now, what we can call the definitive "tipping point", that does appear intuitively likely, although perhaps mechanical/hydraulic analogies still weigh on our thinking...

"Scientists remain our best forecasters of what’s to come"

- But tend to be woefully limited (&/or hamstrung) in the realm of social sciences (including eg, attempts to 'measure' and to 'theorise about' economics & politics) and therefore easily "surprised".

Where scientific theory is applied, of course, you have then what we call 'Technology'. And that's a whole different ball game.

I find what is happening today to be profoundly frightening. Dynamical systems operating at or near critical values have a nasty habit of very suddenly flipping from one semi-stable orbit to another very different orbit. An example is the double scroll attractor. Imagine the weather (not the climate) alternating regularly between winter and summer in a cycle like the left lobe of the orbit shown below:



Now imagine some slight perturbation nudging the orbit slightly. BAM! With no warning, it flips instantly into the other lobe. Once again the weather is relatively stable, but this time it alternates between summer (where winter used to be) and hell (where summer used to be).

Once that flip takes place the system is stuck semi-permanently in the new orbit and it might be tens of thousands of years before we see the return of the winter/summer orbit.

"With no warning, it flips instantly into the other lobe. Once again the weather is relatively stable, but this time it alternates between summer (where winter used to be) and hell (where summer used to be)."

Makes for half-decent sci-fi, but it could not plausibly happen by any natural or anthropogenic means in the real world.

If anything at all, there is a very good chance that we're going to see more extremes on both ends......and, IMO, if certain theories pan out, there could be a slight chance that in the long term, the winters may ultimately be the worst of the seasons, extreme wise, as opposed to summer as it is now.

I don't blame you for doubting it, because it sounds completely impossible if we rely on common sense and everyday experience. That being the case, however, mode shift is very real in dynamical systems and can and does happen suddenly and without warning. I honestly wish you were right, but the math says you're wrong.

And certainly, there won't be an absolutely sudden shift like what you've described(unless, perhaps, you're using a geological scale of reference). Not even close; the climate doesn't work that way, and if it did, it would be just as easy for the climate to right itself again, according to this theory.

Skeptical Science has an article on this:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=134

However, though, it doesn't discount the possibility that changes will continue to accelerate; for example, the Arctic icecaps could very well disappear by 2016, as some have predicted, instead of 2030 or so as mainstream predictions have it.

I won't argue it with you because I'm no expert in climatology, so I am not competent to do anything other than quote those who are experts. I suggest you Google "abrupt climate change" and take your argument to the experts.

Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 08:07 AM - Edit history (1)

Learn NOAA's story of abrupt climate change here: The Story

The supporting data is here: The Data

The possibility of abrupt climate change can't be so cavalierly dismissed, unless you're prepared to take on NOAA's science with something more than a blog post.

There may not be any reason to prepare for abrupt climate change, of course, because we don't know what may be in the cards for us in terms of the nature, the severity or the timing. The other thing that makes planning for abrupt change, whether in climate and food production or global finance, a problematic affair is the human factor: the usual thing that causes large non-linear or inflective changes in human behaviour is the occurrence of an external event, not the attempt to avoid it.

the one Speck Tater came up with. Extreme global changes, on that scale, such as winter turning into summer, and summer turning into 'hell', are not possible in such a short time. I didn't necessarily imply that abrupt change, period, was impossible, and in fact, I think it may explain the sudden decline in the Arctic circa 2007.

I just don't think that the Chaos Theory can fully explain the problems we've been experiencing over the past 5 years in particular, that's all, nor will it prove particularly useful in climate forecasting. Hope this clears a few things up.

More complex systems, like climate, may be more stable, sure, but there is already evidence that the summer/hell scenario has begun and is going gangbusters. Far beyond what has been predicted, even in the most dire forecast scenarios.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming-links.html

The main reason for this is the rather cold winters we had in 2009, 2010, and 2011.....while I don't disagree that overall winters are probably going to get warmer, especially up north(because that's where the science points), there is some speculation that we may actually see more extreme winters, too, as the Arctic warms up.

What the information does say, at least from what I can read; is that summers are definitely getting warmer, as well: especially in more 'temperate' areas like Western Europe.

The biggest problem really, is that the forecasts were once way too conservative. But I must say that too much pessimism, will not only be just as harmful, but will also actually give a huge amount of ammunition to those special interest groups that benefit from seeding disinformation, and right now, we're actually seeing this in action. Were it not for that, it would be significantly harder for Watts, Monckton, et al. to push their wares.

Being too conservative may have made people complacent, but being too extremely pessimistic is not only also not based in reality, but has the additional costs of scaring people off and, again, giving ammo to our opponents.

It is true, of course, that some things have progressed faster than predicted, and that is true. However, though, this does not give any credence to these "we're doomed for sure!" arguments which have been floating around, just as if the deniers wouldn't have gotten any credence if we had been luckier than we expected.

That's why I tend to stick to Skeptical Science, Peter Sinclair, and people like them, because they don't hold back on the truth either way; they don't go to extremes, and they're more than willing to effectively debunk denier myths, half-truths, and propaganda. I can personally attest to how effective that is.....

You are not grossly inaccurate or anything like that. This is a small (but important) point.

The generally accepted theory of warming and climate change is that when heat is added to the system it will become more chaotic, meaning that the attractors will move further from the center.

The extremes will move farther apart such that weather can become both hotter AND colder.

This is what the models predict, and this is exactly what the data is showing. When you freeze the animation in the NASA link it is clear that the spread is also widening as the data shifts to the right over time:






I don't really have any strong disagreement with your overall take on things. I just want to try and clarify what I understand to be some fairly simple but common misconceptions about the science. Some folks think that anecdotal evidence of AGW is the most convincing while I believe that the science is even more compelling if the basics are more fully understood.

The whole idea of being able to examine non-linear systems is fairly new - they didn't know about it back when I was in high school.

As for solutions to the crisis, because it has already become a crisis, harvesting heat energy from the atmosphere instead of from fossil fuels will be a good start. And we should begin now. Wind and solar are the future.

I think it's possible that some semi-chaotic dynamics could develop over the next century.

And yes, wind and solar are key to solving the Co2 usage problem. =)

The original article is very misleading. I think most folks responding to this thread can understand a simple explanation of chaos theory, or more specifically, non-linear dynamic systems.

The simplest case I know of uses a waterwheel.

If we know the geometry of the wheel and buckets, the flow rate of the water, and the work that is being consumed by the wheel (including frictional resistance), we can calculate precisely what the steady-state velocity of the wheel will be.

If we punch a hole in each of the buckets, we can no longer calculate the terminal velocity of the wheel.

This is because the wheel will NEVER reach a steady-state velocity; its motion will have become chaotic.

The velocity of the wheel will continuously fluctuate around two points which are called attractors. We do have methods for calculating these attractors. In real life, if one were to build such a wheel, the speed would continuously undershoot the lower attractor and overshoot the higher attractor.

This is not a very complex subject that is too difficult for lay people to grasp, as the original article would have you believe.

Climate and weather, yep, very complex and very difficult to grasp. Chaos - not so much.

that extreme scenario's like Speck Tater's will happen, all-of-a-sudden?

AGW Tipping points =/= sudden apocalypse. As bad as AGW is, and will likely continue to be, it isn't going to be as extreme as Speck Tater suggested.

You would need a super-volcanic eruption or an outer-space asteroid such as Apophis to cause sudden absolute extremes.

However, though, as I may have stated before, it doesn't mean that tipping points won't be passed. They could. In fact, it looks like we may lose Arctic ice in 2016 or so. But there are no plausible sudden end-of-the-world scenarios out there, and this kind of talk actually plays into the hands of our enemies, which is why we've got to be careful.

Rapid Sea level rise is a good possibility when say Greenland melts.

Ocean circulations are great climate drivers. If somehow the heat content forces change then change could be very rapid.

Tectonic actions could occur via the weight of ice lifting.

Methane - a most deadly gas - if we have large scale releases, could poison many people.

This old world has many a hidden trick that if we pull hard enough, it will fall over on us.

I don't doubt the possibility that Greenland could melt faster than expected and that tectonic plates could worsen the melting problem.
Even so, no plausible scientific argument has been presented for a sudden shift as extreme as a certain scenario that was presented on here, that could be caused by AGW.

Are you saying there's no plausible argument for such shifts having happened in the past, or no plausible argument that developments from current conditions could cause them in the near or medium term future?

There's certainly evidence that they've happened in the past:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data4.html

I also notice the inclusion of the qualifier "plausible" in your assertion. "Plausible" to whom? To you? To SkepticalScience? There are certainly arguments that appear plausible to me. Like the clathrate gun hypothesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis


AKA the Methane Bomb:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-defending-against-the-methane-bomb

And there's evidence that it's happening:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scientists-close-in-on-the-cause-of-arctic-methane-leaks-15090

It seems all too plausible to me...

Methane.

Way worse than CO2.

A methane-driven temperature feedback is the mechanism that could plausibly "turn summer into hell" over the course of a decade. As it does so it could also raise high latitude temperatures enough to melt part of the of the GIS at the same time, thereby flooding the THC with fresh water, thereby shutting it down. This would cause abrupt climate change not just in the northern hemisphere, but throughout the globe.

Every element of this speculative clusterfuck has solid science behind it. It sounds plenty plausible to me.

For absolutely extreme scenarios like Speck Tater's.

And if the Younger Dryas event raised temperatures by about 3-3.5*C(as the graph shows), and if the worst mass extinction in Earth's history occurred with supposedly just a 4-5*C rise, why wasn't there a majorly significant extinction with the Younger Dryas event as well?

Sorry, but there's obviously more to it than just a temperature rise and methane. And don't get me started on the clathrate gun hype, either.

If ocean circulations change - no, when ocean circulations change and warm water flows over formerly frigid ocean bottoms, thawing hydrates, it will be like a gun going off. Think about it.

It may not be really implausible, but it is only an extremely remote possibility(understatement, btw) in today's world even if we go above, say, 4*C by 2100(which is a distinct possibility, btw).

We need to focus on the more likely short-term scenarios, such as major coastal flooding, more common droughts in the Mid-West, etc.

You have heard of the arctic ice cap melting this summer, right?

Do you really have a clue as to why the ice melted?

I'll give you one: The water under it warmed up. The arctic ocean warmed up. That is a huge change. It will alter ocean circulations. It already has, we just don't have the science to really detail the change. But we will. And once again it will alarm the scientists.

The temperature of the ocean under the arctic has already changed and it has melted much summer ice. That will cause more changes. It has already resulted in methane releases. How much it will alter Atlantic and Pacific ocean currents remains to be established by the scientists. It may have already forced big changes, we just don't know it yet. So the gun could go off at anytime, releasing civilization changing methane in a short period of time.

And to use your style of attack: It will be worse because people refused to realize what was in store. Instead they were in constant denial; begging to not "get me started". Instead of thinking: "Maybe there is a good info to be learned."

Turning a blind eye to science has been, and will continue to be, the wrong approach.

Up until this year, it had been assumed that only anecdotal evidence would be available to support the science behind climate change attributable to AGW. This was because folks believed that it would take at least another half century before there was evidence that would be statistically significant. We have that statistical evidence NOW!

This should be cause for MORE focus on what science is telling us, not LESS.

Last edited Wed Oct 10, 2012, 03:05 PM - Edit history (2)

This may be a complex problem, but there are indeed things that we can be sure of:

1.)Earth will not turn into Venus, nor will humanity go extinct solely because of climate change; the former in particular, is impossible.
2.)Things will likely get notably worse for a while, but there are things we can do to mitigate and halt the negative changes, and even reverse many of them(though, of course, most of the species that have gone extinct are likely gone for good and the icecaps will take many, many decades to recover), even though many so-called skeptics believe that it would be too hard and too expensive to do so, and "not worth it", etc..
3.)The end of globalised civilization as we once knew it, does not necessarily mean the end of civilization, period.
4.)There is hope for a better world, but how soon this becomes reality all depends on how soon we act.
5.)There will not be any absolute sudden shifts in the climate.

(You should note that these points are not a direct response to the article itself for the most part, but these are very important points to make).

> 1.)Earth will not turn into Venus, nor will humanity go extinct solely because of
> climate change; the former in particular, is impossible.

Strawman (albeit a familiar one) - neither "Venus" nor "extinct" were mentioned
in the article.


> 2.)Things will likely get notably worse for a while, but there are things we can do
> to mitigate and halt the negative changes, and even reverse many of them
> (though, of course, most of the species that have gone extinct are likely gone
> for good and the icecaps will take many, many decades to recover), even though
> many so-called skeptics believe that it would be too hard and too expensive
> to do so, and "not worth it", etc..

Good points - even noting that it's pretty hard to "reverse" the extinction of a
species - but hardly something to suggest that the article is poor as it doesn't actually
cover the same subjects. In other words, it's a distraction from the OP article rather
than any form of refutation (as was implied by the itemised list).


> 3.)The end of globalised civilization as we once knew it, does not necessarily
> mean the end of civilization, period.

Another strawman. The word "civilization" doesn't exist in the article (never mind
the hyperbolic "end of globalised civilization&quot and no-one there is talking about
it "ending".


> 4.)There is hope for a better world, but how soon this becomes reality all depends
> on how soon we act.

So that's 1 out of 4 points that was worth posting versus 2 out of 4 that were strawmen
and 1 out of 4 that was a non-sequitur.

"Could do better."

or civilization.

One of the points of putting up an OP is to stimulate discussion around the points raised in the quoted article. If you'd prefer to talk about Venus instead of chaos theory, please feel free to put up an OP on the topic.

Many people have been talking about how few birds there are and the bees are quite the slackers these days.

Trees are dying by the thousands and there are not as many flowers blooming this year.

Those are real changes that are happening now. We may be sitting right on the edge of rapid global changes if the current science has a sound basis.

...for what's been happening to the bees. One must wonder how much G.M. crops and other chemical-related issues are causing the problem.

I don't doubt that AGW may be playing a role, but it can't fully explain what's happening to bees, or even the birds for that matter. And given that these creatures have existed even before we first evolved in central Africa several million years ago, they've been thru far worse than this, including several supervolcanic eruptions, which, btw, produced climate change more drastic(albeit just in the other direction), and far more sudden, I might add, than human-induced activities(which, IMO, are doing enough damage as is). So I have absolutely no doubt they'll survive AGW.

However, though, recent findings suggest that viruses and a fungus, Nosema ceranae, may have played a major role in bee declines, at least here in the U.S.:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013181

As for the fungus, is it possible that AGW may have played a role? Yes, it is. To what extent? Nobody quite knows.
From what I can tell it seems that excessive pesticide use has caused more harm overall, than the global warming we've had so far.

One of the ideas we're constantly exposed to as we hang out here on E/E is the large number of tipping points we face, the number of ways in which the planet and its residents (including us) are in deep trouble from human activities. The impacts of our activities intersect and interact. In the process they create unexpected new feedback loops, many of which are positive feedbacks, and unexpected points of potential rupture. This is all due to the complexity of human interactions with every aspect of the planet - with each other as well as with the physical planet and its biosphere.

Nobody claims that AGW is the only influence, just that it may be the most significant physical consequence we face right now. Inevitably, the effects of AGW are felt in other areas, everywhere from species extinctions to geographic changes to political and economic impacts.

It's a fucking big world, and we've fucked with every aspect of it. The consequences have indeed become unpredictable, just as chaos theory implies they will.

developed several decades earlier, describes what we are experiencing now and parallels our concerns, in modeling the future. There is nothing our past has recorded or taught us, that we can use to perceive our future. It is now a crap shoot, with much greater odds of imagined outcomes. No reality of past can predict or model, chaos.

I'm not saying Chaos Theory is B.S., of course. All I'm saying is that it cannot fully explain climate change today, and in fact, I must point out that this argument also happens to be popular with skeptics as Skeptical Science so candidly points out:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=134

It may be true that nobody knows the future for certain, but come on, let's be realistic about this. If the climate could suddenly shift in one direction by itself, then wouldn't it also be true that it could just as easily go in the other direction as well? Only problem is, climate doesn't really work like that. There are a select few events that can do such, but they are limited to supervolcanic eruptions, or an asteroid strike, and a few other such things.....anthropogenic global warming isn't one of these.

Climate change is just one of the factors influencing events at the moment.

Other factors include things like the rising EROEI of oil, the length of supply chains, the need for computer networks to make JIT work, the complexity of global legal, political and financial systems, the eradication of species from random positions in the web of life, the trade webs that make global commerce function, the satellite networks that provide weather and position information, the increasing scarcity of phosphorus and rare earth metals, the unpredictable intrusions into the genomes of many species by genetic engineers, the draw-down of fossil aquifers, the impacts of different educational and religious systems in every country on the planet, and on and on.

All this stuff is interconnected, and creates a system of such profound complexity that chaotic results are literally inevitable. In fact, this chaos is happening all around you right now. The reason you don't recognize it for what it is, is that the human brain has such good adaptive abilities that we interpret the chaos as normal in order to keep from blowing our own minds. This is a good ability if we wish to remain upright and functional in the real world, but it's not so helpful if what we need is to distinguish threatening chaos from the normal kind. Our adaptive mental abilities mask the very changes we need to see.

It's all well and good to isolate one minuscule portion of it, like climate change, and say you don't think it obeys chaotic rules (even though weather demonstrably does), but the world we live in is a LOT bigger and more complex than that. You need to grapple with that fact before you can even begin to grasp the issues.

You are not thinking big enough. Not by two or three orders of magnitude.

Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 12:40 AM - Edit history (1)

"Other factors include things like the rising EROEI of oil, the length of supply chains, the need for computer networks to make JIT work, the complexity of global legal, political and financial systems, the eradication of species from random positions in the web of life, the trade webs that make global commerce function, the satellite networks that provide weather and position information, the increasing scarcity of phosphorus and rare earth metals, the unpredictable intrusions into the genomes of many species by genetic engineers, the draw-down of fossil aquifers, the impacts of different educational and religious systems in every country on the planet, and on and on.

All this stuff is interconnected, and creates a system of such profound complexity that chaotic results are literally inevitable. In fact, this chaos is happening all around you right now. The reason you don't recognize it for what it is, is that the human brain has such good adaptive abilities that we interpret the chaos as normal in order to keep from blowing our own minds. This is a good ability if we wish to remain upright and functional in the real world, but it's not so helpful if what we need is to distinguish threatening chaos from the normal kind. Our adaptive mental abilities mask the very changes we need to see."

It is indeed true that we live in a very complex world, and many of us, myself included, may forget this from time to time. However, though, I can say that while things are bad, they are not quite as bad as some may think.
If we focus on too many tiny details we run the risk of not being able to see the big picture. And sadly, too many people on this particular section of the forum it seems, are sort of guilty of that to a degree(I'm not going to name names, though.), from time to time. What worries me, is what could happen if too many mixed messages get sent out; will the public tune out en masse, instead of just skeptics and deniers?

that no historical records or farmers almanacs can help determine parameters of what to plant, when to plant, or where to plant; what more could define chaos? We do not need an instant apocalypse, to define chaos. Where should I build the next hydroelectric plant, where will the rainfall be, and when, and how much, and for how many years? Will this period of the unknown be temporary and settle out into a new normal, or will it continue to evolve and defy our schedules, and develop into different realities, henceforth from some condition we are presently unaware? You talk with certainty how the climate works, and how sudden shifts are unlikely or not possible. What can you base this on if some known parameters are no longer valid?

By very definition, there is no predicting, chaos. Yet through your rose colored glasses, you attempt to do just that. You talk with great certainty of how the climate works; from what pretense? Past experience, recorded history, religious fervor? What is your basis, that permits you to make statements of certainty, when many known parameters of the climate are likely to be, rendered obsolete? What effects will new ocean currents, wind currents, warming or cooling patterns, ocean acidification, percentages in atmospheric gases, have on not just weather patterns and rainfall, but on plant, animal, bacterial, or viral; growth, life and or death. What will be their resulting, consequent effect on ecosystems and an evolving climate trying to stabilize over what, a decade, century, millennium, or longer?

Will the change happen so fast our solutions will be out paced?

You seem to be an optimist beyond reason of what is happening in front of you today. I don't want to tell you this is unrealistic or pop your balloons. However, perhaps you should examine what you feel is certain today, under a different set of tools, a set of tools that accounts for the changes in the dynamics of your known world and past experiences. Because quite simply, humankind is entering into a new reality not tied to past occurrence, with variables so vast possibilities are incalculable.

Believe me when I say that. We've only seen about .8*C of warming so far, and it's already proven to have caused significant problems for people in many parts of the world. And when you accuse me of seeing the world thru rose-colored glasses, do you truly honestly think for one second, that the very real possibility of tens of millions of people in China, and India, and much of Africa dying from climate-change induced famine is optimistic? Or the fact that cities like New Orleans, Miami, Calcutta, and Havana could be lost to sea-level rise for goodness knows how many centuries? Or the possibility that over a third of species could go extinct, and that about half of our coral reefs are at risk of dying? Do you really think I'm all that optimistic? Fuck no.

And before you lecture me again on not taking things into account, I most certainly have taken everything into account. Over and over again. But some people are just too obsessed with doomsday scenarios to give a shit about dissenting opinions. And that is a cause for great concern.

What really bothers me is that there are people who talk about Earth being doomed as it's a sure thing, and that we can't do anything. It really is a religion of sorts with these wonky weirdos, just like deniers pray at the feet of Monckton, Lindzen, Christy, et al.(well, not literally, but you get the point), and not only thta but I keep finding some remarkable similarities between the Apocalyptic set and the anti-AGW "skeptics" when it comes to certain things, particularly when it comes to dealing with the climate, that there's nothing that can be done, only using different wording and terminology.

Here's a statement from Chris Booker:
"It's too hard
"The fact is that there is no one in the world who can explain how we could cut our emissions by four fifths without shutting down virtually all our existing economy. What carries this even further into the higher realms of lunacy is that such a Quixotic gesture would do nothing to halt the world’s fast-rising CO2 emissions, already up 40 per cent since 1990. There is no way for us to prevent the world’s CO2 emissions from doubling by 2100" (Christopher Booker)"

Right outta the horse's mouth. So why are people on our side still buying this baloney? Absurd, and that's putting it very lightly and very politely too.

For those people out there who keep pushing this crap, it is seriously time to stop playing these games. It hasn't done a damn thing to benefit us and, as I've had to point out, over and over, this is actually helping the very same people working to keep the truth out of the public mindset and making the jobs of people like Peter Sinclair and the Skeptical Science people that much harder. That's how serious this is.

Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 12:26 PM - Edit history (2)

in the face of other's stated possibilities resulting from our changing climate. There is nothing wrong with this, however, if others contest your opinions it is not necessarily and insult as much as a questioning of the basis of your optimism.

That said, you responded to my initial post with a rebuttal of a simple statement about how the chaos theory parallels the first stages of the changing climate we are witnessing today and that models predicting the future are nearly useless with no stable historical records or trends as a basis or foundation of those models. Now read the first paragraph of your post above. If you feel all the possibilities you have listed to be a probable outcome of our future from only an .8*C rise in the current global temperature, and you acknowledge there is more CO2 in the atmosphere waiting to have an effect, what better illustrates the probability of a climate entering into a state of chaos with a deepening trend yet to be realized?

edit: added an apostrophe and deleted a word for clarity
(2) corrected spelling of a word

But again, I've already explained why I'm not exactly optimistic about things. What's so hard to understand about this?

An addendum, ...

Sorry I was called away mid post and couldn't finish and before I could edit the above post.

I do have a few other points to make.

In your original rebuttal post #15 you certainly implied, that those on this board of the opinion the climate is rapidly changing as we speak with probable catastrophic consequence, are of an overly extreme doomer mentality and therefore, separated from constructive conversation. The innuendo is our views carry the same weight as the climate skeptics, because of a single paragraph quoted from skeptical science.

This is too delicious to pass by.

My first point would be that Skeptical Science site rebuts the science skeptics in the Global Warming debate using a variety of sources and studies contesting bogus applied science and often repeated points found to have no validity. In doing so they intentionally keep their statements and opinions very conservative as to not invite any room for possible logical and peer reviewed, rebuttal.

The scientists who have signed on to the IPCC report (2007) and all the studies and models from which the report has been based, have through consensus, used the same methods in stating the case for anthropogenic global warming and the subsequent climate change. So many of the deductions from models and studies have in effect, diluted or delayed possible impacts, some believe to make it more palatable to a non scientific public. There is also the political pressure to understate the data in the studies that have been submitted.

The above paragraph is a bold statement, but let us look at some of the deductions from the 2007 report.

-- That effects of warming above 2*C would lead to serious changes in the climate. We are at .8*C now and everyday there are articles and studies indicating the effects of climate are much ahead of schedule in time, and at lower concentrations of CO2, thought to be workable threshold.

-- The Arctic sea ice will disappear sometime near 2100 if cuts in CO2 production are not addressed soon. Just five years past the report, this conservative deduction has been jettisoned for the optimistic views the ice will remain to about 2030, with many scientists now saying within this decade. About 70 - 80 years before projections.

-- Damaging ocean acidification is happening sooner and at lower atmospheric CO2 concentration than thought in the 2007 report. Note the stories of the effects of acidity with crustaceans and corrals.

-- The warmer water temperatures are already significantly changing the Southern Ocean, threatening the krill. Without the krill a collapse of the entire fishery is certain, and many of the ecosystems this little crustacean supports. This was not even modeled or highlighted in the 2007 report.

-- Also not included in the 2007 IPCC report and models were the changes now occurring in the sequestration of CO2 in the Southern Ocean. Another feedback loop we are now facing that wasn't even listed in the report.

-- The scientific consensus in view of the continued rise in CO2 production has also changed in the last five years, with few scientists believing the 2*C threshold is possible and our future problem will be much greater than outlined in the 2007 report.

-- The methane vents in the ocean north of Siberia and the tundra as well, are far ahead of 2007 modeling, both in time and at a much lower level of CO2 concentration and global temperature rise.

I could continue but I think you get my drift. The reported and modeled science we are dealing with today has been diluted to such a politically and publicly palatable extreme of understatement, it can't be trusted much more than the skeptics pseudo science.

So before inferring those on this board who you consider to be overly extreme, defeatist, or doomsayers, and are counter productive to the dialog, please realize we have our reasons for a not so rosy view. Simply said, can you trust the peer reviewed consensus diluted studies and models you have been provided to date?

You don't want the lectures, don't lump us in with quaint little quotes about skeptics, from sites that purposefully use peer reviewed studies diluted to obvious understatement of data.

What a great summary!

Too bad for you that I actually am pretty much in agreement with the scientific research he quoted here.

As I've explained many times before, my main beef is with those people who keep pushing certain lines of bullshit, like the "there's nothing we can do" line, or "Earth will turn into Venus", etc. that are in fact, counter-productive.

The above paragraph is a bold statement, but let us look at some of the deductions from the 2007 report.

-- That effects of warming above 2*C would lead to serious changes in the climate. We are at .8*C now and everyday there are articles and studies indicating the effects of climate are much ahead of schedule in time, and at lower concentrations of CO2, thought to be workable threshold.

-- The Arctic sea ice will disappear sometime near 2100 if cuts in CO2 production are not addressed soon. Just five years past the report, this conservative deduction has been jettisoned for the optimistic views the ice will remain to about 2030, with many scientists now saying within this decade. About 70 - 80 years before projections.

-- Damaging ocean acidification is happening sooner and at lower atmospheric CO2 concentration than thought in the 2007 report. Note the stories of the effects of acidity with crustaceans and corrals.

-- The warmer water temperatures are already significantly changing the Southern Ocean, threatening the krill. Without the krill a collapse of the entire fishery is certain, and many of the ecosystems this little crustacean supports. This was not even modeled or highlighted in the 2007 report.

-- Also not included in the 2007 IPCC report and models were the changes now occurring in the sequestration of CO2 in the Southern Ocean. Another feedback loop we are now facing that wasn't even listed in the report.

-- The scientific consensus in view of the continued rise in CO2 production has also changed in the last five years, with few scientists believing the 2*C threshold is possible and our future problem will be much greater than outlined in the 2007 report.

-- The methane vents in the ocean north of Siberia and the tundra as well, are far ahead of 2007 modeling, both in time and at a much lower level of CO2 concentration and global temperature rise.

Why are you bringing this up? I haven't questioned any of this. And in fact, it is indeed true that the proverbial dice rolls have been extraordinarily shitty these past 5 years or so, which is why I have continued to promote urgent action, because we don't know if and/or when we'll catch a lucky break(i.e. things go back to being more on schedule), or not.

All I implied, once again, was that those people pushing lines like "we can't do anything", "Earth is doomed(for sure)", etc. aren't providing anything valuable in terms of discourse. I did nothing of the sort of those who said that at least some things are happening earlier than originally forecast, and frankly, I'm one of them, so why would I diss a group of which I'm a part of? It makes no sense.

That means the die is cast. What is done is done.

Sure, as a youngster that is bad news. But that's what it is.

But lets say there was something that could be done: What would YOU do?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solving-global-warming-not-easy-but-not-too-hard.html

You know, isn't it odd that this kind of argument is rather similar to a line espoused by Chris Booker and certain other so-called "skeptics"?

A frequent skeptic argument is that solving the global warming problem will be "too hard", and thus we should just resign ourselves to trying to adapt to whatever climate change happens.

The scary part is, it seems that there's a fair number of people on our side buying into this kind of stuff. If we want to wonder why else little progress on climate change has been made over the past 20 years, other than criminal negligence by corporatists in D.C., and fossil fuel lobbying, this would be a good place to start.

Give up your car. Don't use electricity. Be homeless. Eat dirt.

Do all that and you will actually be doing something.

I will tell you this one more time and maybe you will remember it.
The co2 we put in the air today will be felt at it's peak level in 50 years.

If you do all the things listed in the first sentence, in 50 years it will show up as having done something.

There is no 'buying' into it. It is the fucking fact.

You think you can remember all this or will I have to repeat it again?

Give up your car. Don't use electricity. Be homeless. Eat dirt.

Do all that and you will actually be doing something.

I will tell you this one more time and maybe you will remember it.
The co2 we put in the air today will be felt at it's peak level in 50 years.

If you do all the things listed in the first sentence, in 50 years it will show up as having done something.

Looks like we're starting to get on the same page here. (Also, what are the nutritional values of mud pies? ).

Heck, I won't be alive in 50 years. Maybe not even 5.

I like my comforts. You'll take them from me from my cold dead hands.

But I am about halfway to where someone who lives, and makes no impact, can be. You youngsters still can do it, but do not expect a lot of company.

Know this.... if you point fingers at your culprits, make sure you are without sin.

I do try, man, I do try.........

http://www.transitionus.org/

Terra preta
http://www.eprida.com/hydro/yahoo2004.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_gardening

What is fun about Terra preta in Amazon is that it grows 1 cm a year by itself.

Perhaps along with growing huge stands of bamboo, harvesting it, and chucking it down every deep hole we can find and then covering it up in perpetuity...

http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

"In all matters, strive to do the right thing."
Permaculture is one of those "right things".

Hugelkultur may not be great for large-scale carbon sequestration, but it is a ferociously cool technique.

If we try something like that, on a large enough scale, we may be in for more of a treat than we expect.....here's hoping.

There's been some news about crime in "dying" industrial cities and problems with police department, places like Detroit, Flint etc. Guess what's happening in those places, what are people doing? Yup, gardening.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1516013

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112710635


Seems to me that the ideas of terra preta and community gardens should be a very natural fit...

authorities (who care only about matters of ownership) give some trouble, but as the hierarchic system continues to collapse it's not too much trouble to prevent community gardens from happening - as we see.

Hugelkultur + terra preta + food forests can all be combined according to synergy principles of permaculture. A nearby house burns, use the debris - both burned and unburned - to make raised beds. And while doing that, keep on planting fruit trees etc.

Food forests are also carbon sinks. And after few generations:

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PS: and as for crime and other psychological problems, gardens have great healing power. Which even scientific studies recognize.

Just one more way we can mitigate climate change, and it's not all that expensive, either.

At least here in Finland "scientific" agriculture has been testing terra preta method with good results and are recommending it for extensive use.

Speck Tater mentioned the operation of the double scroll attractor above:

The history of birth rates and death rates across the collapse of the Soviet Union suggests a similar rapid flip from one quasi-stable state (high birth/low death) to its inverse (low birth/high death). The entire transition happened in about 10 years. There are many ways of framing such a shift, but I thought the parallel with with the chaotic attractor was interesting enough to note.

2 eggwites, 1 tbsp confectioners sugar, 3 oz vodka, Rose's lime juice, ice. Blend 'til foamy. Flip occurs after the 4th one.

Does a double scroll attractor describe USSR birth/death rates in any kind of predictive way, or is it just a pretty way to correlate two sets of phenomena after the fact?

All I've ever been able to pull out of it is: data tends to diverge suddenly after a threshhold is reached. If we examine exactly how the data is diverging, we learn it's not truly "chaotic" after all. Seems like an attempt to formalize oversimplification, which also seems pretty pointless.

But I'm certain I'm oversimplifying.

An analogy to illustrate the general idea that complex adaptive systems can change state very fast, and not revert spontaneously.

It's a way of thinking about the world, as a fitness landscape containing basins of attraction, with the landscape being continuously altered by physical and cultural changes.

I don't think it can be made predictive (at this time), but for me it's an interesting mental model.

The philosophical component is fascinating in that it's a branch of science where end results are not as important as the processes which lead to them.

Now, granted, the Chaos Theory probably CAN be used to explain some things to an extent, but if you start relying on it too much, especially with something such as climate science, then it can really mess with your data; and with something as important as climate research, that's a risk that cannot be taken. Extreme care MUST be used.

And to answer your question:

"Does a double scroll attractor describe USSR birth/death rates in any kind of predictive way, or is it just a pretty way to correlate two sets of phenomena after the fact?"

Definitely the latter, at least mostly. There may be an inkling of truth in the former as well.

but was overpowered by the woo factor, and the scent of grad students chasing grant money.



But there appear to be too many really smart people who see applications in this to consign it to a strictly theoretical realm. Cryptographers salivate at the prospect of artificially-induced chaos, so I can see why for them it's an attractive field of study.

Thanks for your explanation.

That might also help explain why James Hansen seems to have bought into the "Venus Syndrome on Earth" theory. It's pretty sad, too, because he IS one of the best scientists in the field of climate research.

But then again, even the best scientists can get it wrong sometimes: remember Carl Sagan and the "100 MT Nuclear Winter" theory he came up with?

and that makes me cringe every time see the term "chaos theory", especially if it's capitalized. Besides, "complexity" is a better term as it encompasses other phenomena such as emergence, dimensionality, and non-linear dynamics.

As a paradigm it does not directly make predictions, but it does make requirements of the methods and theories used to make the predictions. It also describes the limits of what we can know. In the same fashion that understanding and prediction in biology requires evolution, a complexity paradigm requires that evolution be considered fundamentally dynamic and complex. It's also not a ToE, but it does require that a complete ToE contain the root of its own emergence.

I've tried teaching this at various times since the 1970's, but without real success. I found that it's a little like teaching irony or humor, people either get it initially or they don't. Fair enough, it's not easy to convince someone that the chair they are sitting on is not an object but an event with its own dynamic history, and living a life based on probability is not an easy sell.

For those who have trouble grasping the basic idea of non-linear change, I can only suggest they find a busy street and sit at the bottom some early wintry day, waiting for a change in the interactive patterns of cars as water makes its sudden phase shift at 0 C. If you feel trepidation at the thought of watching from the crosswalk, you might have a more profound understanding than you think.

Thank you.