[johnu]

nige1, on 2018-December-01, 18:49, said:

When Al_U_Card quotes interesting statistics, JohnU's "YADA" replies annoy and contribute nothing to the debate. I prefer the Johnu posts, where he tries to refute Al_U_Card's controversial thesis by providing arguments, quotes, and links from relevant main-stream research.

Most of the statistics are just "Yada" cut and paste exercises. If you are going to cut and paste random charts and graphs, you should explain what is being posted.

Questions such as:

What is the source? From a mainstream climate change report, or a denier blog.

What is it used for? What is the significance of the post? Is it supposed to predict something, or show that a prediction is incorrect?

How does it fit into the climate change model? Is it the most important variable, the 10th most important, the 100th most important? You don't have to be exact, just some estimate.

Based on what was posted, How does this change what the climate change model should be predicting and why is the climate change model wrong?

[johnu]

Al_U_Card, on 2018-November-30, 20:54, said:

Typical alarmist cherry pie

Since Nige1 asked nicely, I'll analyze this particular post because it represents easily understandable data.

First, why is this posted?

Presumably because there has been stories in the media that global warming made the recent California fires some of the worst in California history. I guess Al_U_Card didn't have an extra minute to write something to that effect, or to link to some article.

What is the significance of the charts?

Apparently Al_U_Card thinks just posting this is enough to refute any global warming impact on California fires because a climate change denier noticed that burned acreage drastically decreased in the last 100 years without giving a second thought about the actual data.

Since I have a degree in biostatistics, I've got a lot of experience in analyzing various types of data.

The first thing I noticed is that between about 1932 and 1984, the amount of acreage burned decreased from about 53 million acres to a little over 1 million acres. Wow, a 98% decrease in acreage. The deniers must have passed out from joy at this chart

There's a TV show in the US called "What on Earth?" on the Science channel. Usually the show uses satellite photos that show something unusual and ask what's going on. There's a panel of scientists that then give various hypotheses to explain what is shown in the photo. Some can be pretty far fetched, others may be more probable. If possible, there's usually an on the ground investigation to see what's actually going on, but sometimes there is no definitive conclusion.

I'll give a What on Earth? type analysis:

Maybe there was a worldwide nuclear war or a near extinction level meteor strike that caused a nuclear winter that decreased temperatures so much that forest fires were nearly eliminated going on until today. I googled worldwide nuclear war, and extinction level meteor strike and came up empty. I also looked out my window the other day and saw clear blue skies, so I'm going to have to eliminate this theory.

Along similar lines, it could have been massive volcanic eruptions like the Deccan Traps that spewed particulates into the air that blocked the sun and caused temperatures to massively drop worldwide for decades. Again, google came up empty.

Maybe we are at the start of a new ice age and the global ice sheet is rapidly headed down from the Arctic down to lower latitudes. Hmmm, ski areas in my area have been opening up later and later in the year, so I'm not even going to google whether we are beginning a new ice age. If somebody has some spare time, they can investigate and post breaking news.

Maybe all the forests got burned down by previous year's forest fires so there's nothing left to burn? Hmmm, there could be something to that, but a 98% reduction in 50 years? And forests have been regrowing after forest fires for millions of years. You would think somebody would have noticed that.

Deforestation and industrialization. Yep, that's definitely happening. New cities and ever expanding suburbs, industrial plants, highways and roads and all sorts of development. So that accounts for some amount in the decrease of burned acreage, but 98%? I don't think so.

Edit: Another point to take into account is firefighting in public lands. U.S. FOREST SERVICE FIRE SUPPRESSION
Clearly this has a noticeable effect on the acreage burned. And since the early 1900's, we've gone from firefighters with axes and shovels (still have them), to supplementing them with airplanes and helicopters that drop water, foam and fire retardants from the air to increase the effectiveness of the firefighting.

With deforestation reducing the amount of wilderness areas, and more effective fire fighting capabilities, one might predict, all things being equal, that the burned acreage should be reducing every year.

Also, between about 1953 and 1957, about 4 years time, the burned acreage decreased from about 13 million acres to about 3 million acres, and the acreage has never been as high as 10 million since 1957.

Conclusion:

My educated guess is that something drastically changed in the reporting methods between 1953 and 1957 (and it looks like this happened from 1928 as well) so you can't compare recent years with early and mid 20th century numbers.

In fact, these numbers look like the were taken from this site:

National Interagency Fire Center

which has this specific warning:

Quote

The National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process. As a result the figures prior to 1983 should not be compared to later data.

So there you have it. Al_U_Card posted a chart which he assumes shows that current forest fires have no correlation to global warming and in fact probably shows that temperatures must be decreasing if there is any correlation at all.

If that's not "Yada" then you haven't seen "Yada"

[Winstonm]

johnu, on 2018-December-07, 05:28, said:

Since Nige1 asked nicely, I'll analyze this particular post because it represents easily understandable data.

First, why is this posted?

Presumably because there has been stories in the media that global warming made the recent California fires some of the worst in California history. I guess Al_U_Card didn't have an extra minute to write something to that effect, or to link to some article.

What is the significance of the charts?

Apparently Al_U_Card thinks just posting this is enough to refute any global warming impact on California fires because a climate change denier noticed that burned acreage drastically decreased in the last 100 years without giving a second thought about the actual data.

Since I have a degree in biostatistics, I've got a lot of experience in analyzing various types of data.

The first thing I noticed is that between about 1932 and 1984, the amount of acreage burned decreased from about 53 million acres to a little over 1 million acres. Wow, a 98% decrease in acreage. The deniers must have passed out from joy at this chart

There's a TV show in the US called "What on Earth?" on the Science channel. Usually the show uses satellite photos that show something unusual and ask what's going on. There's a panel of scientists that then give various hypotheses to explain what is shown in the photo. Some can be pretty far fetched, others may be more probable. If possible, there's usually an on the ground investigation to see what's actually going on, but sometimes there is no definitive conclusion.

I'll give a What on Earth? type analysis:

Maybe there was a worldwide nuclear war or a near extinction level meteor strike that caused a nuclear winter that decreased temperatures so much that forest fires were nearly eliminated going on until today. I googled worldwide nuclear war, and extinction level meteor strike and came up empty. I also looked out my window the other day and saw clear blue skies, so I'm going to have to eliminate this theory.

Along similar lines, it could have been massive volcanic eruptions like the Deccan Traps that spewed particulates into the air that blocked the sun and caused temperatures to massively drop worldwide for decades. Again, google came up empty.

Maybe we are at the start of a new ice age and the global ice sheet is rapidly headed down from the Arctic down to lower latitudes. Hmmm, ski areas in my area have been opening up later and later in the year, so I'm not even going to google whether we are beginning a new ice age. If somebody has some spare time, they can investigate and post breaking news.

Maybe all the forests got burned down by previous year's forest fires so there's nothing left to burn? Hmmm, there could be something to that, but a 98% reduction in 50 years? And forests have been regrowing after forest fires for millions of years. You would think somebody would have noticed that.

Deforestation and industrialization. Yep, that's definitely happening. New cities and ever expanding suburbs, industrial plants, highways and roads and all sorts of development. So that accounts for some amount in the decrease of burned acreage, but 98%? I don't think so.

Also, between about 1953 and 1957, about 4 years time, the burned acreage decreased from about 13 million acres to about 3 million acres, and the acreage has never been as high as 10 million since 1957.

Conclusion:

My educated guess is that something drastically changed in the reporting methods between 1953 and 1957 (and it looks like this happened from 1928 as well) so you can't compare recent years with early and mid 20th century numbers. In fact, these numbers look like the were taken from this site:

National Interagency Fire Center

which has this specific warning:



So there you have it. Al_U_Card posted a chart which he assumes shows that current forest fires have no correlation to global warming and in fact probably shows that temperatures must be decreasing if there is any correlation at all.

If that's not "Yada" then you haven't seen "Yada"

Curious. The chart in the rectangle makes it appear there has been an increasing slope since 1983 - aliens?

[johnu]

Green New Deal Has Overwhelming Bipartisan Support, Poll Finds. At Least, For Now. - Sixty-four percent of Republicans — including 57 percent of conservative Republicans — back the core tenets of the sweeping proposal.

Quote

Eighty-two percent of Americans say they have heard “nothing at all” about the sweeping proposal to generate 100 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean sources within the next 10 years, upgrade the United States’ power grid, invest in energy-efficiency and renewable technology, and provide training for jobs in the new, green economy.

But when asked “how much do you support or oppose” the aforementioned suite of policies, 81 percent of registered voters say they either “somewhat support” or “strongly support” the plan, according to new survey results shared exclusively with HuffPost from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University.

Sounds good, but are Republican members of Congress going to badmouth the ideas?

Quote

Study after study shows Americans evaluate policies more negatively when they are told politicians from an opposing party back the ideas, and more positively when they are told politicians from their own party are in support. The findings therefore indicate that although most Republicans favor the Green New Deal in principle, they are not yet aware that the plan is proposed by the political left.

This is less a prediction than a statement of fact but as long as big money from the energy monopolies continue to flow, there will be politicians who will follow whatever energy industry policy statements are printed.

[y66]

From Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor by Christopher Flavelle and Jeremy C.F. Lin at Bloomberg:

Quote

By the middle of this century, climate change is likely to punch a hole through the busiest stretch of rail in North America. Parts of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route, which carries 12 million people each year between Boston and Washington, face “continual inundation.” Flooding, rising seas, and storm surge threaten to erode the track bed and knock out the signals that direct train traffic. The poles that provide electricity for trains are at risk of collapse, even as power substations succumb to floodwaters. “If one of the segments of track shuts down, it will shut down this segment of the NEC,” warned members of Amtrak’s planning staff. “There is not an alternate route that can be used as a detour.”

That was the conclusion of a three-volume, multi-year climate study undertaken with first Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and then Stantec Inc. Although the report was completed in April 2017, its conclusions were kept private until this November, when a partially redacted version was obtained by Bloomberg through a public records request. Titled “Amtrak NEC Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment,” the document outlines the severe threat facing one 10-mile section of the 457 miles of track, much of which runs perilously close to water.

On a recent afternoon near Wilmington, Del., the danger already seemed imminent. North of the city, the distance between the tracks and the Delaware River was alarmingly narrow, even at low tide. Closer to downtown, puddles dotted the West Yard Substation, which powers this section of rail, as well as the Wilmington maintenance yard, one of the few in the country that can repair electric locomotives. Only a slender cobblestone footpath separated Amtrak’s Consolidated National Operations Center, which monitors and controls traffic along the corridor, from the edge of the Christina River. The single access road leading to Amtrak’s only training center for engineers was underwater on a day with no rain.

The climate threat certainly isn’t limited to Delaware. Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has projected which portions of the corridor will experience what she calls “chronic inundation,” defined as flooding an average of at least twice a month. Dahl provided Bloomberg with data showing when chronic inundation is expected to reach portions of the Northeast Corridor.

Most important, the authors of the climate report recommended that the same detailed calculations be performed on the rest of the Northeast Corridor, and that the company begin working with state and local governments to prepare for the risks they described. More than a year and a half later, Amtrak, a private company whose stock is primarily owned by the federal government and which depends on congressional funding to operate, has yet to repeat its analysis for the network as a whole.

Amtrak has since de-emphasized the threat of climate change in its public documents, even scrubbing the phrase entirely from its most recent five-year strategic plan. “We don’t see any fundamental risks to the integrity of the corridor,” Stephen Gardner, Amtrak executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said in an interview in November.

Christina Leeds, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said in an email: “Elevation or relocation of the infrastructure is likely to be expensive, disruptive, or impractical, and given the current levels of federal and state funding for Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor, well beyond our means.” She added that the company already faces “$40 billion worth of pressing—largely still unfunded—basic state-of-good-repair risks.”

The report’s authors estimated the initial cost of protecting the study area to be $78 million, based on the premise that water levels around Wilmington would rise 2 feet by 2050. That reflects the median of possible warming scenarios, according to Climate Central, a research group in Princeton, N.J. Other estimates are almost twice as high.

One of the redacted portions of the report is an analysis of the full costs and benefits of protecting the corridor against climate change, making it impossible to know if the company has determined it would save more money by keeping the corridor open than it would have to spend to save it. The disclosure of that information “could possibly cause public confusion,” the company said in a statement explaining its redactions. And anyway, says Allan Zarembski, director of the railway engineering and safety program at the University of Delaware, built-out urban environments leave little land available. “The cost of relocating the track is not the big issue,” he says. “The big issue is, where do you relocate it?”

Maybe Elon can help them relocate the track underwater. HydroLoop anyone?

[Al_U_Card]

y66, on 2018-December-20, 16:45, said:

From Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor by Christopher Flavelle and Jeremy C.F. Lin at Bloomberg:


Maybe Elon can help them relocate the track underwater. HydroLoop anyone?

Or they could stop the isostatic rebound that is causing east coast subsidence because a new ice age would get most of that coast rising up again ... by about 300 feet, like it was during the last one. 300 feet in less than a lifetime compared to 30 cm.(1 ft), we could never adapt to that.

[johnu]

Al_U_Card, on 2018-December-20, 20:19, said:

More "Yada"

Explorer’s Phil Keoghan

I recently watched an episode of a National Geographic TV show called Explorer. One of the segments was about the Flat Earth movement. Some polls estimate that about 2% of people believed in a flat earth. Interesting enough, 2% is also the estimate for scientists who are climate change deniers. There's no correlation mentioned or implied, just an interesting coincidence I noticed if you like coincidences.

The flat earth spokesman was quite a character. You have to live in an incredible fantasy world to disregard hundreds of years of actual science and invent your own reality.

10 Absurd Claims Of Modern Flat Earth Conspiracy Theorists

I especially like that the flat earthers don't believe in gravity, but have invented their own theory why we don't levitate off the ground. Almost as good is their theory that rockets can't reach space. I'm not sure how they explain GPS and communication satellites. It's a shame that millions of people are employed by fake industries based on fake science. Another goodie is that the world is a disc with the North pole at the center and there is a circular wall of ice around the world disc. This ice wall (AKA Antarctica) is the boundary of the earth disc that keeps water from flowing off the edge of the earth.

Don't tell Dennison about this ice wall. He will want to move it to our southern border because if it can keep the oceans from flowing out, it can certainly keep immigrants out. He could also license the ice for the Dennison Ice Cube Corp.

Well, a flat earth is certainly one reason that global warming isn't causing the oceans to rise. There's a hole in the ice wall that lets ocean water drain off the earth, keep sea levels constant.

[johnu]

Pentagon Confirms Climate Change Is A National Security Threat, Contradicting Trump

We all know the Pentagon and military is overrun by liberal tree huggers

[johnu]

Can She Keep Miami Beach Above the Rising Sea?

Miami-Dade County are committing hundreds of millions of dollars to alleviate rising seas caused by global warming. Why aren't they listening to the global warming change deniers wearing the waist high hip waders?

[Cyberyeti]

johnu, on 2018-December-24, 05:25, said:

Explorer’s Phil Keoghan

I recently watched an episode of a National Geographic TV show called Explorer. One of the segments was about the Flat Earth movement. Some polls estimate that about 2% of people believed in a flat earth. Interesting enough, 2% is also the estimate for scientists who are climate change deniers. There's no correlation mentioned or implied, just an interesting coincidence I noticed if you like coincidences.

The flat earth spokesman was quite a character. You have to live in an incredible fantasy world to disregard hundreds of years of actual science and invent your own reality.

10 Absurd Claims Of Modern Flat Earth Conspiracy Theorists

I especially like that the flat earthers don't believe in gravity, but have invented their own theory why we don't levitate off the ground. Almost as good is their theory that rockets can't reach space. I'm not sure how they explain GPS and communication satellites. It's a shame that millions of people are employed by fake industries based on fake science. Another goodie is that the world is a disc with the North pole at the center and there is a circular wall of ice around the world disc. This ice wall (AKA Antarctica) is the boundary of the earth disc that keeps water from flowing off the edge of the earth.

Don't tell Dennison about this ice wall. He will want to move it to our southern border because if it can keep the oceans from flowing out, it can certainly keep immigrants out. He could also license the ice for the Dennison Ice Cube Corp.

Well, a flat earth is certainly one reason that global warming isn't causing the oceans to rise. There's a hole in the ice wall that lets ocean water drain off the earth, keep sea levels constant.

One I'd like to ask a flat earther is how the Schiehallion experiment worked if gravity is as they suggest.

https://en.wikipedia...lion_experiment

[johnu]

Melting glaciers in Arctic reveal land hidden for 40,000 years, study says

Climate change deniers must be protesting that this is an optical illusion. If the earth is actually getting colder (and it's been so cold this week that Dennison has been tweeting that we need some global warming), how can glaciers be melting completely away?

[johnu]

New EPA Advisory Board Member Believes Burning Fossil Fuels Is Good For Earth

Another case of Dennison trying to destroy the work of a federal agency by appointing an unqualified person who is against everything that agency is trying to accomplish.

Quote

The newest member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board is a climate change skeptic whose research has been debunked and who believes that burning fossil fuels is actually beneficial.

Quote

Christy initially argued in early research that the planet was actually cooling, not warming. But his findings were debunked by other scientists, and Christy eventually admitted that the research was flawed, The New York Times reported.

Christy was slightly unlucky that he was wrong about the planet warming, not cooling. Isn't it a 50%-50% tossup whether the earth is warming or cooling?

[Winstonm]

Quote

Last week the Tennessee Valley Authority voted to close the 49-year-old Paradise Fossil Unit 3 coal-fired generating plant in western Kentucky, citing operating costs, the need for repairs and “flat to declining” load. The board’s 5-2 vote came despite appeals from Trump to keep the plant and others like it open.

“Coal is an important part of our electricity generation mix and @TVAnews should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants, like Paradise #3 in Kentucky!” wrote Trump on Twitter in the days leading up to the vote.

Joining Trump in his calls to save the plant were Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and the state’s governor, Matt Bevin, both Republicans.

That's one small step for man...

[johnu]

Winstonm, on 2019-February-18, 19:30, said:

Quote

Last week the Tennessee Valley Authority voted to close the 49-year-old Paradise Fossil Unit 3 coal-fired generating plant in western Kentucky, citing operating costs, the need for repairs and “flat to declining” load. The board’s 5-2 vote came despite appeals from Trump to keep the plant and others like it open.

“Coal is an important part of our electricity generation mix and @TVAnews should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants, like Paradise #3 in Kentucky!” wrote Trump on Twitter in the days leading up to the vote.

Joining Trump in his calls to save the plant were Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and the state’s governor, Matt Bevin, both Republicans.

What the h*ll is going on here? Where is the power of the bribe and influence peddling? Robert Murray, owner of Murray Energy (Paradise #3) donates a million+ dollars to Dennison's presidential campaign and another $300K to the Dennison inaugural committee. You would think a million+ dollars would get you tens or hundreds of millions back in return. And the best Dennison could do is send out a tweet?

In Dennison's defense, he had to leave early for another golf vacation and he's already getting hundreds of millions from Deutsche bank/Russian Oligarchs, cha-ching!

[Winstonm]

I suppose Individual-1 will find someone to contradict this:

Quote

OSLO (Reuters) - Evidence for man-made global warming has reached a “gold standard” level of certainty, adding pressure for cuts in greenhouse gases to limit rising temperatures, scientists said on Monday.

Next page in the denial playbook is to argue that the warming is a benefit.

[blackshoe]

According to our (in the US; I don't know if she has global aspirations) self-appointed boss, known by the initials AOC, we have a mere twelve years to "solve" global warming, and should therefore stop producing children.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on 2019-February-26, 09:52, said:

According to our (in the US; I don't know if she has global aspirations) self-appointed boss, known by the initials AOC, we have a mere twelve years to "solve" global warming, and should therefore stop producing children.

This is a gross misrepresentation of what AOC actually said.

I'm used to seeing you post plenty of nonsense, but rarely direct lies...
Kinda surprising

[johnu]

Winstonm, on 2019-February-25, 21:22, said:

I suppose Individual-1 will find someone to contradict this:



Next page in the denial playbook is to argue that the warming is a benefit.

The climate change deniers have already been there and done that. And they have concluded that more CO2 is actually good for the planet and have convinced their acolytes that this is true (as some of the climate change deniers on this forum have already parroted).

What's next?

Mass extinction improves diversity?
Coastal flooding improves property values?
Life threatening high temperatures are good for air conditioning sales?
Droughts are good for bottled water sales?
Starvation caused by crop failures reduces obesity?

[johnu]

blackshoe, on 2019-February-26, 09:52, said:

According to our (in the US; I don't know if she has global aspirations) self-appointed boss, known by the initials AOC ....

A lot of people seem unnaturally afraid of AOC. I wonder what psychological reasons are behind this

[Winstonm]

johnu, on 2019-February-26, 15:39, said:

The climate change deniers have already been there and done that. And they have concluded that more CO2 is actually good for the planet and have convinced their acolytes that this is true (as some of the climate change deniers on this forum have already parroted).

What's next?

Mass extinction improves diversity?
Coastal flooding improves property values?
Life threatening high temperatures are good for air conditioning sales?
Droughts are good for bottled water sales?
Starvation caused by crop failures reduces obesity?

Smoking is good for you....after you burst into flames.