Posted: Apr 09, 2017 1:10 am
Ah, fair enough, I hadn't had time to read beyond the sections quoted here yet.
If it's simply a case of Scribbler adding his usual hyperbolic spin to a more measured source, then I guess it may end up as a more dire view. I'll give it a read later on.
Edit: I've read the Scribbler article now, and it seems pretty vacuous. It notes that we've locked in dangerous levels of warming, and that the impacts in the next two centuries are likely to be larger than those in the previous two centuries, beyond that, it does indeed build up to a conclusion that is simply a quote from Foster's paper.
Purely as an aside, I note also that the Precarious Climate image Scribbler includes shares your ability to conflate pre-industrial and mid-20th-century baselines (for once, rather than this confusion being used to overstate recent warming, in this case it understates it, claiming current warming of 0.8C over pre-industrial, a level we went past about 30 years ago).
That image also simply states, without evidence, that temperatures more than about 0.65C above pre-industrial levels are "unsafe". Global temperatures spiked to that level around WW2, and have not been below that level since the mid 1980's. The "safe climate zone" does seem somewhat arbitrary.
Please note, lest you be tempted to misrepresent what I'm saying here, that I do think that our current levels of CO2, and locked-in levels of at least short term fossil fuel use, are going to lead to dangerous climate impacts, and we'd be wise to do everything possible to limit those impacts in the most urgent way possible. I just wish that those arguing that corner would be more rigorous with the way they present data. The image above is tabloid quality at best.
If it's simply a case of Scribbler adding his usual hyperbolic spin to a more measured source, then I guess it may end up as a more dire view. I'll give it a read later on.
Edit: I've read the Scribbler article now, and it seems pretty vacuous. It notes that we've locked in dangerous levels of warming, and that the impacts in the next two centuries are likely to be larger than those in the previous two centuries, beyond that, it does indeed build up to a conclusion that is simply a quote from Foster's paper.
Purely as an aside, I note also that the Precarious Climate image Scribbler includes shares your ability to conflate pre-industrial and mid-20th-century baselines (for once, rather than this confusion being used to overstate recent warming, in this case it understates it, claiming current warming of 0.8C over pre-industrial, a level we went past about 30 years ago).
That image also simply states, without evidence, that temperatures more than about 0.65C above pre-industrial levels are "unsafe". Global temperatures spiked to that level around WW2, and have not been below that level since the mid 1980's. The "safe climate zone" does seem somewhat arbitrary.
Please note, lest you be tempted to misrepresent what I'm saying here, that I do think that our current levels of CO2, and locked-in levels of at least short term fossil fuel use, are going to lead to dangerous climate impacts, and we'd be wise to do everything possible to limit those impacts in the most urgent way possible. I just wish that those arguing that corner would be more rigorous with the way they present data. The image above is tabloid quality at best.