Sunday, December 8, 2013

Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises (2013)

{edited 9:30am - 12/8/2013}

There's a new report hot off the National Academies Press.  What can I say, it paints a troubling picture of where our society's failure of stewardship for our one and only planet's biosphere is leading us.

As a spectator who remembers his young adulthood of adventure and discovery in the world of the 70s, I'm heartbroken at the degradation caused by the contempt so many display for our natural "environment" and the prevailing disregard for any "stewardship responsibility" towards our planet.  We humans have become a lazy bunch and adapt to change too easily and too many seem oblivious to all the natural wonders and wide open stretches of life-supporting biosphere that have disappeared over the past decades, to say nothing of the past couple centuries.

Back in the 70s a lot of global warming science details were educated speculation.  Backed by serious science for sure, and the bottom-line was solid if simple:  increasing our atmosphere's insulating ability would lead to warming our planet. and that such a warming will have significant impacts upon our climate, aka. global heat distribution engine, the thing that sustains our lives and life styles.

Here we are after decades of hollow assurances and PR crazy-making from the likes of the Wattzers and McIntyres fueled by certain politically motivated "think tanks" such as Heartland Institute with their fancy word games and emotional manipulation and demonizing of everyone who doesn't parrot their message (which is devoid of any interest in learning) - well folks, the speculation has become reality before our eyes and the future promises hard times like none of us have ever known.  Yet the climate science denialists just keep getting shriller and more vicious toward decent people, while the public allows them to get away with it, probably because they have too many worries and other priorities already.

Well the beat goes on folks, here's but the latest report... with many more to come.

But, what good are all these reports and repeated warnings so long as we collectively refuse to face the issue and learn about it in a serious rational manner, and then start taking substantive action?


Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change:

Anticipating Surprises (2013)



Authors

Committee on Understanding and Monitoring Abrupt Climate Change and Its Impacts;
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate;
Division on Earth and Life Studies;
National Research Council


The table of contents










3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yupp, in a very, very, VERY long time, no doubt, since NOAA's 'Deep Ocean' arrays have only detected +0.06 degree warming based on a very NON-spatially dispersed array and well within the MARGIN OF ERROR of the sampling equipment, therefore, STATISTICAL CHOSS. So let's draw ALARMIST transects off GIGO data, then let's set up a taxpayer-looted DEW Line and hire more Mil.Gov.Sci.Edu drones to monitor what they failed to with the $88B of our last life savings already thrown at their clumb feet.

citizenschallenge said...

This is the type of comment I'm tempted to delete since it's basically an empty rant. NO actual information was shared, NO references to support the wild claims, NO coherent argument presented.

It's as though just because the dude doesn't like what scientists are reporting, dude's just positive they are liars and I'm sure committed to taking away his god-given freedoms… or something like that.

Science really isn't the cartoon that character's like this claim it is. But, how would they know - they've already written it off and refuse to learn about it - so we are all stuck.

citizenschallenge said...

Now me, I do like to share the resources that have helped me develop my understanding and upon which I form my opinions.
~ ~ ~

Is my buddy talking about the "National Data Buoy" array? http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/dart/dart.shtml

Check out some of the data they collect: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=46029
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Or the three thousand, six hundred ARGO free-drifting floats?

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu
http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/Argo_Brochure2012_high_res.pdf

What is Argo?
Argo is a global array of 3,000 free-drifting profiling floats that measures the temperature and salinity of the upper 2000 m of the ocean.  This allows, for the first time, continuous monitoring of the temperature, salinity, and velocity of the upper ocean, with all data being relayed and made publicly available within hours after collection.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I'm not sure what "Statistical Choss" refers to - but just saying one believes they are a bunch of liars doesn't make them so, particularly when it's obvious dude hasn't taken any time to learn anything about the various methods for observing our oceans and their temperatures, among other readings.

Sounds to me like dude's just flailing at something he resents for personal reasons, like a fear/faith that the results will mean the end to his life-style and I suspect it's because of such extreme fears, that such folk refuse to honesty learn about what these instruments are actually recording and what scientists are reporting.

Why do so many consider learning about our planet a bad thing?

As for ocean temperatures, here's an interesting lecture, hopefully it can inspire some to learn more:

135 Years of Global Ocean Warming - Perspectives on Ocean Science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIayxdrX17g