Global warming standstill/pause increases to ‘a new record length': 18 years 6 months

[Paratus]

Which is a totally useless exercise. Of course water has a higher heat capacity than air. We have all this H2O on the planet otherwise known as "the ocean."

All the focus on surface temperatures is likely a climate faux pas. Of course its more complicated than that.

Which underscores what I'm saying... the climate scientists can't actually predict anything. They know nothing.

Are you guys going to start worrying about "what if the core of the earth vented off its heat to the atmosphere and the temperature would be 10,000F oh noes" like that would ever happen.

We have no other temperate H2O containing planets to study, just this one. I'm of the mind that Mars likely had water, but its core died and when it stopped generating a magnetic field thats when the water evaporated.

So just confirming my suspicions. You didn't read the ACS link. Your just here passing your own ignorance off.

That's cool. Just don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

 

[werepossum]

There is clearly an effect from rising CO2 levels I just don't see it as any big deal. This planet is too cold and it will take much higher CO2 levels before one would have to worry about any runaway greenhouse effect.

In the meantime I say enjoy the warmer temperatures. Cold weather sucks.

I'd worry more about China and their pollution than I would about CO2 emissions from the average modern american vehicle. At worst I'd say regulate the older vehicles and have emission testing in all states and add more pollution controls to outboard motors, yard equipment, etc.

I tend to agree, but it's worth pointing out that just as scientists don't really know much about the Earth's phenomenal feedback mechanisms, neither do we really know much about any ill effects from previous even higher CO2 levels. We DO know that is is extraordinarily difficult to control the amount of atmospheric CO2 at our technology level. We are also fairly sure that CO2 through human history has been lower than today, even though temperatures have been warmer.

Given those things it's entirely possible that something very unpleasant for us will kick in at a particular elevated CO2 level; it just has to be something we've not picked up from the existing physical evidence. I'm still quite agnostic about CAGW no matter what they call it and I have little regard for the integrity of those in that field, but that doesn't change the fact that they may be correct or that something else, something unpredicted, will bite us in the ass from elevated CO2 levels. (Something other than my own concern of stream and lacustrine acidification, which doesn't much affect humans.) Given that it would take the most massive, concerted human effort imaginable to significantly reduce CO2 concentrations, and given that we've probably reached or exceeded the beneficial level for increased CO2 levels within most biomes (at elevated levels CO2 retards growth, as plants must devote energy to removing excess CO2), seems to me that wherever we can reduce CO2 output (or increase CO2 sequestration) at a reasonable cost, we should do so. Especially since many of the things which reduce CO2 output (better efficiency, better insulated and tighter buildings, more solar and electric energy) also reduce other pollutants and at least as importantly, reduce mining, drilling and fracking. I'm not 100% against any of those activities, but the less we have to do them, the better for everyone and everything.