One of the oldest climate change experiments has led to a troubling conclusion

One of the regular complaints of climate change doubters and skeptics is that scientific projections of a dire future are too heavily based on computer simulations, or models, which — they say — rest on a variety of questionable assumptions.

Heated and control plots in a long-term soil
 warming study at Harvard Forest, Petersham,
Mass. Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological
 Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass., and colleagues
began the study in 1991. 

But a major climate change study published Thursday relied not on models but experimental data — a 26-year record of observations, no less — to reach a conclusion perhaps just as worrying. The research, tracking the emissions of carbon from artificially heated plots of a forest in Massachusetts, reinforces fears about the possibility of a climate change “feedback” involving the planet’s soils, one that could pile on top of and substantially worsen the ongoing warming trend triggered by the burning of fossil fuels.

“The study is one of the longest if not the longest climate change ecosystem experiment, beyond the one we are running in our own planet,” said Pep Canadell, an expert on the Earth’s carbon cycle at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia. He was not part of the research.

Read Chris Mooney’s story on The Washington Post -  “One of the oldest climate change experiments has led to a troubling conclusion.”

Dilemmas for climate change skeptics

Recent storms along Australia’s east coast posed some dilemmas for climate change skeptics as this letter in today's Melbourne Age asks:

Time for climate change skeptics to admit science has won

W

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riting on The New Daily, the Money Editor, James Fernyhough (pictured), has said it is time for climate skeptics to admit defeat.

He said they had done a “sterling job” of dismissing the issue, but now it was time for those skeptics to graciously admit the better science won.

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus, they and their small band of highly-paid intellectuals have managed to persuade a vast swathe of Australians that global warming is a left-wing conspiracy.

Turning a lot of nerdy scientists into politically ferocious agitators is quite an achievement, so hats off to them.

But it looks as though the sceptics are losing the battle. According to a Lowy Institute poll released on Tuesday, Australians are increasingly taking global warming seriously … again.

The poll found 90 per cent of Australians believe global warming is a concern, 50 per cent believe it is “a serious and pressing problem” that requires action regardless of the cost, and 63 per cent believe we should take significant steps now to reduce our carbon emissions.

Read Fernyhough’s story - “Why it’s time for climate sceptics to face facts”.

Science-denying ideologies skew the conversation

Climate Change Authority
chairman, Bernie Fraser.

A conversation of critical importance to the welfare of all Australians has become dangerously skewed since the election of the Tony Abbott-led coalition government.

Driven by science-denying ideologies, the present federal government has busied itself dismantling Australia’s climate change mitigation infrastructure, while at the same time taking the leash off vocal climate skeptics.

Former Sunday Age editor, Gay Alcorn, writing in a piece headed: “Climate change bad guys apply heat to Labor”, says that while the skeptics have free reign on climate change, Labor is disturbingly quiet.

Ms Alcorn quoted the Climate Change Authority chairman, Mr Bernie Fraser, who said: “People in positions of influence in industry associations or companies or in the government and the opposition who in some cases say they believe the science, but don’t act as if they do”.

What will it 'cost' before the world takes notice?

How “much” will it take to have people take notice of climate change?

The cost of dealing with global warming in terms of lives lost and injury, the replacement and repair of damage houses and other buildings and the replacement or repair of infrastructure nearly broke $200 billion in 2012.

However, that doesn’t appear to be enough as the climate change skeptics still strut around the world declaring all is well, and for them, and for the moment, it is.

The alarming mounting costs of climate change are discussed in Climateprogress story headed: “Global damage from extreme weather and other disasters set to break $200 billion a year”.

A race between the reality of climate change and the fantasy of skeptics

Jonathon Green.

Climate change is settling on the world at an alarming rate and moving equally quickly is the conversation that gives oxygen to the skeptics.

Interestingly it not just on the fringes of society for in Australia it is at the heart of the national conversation with Federal Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, arguing the country’s emissions trading scheme is a “so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one”.

An article on the ABC’s The Drum headed: “An invisible nod to the climate change sceptics” by Jonathon Green helps the reader understand more about the Tony Abbott tack.

Globe keeps warming, but public perception is cooling

Nature is doing a pretty good job all on its own, or at least with decided help from humans, but despite that the public perception of global warming is cooling.

Frankl Luntz.

A recent story published in Britain’s “The Independent” newspaper headed: “World cools on global warming as green fatigue sets in” explains how worldwide concerns about climate change have dropped dramatically since 2009.

Climate change, on a human time scale, is a long range affair and most people, conditioned by our instant world in which gratification needs to be immediate to be of any consequence, seem unable to equate personally, or in any other way, with something that is not concrete or maybe several years off.

Climate change, despite what the vocal skeptics or doubters tell us, is here now and to see it were simply need to open our eyes and beyond that, allow the scientists of the world, who are traditionally poor at using metaphor to help us understand the apocalyptic shape the world is taking on.

Those of us convinced of the reality of climate change should take advice from the American Republican Party’s master wordmeister, Frank Luntz, who said: "There’s a simple rule: You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you absolutely sick of saying it is about the that time your target audience has heard it for the first time.”

People will not be convinced by scientific facts that explain and detail the realities of climate change, rather the persuasive use of the language using metaphor and simile to illustrate the implications of the damage humans have done to the atmosphere.

A contrast - do we believe what we read, or what we can see and feel?

Storms of unprecedented intensity charge down Australia’s east coast and another of similar capacity forms off the Western Australian coast, while a story in the U.S. magazine Forbes argues the President’s claims about climate change are based on fallacies.

So where does that leave us. Do we listen to magazine contributor, Peter Ferrara, or accept what we can see and feel?

Ferrara, unquestionably an agent of the climate change skeptics and as that promotes arguments long disproved by science, writes that “global temperature record has been flat lining for 16 years now”.

Ferrara turns to “The Global Warming Policy Foundation” to gives his story credence, but it is worth noting that two of the 24-strong Academic Advisory Council, are Australians, Professor Bob Carter and Professor Ian Pilmer, whose credibility has been seriously questioned and called into doubt by the hierarchy of climate science.

When wondering why a newspaper, magazine, institution or individual takes a skeptical position about climate change, the simple advice is “follow the money”.

Forbes magazine, whose motto is ”The capitalist tool”, reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, and law, and is known for pandering to the interests of America’s richest from which the greatest climate change skeptics emerge.

Ferrara’s story: “As The Economy Recesses, Obama's Global Warming Delusions Are Truly Cruel” is an illustration of skepticism at work."

Skeptics and doubters again in conflict with science

 Australia's last 50 years have
 been the hottest for 1000 years.

Climate change skeptics and their coterie of fellow doubters are again in conflict with irrefutable science.

Scientists have now examined the climate record of the past millennium and have found, conclusively, that the last 50 years have been Australia’s warmest.

A story on the ABC headed: “Last 50 years were Australia’shottest: study” told how the study illustrated that no other period in the last 1000 years had matched the temperature rises Australia and the region had experienced in the last 50 years.