Overall theme

The week will have an overall theme that each post reinforces if possible. I like Dana's plan to contrast the focus of the Idso report (current climate) vs. what we're actually concerned about (future climate).  The future climate is what dictates what the prudent path is.  That's the overarching theme - while climate change impacts so far haven't been bad, if we continue on a business as usual path, they will be.

To avoid the "tennis match" of merely being a rebuttal of Idso, our posts should start positive by banging our theme, then looking at how the Idso report ignores the future.

Dana has written an introduction to the Prudent Path Week which sets the tone for all the posts.

Possible posts:

• Introduction to Prudent Path Week (Dana)
  
• Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen (Bart)
• MWP (Dana)
• Arctic Warming, Antarctic Refutation, Greenland Ice Sheet, Antarctic Ice Sheet (Robert)
  
• Ocean Acidification and/or coral bleaching (I'll ask John Bruno if he's interested in doing a post)
  

So can I suggest the following approach (welcome suggestions of better alternatives)?

1. Finalise what our topics will be (so anyone interested in writing a post, please let us know now in this thread). I'd say we need at least 5 posts in order to make it a "week" - more is fine if there are enough posts suggested
2. Everyone post drafts on the forum so we can all compare notes and make sure they're all consistently building on the Prudent Path theme. Be sure to read Dana's introduction to Prudent Path Week for an idea of the overall theme.
   
3. Once we've got all our drafts ready, we see whether it's feasible to put them all together into a PDF that is released as a single report. This might be a dud idea, just a thought. But having a report at the end gives it a final "event" that we could promote to other blogs, get sites to link to it and the PDF. Just a thought.

I think that's a good strategy.  I'd like to do the introduction if you don't mind - I already started doing a generic "we're worried about future, not present" blog post.  Robert gave me a nice graph to use too.

I was going to leave the MWP for Robert since he put together some nice data on the subject, but seeing that he's already got a lot on his plate here, I can take it.

Note - I'm not suggesting Robert does all those topics - Robert, whatever you deem are the best topics to focus on (preferably the ones where Idso's errors are especially bad and clear to explain - not too technical or obscure).

Dana, I was hoping you'd write the intro :-)

I'm thinking if we do a PDF report at the end, that post might be something I'll try to get into Treehugger - in fact, perhaps we should try to write 3 different versions of the summary post (which would release the PDF and reiterate the themes of your intro post) - other versions for Huff Post and the Guardian. Something to think about.

I finished drafting up the intro.  Might be a bit rough because I threw it together a little quickly before dinner, but here it is.

Maybe we can keep the theme from the intro in mind when we write each of the individual Prudent Path Week blog posts.  It's all well and good to point out errors and contradictions, but preferably each post should tie into the "we're worried about the future, not the present" theme.

Intro reads well. Great work and thanks, Dana. I wonder, should we concede the Idso characterisation of "modest warming"? All that heat going into the oceans, at a rate of 2.5 Hiroshimas per second, now causing billions of tonnes of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica. It's not that modest. Not sure I'd be willing to concede the point.

Anyway, I've updated the post at the top of this thread to highlight your intro for other authors.

Dana, in it's current form you concede too much. We are committed to warming that is probably disastrous already. We have yet to see the full consequences of our emissions thus far, let alone future ones. The Idso's are like that joke about the guy falling from a skyscraper; as he plummeted past open windows he could be heard to say "So good so far!".  

The pdf needs a picture with two paths - one the skeptics prudent path, leads to a yawning chasm. The prudent prudent path leads to a meadow. (just thinking aloud here, I'm always thinking of cartoons to characterize the stupidity of skeptics). 

I think you're being too pessimistic there, Rob.  We're committed to 1.4°C so far, which likely isn't a disastrous amount.  I agree it's worth pointing out that we're commited to 1.4, not just 0.8°C (I'll make that change now).

It's funny you use that analogy.  At the NoTricksZone blog, in a recent comment I made the analogy of falling off a cliff.  Other than the air resistance, you feel fine.  Only by projecting into the future your impact with the ground and the effects it will have on your body do you know that you should be alarmed.  Very similar analogies.

I like the idea of the picture of the two paths in the PDF.  Actually it wouldn't hurt to put something like that in the intro, too.  John, think you could make us a pretty picture of the two paths?

*update* Okay I updated the intro to discuss that there's still more warming in the pipeline, and that we're already starting to see some warnings of bad effects from climate change.  I added to the 'poking the bear' analogy that the bear is starting to stir, so we need to stop poking it.

Dana, just think of what an extra 0.6 degrees will do to the Amazon rainforest, phytoplankton (ocean stratification), coral bleaching, the ice sheets, glaciers in South America, intensification of drought. It is already disastrous. And that doesn't incorporate slow feedbacks. That the scientific community has continually underestimated the rate of change, and still does IMO, doesn't bode well.

I was not suggesting that you incorporate such negativity (or realism!) into your post, just that we've done a whole lot of damage already.    

I volunteered. Damn. John suggested a cross post with Hot Topic, but if my HT style is too forceful or narrative, happy for an SkS version to be edited out of it.

I've been thinking about writing something about how uncertainty is not our friend when it comes to deciding on the actions to take to address climate change. "Prudent path" gives me an excuse to do it, because they are effectively advocating the "imprudent path".

Start with a short discussion of the probability distribution of sensitivity, use Ramanathan & Feng for likely impacts as temp rises (nice graph). Then a discussion of risk assessment in the face of uncertainty (Garnaut/Stern?), followed by a definition of what prudent might be.

Time might be an issue... 

BTW: somebody should really do a rebuttal of their claim in the conclusion that CO2 fert will enable the world to feed itself in 2050. Jaw-dropping stuff...

Personally I'd be happy to have you on board with Prudent Path Week, Gareth.

Coincidentally, I've got the day off work today, so I was able to write most of the hot MWP (Idso report) vs. low climate sensitivity (NIPCC report) contradiction blog post.  So, I've got dibs on that!

Hi all,

My draft post on aerosol forcing as a fudge factor should be here if all worked well. Lay-out is still horrible and I have to fix the links, but in the meantime: Any comments appreciated!

Bart

Your picture is missing.  You should first upload it to Skeptical Science & then use the resulting URL to add it back into the post.

From Your Lindzen Argument  heading to the end is all in bold.

The links I checked need cleaning up.

If you want, I can pretty up the layout & fix the links for you.

Bart, you can upload images to SkS here.  Then copy the URL and use the insert image tool (looks like a tree), and scale it so that it's no more than 500 pixels wide.

Obviously the formatting needs to be fixed - the links got messed up in the transition too.  Daniel - if you've got time and access, I'm sure Bart would appreciate it if you could fix the formatting.

The content is good though.  The end about the contradictions and both being wrong is very similar to my approach on the MWP.  The only thing I'd suggest is that we still need a way to tie it in to Prudent Path Week.  What I did with the MWP was point out that if the IPCC is right about climate sensitivity, which seems to be the case given the errors made in the NIPCC and Idso reports, then the prudent path is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Maybe you could add something similar to the end of your post too.

Bart, sorry about the hassles with having to deal with our WYSIWYG system. I've gone through and fixed all the formatting problems - and added heading 3 styles to your subheadings and converted the quotes to blockquotes to give it some visual structure. Hope that's okay. It just needs the image - email it to me if you can't get it to work.

BTW, I think the reason Bart wasn't able to access this thread was another SkS quirk - Dana linked to skepticalscience.com rather than www.skepticalscience.com. When you login, your browser creates a login session but it creates different sessions whether it has the www or not. So when Bart tried to access Dana's skepticalscience.com link, I'm guessing he was logged in at www.skepticalscience.com. A tiny hiccup.

Short, clear and straight to the point; very good post. If we're not able to link it to the Prudent Path series we can publish it as a stand alone post.

All the links have one or more extra "/". In the section NIPCC rebuttal the link to "natural aerosol feedbacks" has many extra "\".

Thanks for cleaning it up! Some links aren't correct yet; I can try fixing them tonight.

I made a link to the figure, but apparently it didn't work. Will try again... 

Riccardo's suggestion makes sense to me: If we're not able to link it to the Prudent Path series we can publish it as a stand alone post.

One thing I haven't checked yet is what Idso's prudent path document says about aerosol forcing: There is potential for another such inconsistency, between NIPCC and PP reports.

The Idso document doesn't talk about aerosols or sensitivity.  It's very specific, just talking about current temps vs. MWP, and recent changes in extreme weather, for the most part.  The purpose of the document is just to say 'there's nothing to worry about', but the NIPCC report is much more thorough.

Bart's post could certainly be stand-alone, but I think it would be pretty straightfoward to link to Prudent Path Week.

I fixed the image by the way.  I think the URL just had an extra backslash at the end.

Speaking of extreme weather, two new papers on extreme rainfall:

Seung-Ki Min et al., "Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes"

Pardeep Pall et al., "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas contribution to flood risk in England and Wales in autumn 2000"

I don't want this project to lose momentum, what does everyone think of launching this next week? Eg:

Mon 21 Feb: Dana's Intro

Tue 22 Feb: Bart on Aerosols

Wed 23 Feb: Dana on MWP

Thur 24 Feb: Robert on cryosphere

Fri 25 Feb: If noone else comes forward, I'll write something, plenty to choose from (hoping for a post on risk by Gareth)

If anyone else steps forward with posts over the next week, we can extend the series into the weekend. Plus I'll design up a 'Prudent Path Week' logo similar to Monckton Myths that can go on each blog post.

Thoughts, comments?

I just finished drafting up the MWP post.  Any comments?  I'm not sure if it's worth talking about the co2science informal MWP evaluation.

We'll have to see if Robert can get a cryosphere post done in the next week.  Got any clever ideas for the logo?

Was thinking maybe a drought parched land with a path leading off to the horizon with the text on top? Dunno, will whip something up over the weekend.

Comments:

Overall, great post, your usual high standard, Dana.

Could "all agree that current temperatures are hotter than during the MWP peak." link to the MWP rebuttal?

Re the graph, I know it's the one I sent you but what do you think of making the Ljungqvist green line thicker so it stands out more clearly. And make the Moberg/Mann/GISS/Ljungqvist labels a bigger font for readability. Ideally, that graph would look a lot clearer if each of the reconstructions were smoothed but you'd probably need Robert to help you with that.

"As quick perusal through the Skeptical Science rebuttal database makes it clear that "skeptic" arguments constantly contradict each other." - should that be "A quick perusal"? I'd replace "constantly" with "often" and make "contradict each other" link to http://www.skepticalscience.com/contradictions.php

I think your paragraph on climate sensitivity is perhaps too technical - I'd lose the climate sensitivity parameter and minimise the talk on radiative forcing. You may lose readers at this point, it's a bit of a speed bump.

Similarly, and maybe this is just me so feel free to disregard, but where you talk about "That 1.8 W/m² CO2 forcing has to go somewhere,", I'd get down to more basic physical concepts. I'd talk about the heat trapped by CO2 has to cause warming unless negative feedbacks suppress the warming - a more intuitive concept than radiative forcing which makes most people's heads spin. Try to communicate with real physical concepts rather than mathematical constructs if possible (I know, I'm a hypocrite, I do it all the time myself, but I am trying to get better :-)

"you get a climate sensitivity close to 3°C" - perhaps better worded as "you get a most likely climate sensitivity of 3°C"

"the two documents cited in the "skeptic" letter to Congress contradict each other by a factor of ten" - very nice, using their words against them. I LOLed at this bit.

"If the "skeptics" want to convince us otherwise, they need to get their story straight." - again, good narrative, the lack of internal consistency. This is a good recurring theme of Prudent Path with Bart's aerosols post drumming the same theme.

On a slight digression, I just found out that Hegerl is a lady and her first name is Gabrielle, same as my daughter's. Nothing to do with your post, just a bit of meaningless trivia I learnt today. Hmm, I wonder how you pronounce Hegerl :-)

How's this?

Thanks Robert.  Good point about using decadal GISS data when comparing to Ljungkvist.  I'll probably use both figures in the rebuttal - John's to show how similar it is to Moberg and Mann, and yours to show current temps are higher than the MWP peak.  Though maybe I'll take the GISS data off the former.

Think you'll be able to get the polar post done by mid-next week?

How's this for going in the top right corner of each blog post:

Then I'll add a button in the left margin linking to http://www.skepticalscience.com/search.php?Search=prudent+path once we start the series

As I recall, it's not the prudent path, it's the "Prudent Path" as defined by CO2science.

So, yes, the "Prudent Path" leads to some pretty dire conditions.

Graphically not my best work, I'll try to rustle up a better version by Monday morning:

"It's true that the consequences of anthropogenic climate change so far haven't been particularly significant". Is it true? Hundreds of billions of tones of ice loss? Extinction rates 1000+ times greater than the natural rate? Increased desertification, drought, extreme weather? Feeling pretty significant to us Aussies at the moment :-) Perhaps it's better to say current consequences are small compared to future consequences, rather than to say current consequences are small in an absolute sense.

"In fact, if we could maintain the climate and average global temperature at today's levels, everybody would be thrilled." Again, this one may be skating on thin ice (pardon the pun). Currently, we're at 390ppm which is already well into the danger zone with 350ppm considered a safe level. Also, even if we were at equilibrium temperature now, what is the expected sea level rise from existing temperature? I don't know if this has ever been asked (as it's a totally hypothetical situation). So I don't know if current temps are "safe" if maintained for a long period. Certainly, I don't think everybody will be thrilled.

"Based on the greenhouse gases we've emitted to this point, we've already committed the planet to 1.4°C warming" - I know you mean 1.4C warming since pre-industrial times but most people won't. But the whole pre-industrial bit is a mouthful. Perhaps simpler to say "...to 0.6°C additional warming".

"for the timebeing" - typo "time being"

Sorry bout the nitpicks. Overall, excellent post!

I fixed the links in the aerosol wildcard post. I also added the word "fudge factor", as that was a charge Lindzen made in his letter: "... both approaches are based on assuming that aerosol forcing is at the edge of the probability spectrum (as if it were some fudge factor), ..."

The title still sais "wild card" though, as I thought that better describes the dynamics of picking a value based on a desired outcome. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though, esp since I'm not a native English speaker.

Since the intro to the prudent path said that subsequent posts would discuss these reports (CO2science and/or NIPCC), perhaps making that linkt (to "prudent path" week) isn't an absolute necessity? If anything, the second last parapgraph could be augmented with a statement about risk and thus to what is/isn't prudent.

The intro currently reads:

However, some (e.g. Lindzen) do so by claiming that aerosol forcing is overestimated, while others (e.g. the NIPCC) by claiming that aerosol forcing is underestimated. Even so, they still arrive at the same conclusion…

In order to connect to PP Week, would suggest changing this to:

Richard Lindzen was one of the most prominent scientists to sign onto a recent "skeptic" letter to US Congress suggesting that the prudent path forward is to continue with business-as-usual.  Lindzen has previously argued that future global warming is of little concern because the aerosol forcing is overestimated, while the NIPCC report, which was one of the two documents referenced in the "skeptic" letter to US Congress signed by Lindzen, argues that the aerosol forcing is underestimated.  In both cases despite these polar opposite arguments, the ultimate conclusion is that global warming is of no concern.

Does that seem okay to you?  It also wouldn't hurt to add a bit toward the end about risk and what is/isn't prudent, but that's up to you.

Hi Dana,

In order to keep the flow of the argument, I'd rather go with the original, and put a link to the prudent path theme at the end:

[Intro]

The last sentence, starting with however, is connected to the former as a good example of (ab)using this "fertile ground". That connection gets weakened by first emphasizing that he signed an open letter. Also, in my set-up I had left the "clou" until the end, being that Lindzen signed a letter in which a diametrically opposed point to his is argued. The "Olala" feeling is gone when it's mentioned point blank at the beginning. I.e. your suggested text is fine as such, but I don't find it fitting in so well.

To make the link to prudent path explicit, I'd suggest the last paragraph to be updated as follows:

Of course it is not mandatory for all those who dismiss mainstream climate science to agree, but to see two important “spokespeople” for climate contrarians take such mutually inconsistent approaches is peculiar. Even more so when you realize that Lindzen signed the recent "prudent path” letter to US Congress, in which the NIPCC report was approvingly cited… Most people can’t have it both ways, but apparently climate contrarians can."

If you really want the link to the prudent path theme in the beginning rather than at the end, I'm not going to object though. Feel free to put the post up in the manner you see fit (ie with or without your suggested text). I'll make the changes I mentioned here in the post, and will shortly be going to sleep.

John or Dana: Can my full name (Bart Verheggen) be mentioned (with a link to my blog), rather than my login name (bverheggen)? I tried updating my username, but that doen't seem to update my profile name.  I'll put up the post at my blog as well (with a link to SkS).

This addition may not be to everyone's liking:

"(even if that's ultimately a subjective judgment)."

"that" referring to what can be called a "prudent path". What I mean is that even with accepting the same scientific facts, people could come to different conclusions on how to act, e.g. based on their worldview, risk aversion-ness, valuing the future vs the present, etc. Of course I do realize that most people with a worldview that want to dismiss this problem go on to attack the science as a proxy. Thi addition could be left out if considered to murky or muddy.

Hi Dana,

The Roe and Baker paper got quite some criticism from bona fide scientists such as James Annan (see his blog) and at least one peer reviewed response. I'm not convinced that it's robust. I'd suggest to at least also mention these critiques. Annan doesn't think much of a fat tail alltogether.

Dana

in the costs vs benefits section you may also consider briefly the other two possibilities, no action-skeptics right and no action-skeptics wrong.