An Essay Concerning Our Earth's Fever (2017)

Working on a new one for the FCFP. I promised to report on Trenberth’s talk at Fort Lewis College (Nov 9) and have been wrestling with how to approach it. Many false starts. Most the stuff I’ve thought and written about is intended for people actually interested in climate science communication. FCFP is a general and rural audience.
Simply highlighting his talk didn’t work, much was left out, 50 minute doesn’t leave an expert the time share all of it. I kept injecting too much additional information on top of his until I just said to hell with it, I’m highjacking Trenberth’s talk. The intro takes it from here.

(final draft - well thought it was. She sent it back. Thumbs down on my intro, 'give 'em a reason to want to read it'. Good advice, bunch more work, but much better product.) Early in December U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told lawmakers he intended to organize a “Red team v Blue team" exercise to debate climate change science. Pruitt is being willfully blind to the fact that the scientific aspects of global warming have already been thoroughly debated by experts. It’s expected that Pruitt will orchestrate a lawyerly winner-take-all debate. One that’s based on rhetorical trickery and a ruthless disregard for facts. It’s a shame, since we Americans needs a constructive educational dialogue. A debate where honestly representing your opponent’s arguments and data is as important as honestly representing your own data. One where objective learning is the goal, and where truth matters. Speaking of honestly representing the science, November 9th Dr. Kevin Trenberth (the distinguished senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and a lead author for IPCC’s Scientific Assessment in 1995, 2001, and 2007, a giant in the field of climate assessment), gave a talk at the Fort Lewis College Climate Symposium explaining what scientists have learned about our planet. It sounded to me like a potential Blue team opening statement. Since, today climate scientists and the science itself is under attack like never before it’s critical for more citizens to become aware and engaged. That’s why I want to share what Trenberth explained to us, along with some additional science. Information that makes clear what an internally consistent understanding scientists have achieved. Trenberth underscored that pretty much all scientists agree. As for the few outliers, they are driven by other causes, such as religious and political inclinations. He explained that: “… as a whole the data are of mixed quality and length. If you were to look at one little piece of it you might be able to be skeptical that climate change is happening, but when you put it all together there's no doubt whatsoever that this is happening." Dr. Trenberth went on to use a metaphor of Earth as a patient obviously running a fever. If Earth could go to a doctor, that doctor would start by diagnosing her symptoms. Such as the composition of key components. One of the first symptoms noted would be the atmosphere’s rapidly changing composition. I’ll add that, the doctor knows these increasing greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, happen to be our planet’s insulation regulator. At around 180 ppm (CO2 parts per million) Earth experiences Ice Ages, at roughly 280 ppm its nice temperate periods, such as those our society evolved in. Today, it’s past 400 ppm. The physics of this Earthly insulation blanket are understood so thoroughly that a great assortment of modern marvels such as satellite weather imagery and heat seeking air to air missiles, to mention but two, would be impossible without it. That is to say “Atmospheric GHG Theory" is as certain, as certain gets! We also have a clear understanding of why these greenhouse gas molecules are increasing. We know how much fossil fuels humanity has been extracting and how much has been burned and injected into our atmosphere (and oceans). We also know how much atmospheric concentrations have risen. That reality was driven home when Trenberth showed us the Keeling Curve of atmospheric CO2 levels being collected at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii since 1958. On close examination the line graphically illustrates the seasonal ebb and flow in Earth’s respiration. Think inhalation and exhalation of life’s sustaining molecules. What’s terrifying is when zooming out and averaging those fluctuations, the line goes from 315 ppm in 1958, to beyond 400 ppm currently, 85 ppm in 60 years. Compare that to younger Earth which was used to taking around 50,000 years to go up or down by 100 ppm. The doctor’s prognosis is that more warming will be disruptive to our particular biosphere, the one our current climate regime created, the one it has supported for thousands and tens of thousands of years. The one we are absolutely dependent on. Change is constant, but what’s happening to our Earth this time is something extraordinary. Trenberth then superimposed global mean temperatures on the Keeling Curve and explained how their similarity was no coincidence. The overall CO2 / temperature correlation is obvious, although there are sections where the two are clearly out of sync. This is because greenhouse gases aren’t all there is to global temperatures. While Earth’s atmospheric insulation regulates the overall temperature setting, it’s a dynamic living planet with many age old cycles and rhythms interfering and converging with each other. For example our oceans contain over 90% of our climate engine’s heat. That heat gets moved about in dozens of different currents and oscillation patterns that have profound, but short term effects on the atmosphere, weather and local temperatures, even global temperatures. But in essence, that’s only moving heat around the globe, impacting weather but not Earth’s overall temperature, that is done by our atmosphere. In fact, you could say Earth is not heating, Earth is accumulating heat. Increasing GHG molecules are increasingly intercepting and slowing the escape of infrared radiation, thus allowing more to accumulate within our biosphere. But climate changed before, you say? Yes it did. Looking back into Earth’s deep-time natural variations caused by geologic, planetary and solar forces had big impacts, but none of those factors are in play these days. Yes, volcanoes drive natural variations with cooling caused by emitted aerosols. Aerosols that have short atmospheric ‘residence times’ measured in weeks. On the other hand, volcanoes also emit massive CO2 which has an atmospheric residence time measured in centuries, producing long term warming. Incidentally, today human CO2 emissions dwarf current volcanism on the order of 60 to 1. What about the mid 21st century global cooling? Well, that cooling trend ended as nations took steps to clean their smoggy skies. It turned out sulfur aerosols acted as tiny reflectors mirroring a fraction of the sun’s ultraviolet rays back into space before those rays had a chance to convert into infrared radiation which warms our biosphere, thus driving that not so ‘natural’ cooling trend. What about last decade’s “warming hiatus"? That was a media farce, the “missing" surface heat was found where geophysics dictated it would be found, in the oceans. No hiatus, our atmosphere’s insulation works 24/7/365. In a serious debate the Red team would now need to respond to these known facts, not with distractions and drama, but with facts and realistic clearly enunciated challenges and a willingness to learn.
I'm putting out it here in case anyone wanted to comment, respond. Always up for an interesting conversation. :)

That’s great CC. Glad you are spending the time working on problems. Thank you.
I can’t agree with Dr. Trenberth’s view that the 280 ppm creates a nice temperature for mankind. I think history has shown it has more to do with the earth’s cycle than the CO2 levels. But like you say we have entered a period of unchartered waters and are now dealing with anthropogenic effects.
The second thing I disagree with is his view that the CO2 blanket is thoroughly understood. The main question from day one on climate change has been, “Why does the CO2 always follow the heat rise on the charts?" It has never been answered. Gore couldn’t find an answer, so he discarded it from his presentation. Today we have the CO2 leading the heat rise, part of the unchartered waters. But if we thoroughly understood the CO2 drivers, then that question would have been answered and put to bed beyond questioning. After all, is not the debate today about whether CO2 is the driver or if the sun is the driver of temperature? Not arguing the blanket affect of the CO2, but I don’t agree that it is the earth’s regulator.
Question. What is the bad side of higher CO2 readings if it turns out that the CO2 is not the regulator or thermostat?
In fact, technically Earth is not heating, Earth is accumulating heat. Increasing GHG molecules are increasingly intercepting and slowing the escape of infrared radiation, thus allowing more to accumulate within our biosphere.

I need you to explain this. I don’t get it. How can the earth be accumulating heat and not heating? That sounds to me like what goes on and can be proven in controlled laboratory experiments but does not work in nature. If the heat goes into the oceans, it is going to affect the atmosphere, now if it is not warming the atmosphere then the evaporation is cooling and forming clouds. Thus, the clouds are reflecting sunlight. Making the clouds part of the thermostat and not the CO2. Isn’t that part of the thinking on the CO2 not being the driver and just the blanket of the sun theory? We do know that clouds have increase 10% globally. That is a lot of clouds! Remember the CO2 thinking says that clouds zero out and have no affect on the temperature.
Next, I can’t go along with the aerosols causing the cooling affect. I will go along with the cycles of the sun over the aerosols on the short-term cooling in the 21th century.
What I hate is people saying that they are experts like the Dr. here and then saying bad things are going to happen if we done do what they say. What I want is, what is the level of bad things in numbers or percentages and when will it happen in dates. Not that it rained in a tropical forest and snowed in the mountains, so there is the proof. When they start falling back on that denial BS, it means they really don’t have anything to say of value.
I would go to other doctors and get several opinions before creating policies.

In fact, technically Earth is not heating, Earth is accumulating heat.
Then I explained my reasoning.
Increasing GHG molecules are increasingly intercepting and slowing the escape of infrared radiation, thus allowing more to accumulate within our biosphere.
I'm sure that just like the question of whether time actually exists or not, you can make an endless argument out of it, if that's your game. I was mainly drawing attention to the actual mechanism by which Earth is warming. Incidentally, that line is sort of a nod to you and some of the stupid things you've written implying that something on Earth was heating to produce global warming, or some such gobbledygook, that you weren't able to explain when queried. As for the rest of your bullshit up there, it relies on fiction and a willful ignorance of the actual serious science. You are way off and i don't have the time.
I can’t agree with Dr. Trenberth’s view that the 280 ppm creates a nice temperature for mankind.
This isn't what Trenberth said, it's what the paleoclimate record tells us. Go back and read the introduction, then learn about what' been learned by scientists.
His talk inspired me to revisit my ‘Essay Concerning Our Weather’ an ongoing effort to pen a concise accurate description of our global heat and moisture distribution engine. This version will build upon the scaffolding that Dr. Trenberth’s talk provided.
Trenberth said what I attributed to him, it's spelled out pretty clearly. The rest is my story describing the fundamental components of our climate engine and what's happening to her. I added more information and strove to make it an accessible description of our climate engine and what drives it. The known science. After the first, when I intend to post it at my blog, it'll be packed with links to the authoritative information that supplies the evidence for the description. For all curious and intellectually honest enough to absorb the education.

I don’t know if you follow the solar or this type of data, but this came out in the news yesterday. I have been real disappointed with the climate models moving so slow. I still think they are key to a good program.

FAIL.
Talk about garbage in, garbage out. GWPF?
Why not find a source that can be taken seriously?

Benny Peiser (b. 1957) is a UK social anthropologist and AGW denier listed among the Heartland Institute "Global warming experts" despite having no evident expertise in climate science or policy. Peiser is Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and as of fall 2011, he is a Visiting Fellow at the right wing University of Buckingham, whose current and former vice chancellors serve on the GWPF academic advisory council. ... https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Benny_Peiser
Meet Benny Peiser: The Marxist Radical Turned Climate Change Denier By Brendan Montague • Tuesday, June 9, 2015 https://www.desmog.uk/2015/06/09/meet-benny-peiser-marxist-radical-turned-climate-change-denier Our latest DeSmog UK epic history post recalls how Dr Benny Peiser transformed from Marxist radical to director of Lord Lawson’s climate denial charity, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Dr Benny Peiser, a sports anthropologist whose PhD focused on the ancient Olympic games, was chosen by Julian Morris, founder and president of the International Policy Network, to submit a chapter to the think tank’s publication on climate change entitled Adapt or Die. Peiser’s chapter was called “Climate Change and Civilisation Collapse" and in it he explained that humans had often panicked about the end of the world, and expressed his view that global warming was just the latest example. Peiser explained his theory that Marxists, who became disillusioned by the failure of capitalism to collapse in on itself, turned instead to the environmental cause.
Really, Benny Peiser, really? Posted on October 7, 2014 https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/really-benny-peiser-really/ Really, Benny Peiser, really? Posted on October 7, 2014 by ...and Then There's Physics I notice that Benny Peiser, Director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has been interviewed for the Express. This gives me an opportunity to add to my collection of posts titled helpful hints for the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Previous editions included, A quick science lesson for Lord Lawson, Come on, Andrew, you can get this, and Matt Ridley, you seem a little too certain.

As for
H. Svensmark, M. B. Enghoff, N. J. Shaviv, J. Svensmark. Increased ionization supports growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei. Nature Communications, 2017; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02082-2
The missing link between exploding stars, clouds, and climate on Earth: Breakthrough in understanding of how cosmic rays from supernovae can influence Earth's cloud cover and thereby climate -- ScienceDaily
Svensmark has been making these over inflated claims since the gitgo, now he’s got a fancier machine but the claims still ring hollow. Reading the substance of what they’ve done seems like claims being made are quite a stretch, a faint connection that cosmic rays also interact with atmospheric particles, that’s supposed to upending the reality that CO2 is the driving factor in current warming because of it’s blockbuster greenhouse impacts. Minuscule connects that are suggested by an extremely biased researcher does not the whole of science make.
Christ it’s barely been announced and I noticed now that in the contrarian’s blogsophere it’s spreading like gospel on the winds of a wild fire.
How about waiting for it to be evaluated by other experts.
Let’s hear what they have to say after looking over the details with their expert eyes. :blank:

And for those who are interested in understanding the actually science behind all this, and there is quite a bit.
Here’s a good source for a run down of the serious science.

What's the link between cosmic rays and climate change? Advanced Hypothetically, an increasing solar magnetic field could deflect galactic cosmic rays, which hypothetically seed low-level clouds, thus decreasing the Earth's reflectivity and causing global warming. However, it turns out that none of these hypotheticals are occurring in reality, and if cosmic rays were able to influence global temperatures, they would be having a cooling effect. Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm. Therefore, in order for this theory to be plausible, all four of the following requirements must be true.
Solar magnetic field must have a long-term positive trend. Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a long-term negative trend. Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds. Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term negative trend.
Fortunately we have empirical observations against which we can test these requirements. https://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming-advanced.htm

There are always two sides to every story on climate change it seems like. Good to hear both sides. I know that a lot of research has been done on clouds in the last few years. And not all clouds are the same. They can be different in droplet size and how they are formed, either high or lower in the atmosphere. Peter Foukal of the Massachusetts-based firm Heliophysics, Inc., who tracks sunspot intensities says the only way to really find out if phenomena like sunspots and solar wind are playing a larger role in climate change than most scientists now believe would be to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. Only in the absence of that potential driver will researchers be able to tell for sure how much impact natural influences have on the Earth’s climate.
I have not heard anything on chemtrails lately. Maybe that subject has been worked to death.

Rather than getting lost in uncertain minute details you really ought to focus on acquainting yourself with all that is known (with damned near certainty) about the heavy hitters of our climate engine.

Trenberth underscored that pretty much all scientists agree. As for the few outliers, they are driven by other causes, such as religious and political inclinations. He explained that:
“… as a whole the data are of mixed quality and length. If you were to look at one little piece of it you might be able to be skeptical that climate change is happening, but when you put it all together there's no doubt whatsoever that this is happening."
Oh wanna learn about clouds? Start with learning about the fundamentals
Lecture 13 - Clouds PHSC 13400L: Global Warming David Archer, Professor in Geophysical Sciences CLOUDS University of Chicaco 11/2/09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFpv5WFpi6o


Why would an unschooled person presume to know enough of the nuances and complexities to stand judgement over experts?
If you want the other side of the story - listen to the experts arguing with each other. Not to some politically motivated manipulator.
Here’s a for instance regarding clouds,

Watt about breaking the ‘pal review’ glass ceiling Posted on October 23, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/watt-about-breaking-the-pal-review-glass-ceiling/ Pat Frank has a guest post on WUWT about breaking the ‘pal review’ glass ceiling in climate modeling. It’s essentially about a paper of his that he has been trying to get published and that has now been rejected 6 times. As you can imagine, this means that there is some kind of massive conspiracy preventing him from publishing his ground breaking work that would fundamentally damage the underpinnings of climate modelling. In fact, we discussed Pat Frank’s paper here], which was based around a video that Patrick Brown produced to discuss the problems with Pat Frank’s analysis. I’m going to briefly try and explain it again (mainly based on a part of Patrick Brown’s video, which I will include again at the end of this post). You could consider a simple climate model as being a combination of incoming, and outgoing, fluxes. The key ones would be the incoming short-wavelength flux, the outgoing short-wavelength flux (both clear-sky, and cloud), the outgoing long-wavelength flux (also both clear-sky and cloud) and a flux into the deep ocean. How the temperature changes will then depend on the net flux and the heat capacity, C (i.e., how much energy it takes to increase the temperature by some amount). This is illustrated in the equation below. \dfrac{dT}{dt} = \dfrac{[incoming \ SW] - Cloud \ SW - Clear \ SW - Cloud \ LW - Clear \ LW - Q}{C} So, what has Pat Frank done? He’s considered one of the terms in the above equation (the Cloud \ LW term) and found that there is a discrepancy between what climate models suggest it should be and what it is observed to be, with some having quite a large discrepancy (although, the multi-model mean is actually quite close to the observations). It turns out that the root-mean-square-error between models and observations is about 4 Wm-2. Pat Frank assumes that this error should then be propagated at every time step so as to determine the uncertainty in the temperature projection. This then produces an uncertainty that grows with time, becoming very large within only a few decades. There are a number of ways to explain why this is wrong. One is simply that you should really consider the uncertainties on all of the terms, not just one. A more crucial one, though, is that the error in the cloud longwavelength forcing is really a base-state error, not a response error. We don’t expect it to vary randomly at every timestep, with a standard deviation of 4Wm-2; it is simply that some models have estimates for the longwavelength forcing that is quite a bit different to what it is observed to be. So, what is the impact of this potential discrepancy? . . .

Doug, bet you never thought about any of this stuff. But now, if you didn’t ignore it, imagine how much more informed you’ll be when confronting this piece of contrarian trickery in the future, now that you’ve had a chance to think about it a little and to see what experts have to say about it. Doesn’t that in itself feel good. :cheese:

<span style="color:purple">added</span>
Speak of the man ...ATTP.
 DougC, MikeYohe lookie what just popped up in my email:
<blockquote><strong>Galactic cosmic rays</strong>
Posted on December 22, 2017    by ...and Then There's Physics
<strong>https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/galactic-cosmic-rays/</strong>
There's a recent Nature Communications paper by Svensmark et al. called <em>ncreased ionization supports growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei. The basic idea is that cosmic rays (energetic particles typically accelerated by shock waves) can influence the growth of aerosol particles that can then act as cloud nucleation sites. This may, therefore, play some kind of role in climate change.
The problem is that this idea has been around for quite some time and has essentially been pre-bunked. There's a relevant Realclimate review called a cluttered story of little success. In fact, if you search Realclimate for Svensmark, you get a number of posts that cover this topic.
There have also been recent CERN results which suggest that the <strong><a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/10/sun-clouds-climate-connection-takes-a-beating-from-cern/">Sun-clouds connection takes a beating</a>]</strong>. The new paper has also not be all that well received <strong>1 and 2</strong>.
It did, however, remind of something that I thought I would add here. I used to work with someone called Gary Zank, who was involved in research that was used to suggest that maybe dinosaurs were wiped out by genetic mutations from cosmic rays. ...  <em>{kind of an interesting story.}</em></blockquote>
<strong>1)  https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/cosmic-ray-theory-of-global-warming-gets-cold-response</strong>
Danish theorist’s latest paper overstates the effects of solar activity in climate change, critics say.
Tim Wallace reports.
<strong>2)  https://gizmodo.com/no-supernovae-arent-changing-earths-climate-1821439511</strong>
No, Supernovae Aren't Changing Earth's Climate
Ryan F. Mandelbaum
=====================================================================
<em><span style="color:purple">See, now here's the point Doug.  Expose bullshit, and also explain why it's bullshit.  That's called education.</span>
plus you get to learn something in the bargain.</em>
There are always two sides to every story
No! When it comes to Earth sciences, there's one physical reality. The resolution of our undertanding may change but the reality does not. Mike for your political purposes, you always inject that anything anyone says could be possible and must be considered. Ignoring how much all of this has been considered and reconsidered]. No matter how much doubt you can stir up in your own and other gullible fantasies.

No, you are not getting away that easy. You are the political one. Trump this and Trump that and what Trump didn’t do, big business did. What you got right is there is only one physical reality. And physical realities are what has been knocking the hell out of your theories. The water levels and the temperatures are not matching your CO2 predictions. Shouldn’t we be getting close to time that the CO2 will give us snowless winters? Of course, the fall back is that overall the earth has been getting warmer. That is the trick talk you are talking about. It might even be said that the warming is caused by Global Warming. Again, misleading to people who don’t understand the difference because the public is led to believe this is climate change. When in fact, when using the facts. The earth warming in this part of the natural cycle is expected. And Global Warming is just part of the natural cycle we are in right now and talking about. There has always been Global Warming, even before mankind. Now it is agreed that CO2 will blanket some heat and help create a little heat. And that is called Climate Change. We need some numbers on Climate Change. The propaganda is that the consensual science says that Climate Change is the main driver of Global Warming. When ask for numbers. We are told that Climate Change is from 1 to 3% of Global Warming and we are past the point of no return on changing those numbers. Any misunderstandings have been brought on by the CO2 misleading the public on the true facts. And all this talk about solar winds affecting the weather is nothing more that attempts to fill the gaps of why the CO2 numbers are not working. My question is, these scientists seem to have the time to debunk all these pop-up theories, why don’t they have the time to fix the CO2 numbers so people will not be looking to fine the answers to the missing numbers? Seems to me like they are fat and happy with the way things are going for them right now and no having to supply any numbers with the reports.

I read about half of that Mike, then I decided it was better to just claw my own eyes out.

Chasing another fantasy since that last one was a bust?
Lordie, lordie, tongue’s a flapping sans serious facts and sources as usual.
Mike, when the fuk will you come up with some evidence that supports your imagination???

The water levels and the temperatures are not matching your CO2 predictions.
Please produce some serious evidence supporting this claim of yours. Oh yeah, there is no serious evidence to support your claims. Heck you can't even enunciate your case. What "Gaps" are you talking about? Details! Supporting evidence!

This is what evidence looks like. I don’t see nothing that indicates any discrepancy between CO2 and sea level rise.
Of course MikeYohe would have to be honest enough to admit that Earth is a big place, scientists are small, different data produces slightly different results. Mike thinks that’s a crime - he believes Earth is supposed to churn out exact numbers like a TI pocket calculator.
Systems science lad, system science.

Climate Change: Global Sea Level
Author: Rebecca Lindsey | September 11, 2017

Sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In 2016, global sea level was 3.2 inches (82 mm) above the 1993 average—the highest annual average in the satellite record (1993-present).


The three-degree world: the cities that will be drowned by global warming
The UN is warning that we are now on course for 3C of global warming. This will ultimately redraw the map of the world
Josh Holder, Niko Kommenda and Jonathan Watts | Nov 3, 2017


Effect of global warming on sea level rise: A modeling study
Ecological Complexity
Volume 32, Part A, December 2017, Pages 99-110
J.B.Shukla, Maitri Verma, A.K.Misra


Extreme Arctic Melt Is Raising Sea Level Rise Threat; New Estimate Nearly Twice IPCC’s
Trajectory of dramatic climate change in the Arctic is locked in through 2050, but what happens after that depends largely on our choices today, report says.
BY SABRINA SHANKMAN | APR 25, 2017


Global Sea Level Rise Accelerates Since 1990
By Alister Doyle, Reuters, Published: July 1st, 2017
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-level-rise-accelerates-since-1990-21586
The rise in global sea levels has accelerated since the 1990s amid rising temperatures, with a thaw of Greenland’s ice sheet pouring ever more water into the oceans, scientists said this week. …


Global warming could cause sea levels to rise higher than the height of a three-storey building, study suggests
Ian Johnston | January 19, 2017

The researchers took samples of sediment from 83 different sites around the world, and these “natural thermometers" enabled them to work out what the sea surface temperature had been more than 125,000 years ago.
This revealed that over the course of some 4,000 years the oceans had got about 0.5C warmer, reaching about the same temperatures as are found now – after a similar increase achieved largely as a result of human-induced climate change in little over a century.


Scientists nearly double sea level rise projections for 2100, because of Antarctica
My Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney March 30, 2016


Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise
Robert M. DeConto & David Pollard
Nature 531, 591–597 (31 March 2016)
doi:10.1038/nature17145
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145
Polar temperatures over the last several million years have, at times, been slightly warmer than today, yet global mean sea level has been 6–9 metres higher as recently as the Last Interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) and possibly higher during the Pliocene epoch (about three million years ago). In both cases the Antarctic ice sheet has been implicated as the primary contributor, hinting at its future vulnerability. …


Study Reveals Stunning Acceleration of Sea Level Rise
By John Upton | February 22nd, 2016

The oceans have heaved up and down as world temperatures have waxed and waned, but as new research tracking the past 2,800 years shows, never during that time did the seas rise as sharply or as suddenly as has been the case during the last century.
The new study, the culmination of a decade of work by three teams of farflung scientists, has charted what they called an “acceleration" in sea level rise that’s triggering and worsening flooding in coastlines around the world.
The findings also warn of much worse to come.
The scientists reported in a paper published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have greater than 95 percent certainty that at least half of more than 5 inches of sea level rise they detected during the 20th century was directly caused by global warming. …


Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era
Robert E. Kopp, Andrew C. Kemp, Klaus Bittermann, , Jeffrey P. Donnellyi, W. Roland Gehrels, Carling C. Hay, Jerry X. Mitrovica, Eric D. Morrow, and Stefan Rahmstorf
> vol. 113 no. 11
> Robert E. Kopp, E1434–E1441, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1517056113
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/11/E1434
Significance:
We present the first, to our knowledge, estimate of global sea-level (GSL) change over the last ∼3,000 years that is based upon statistical synthesis of a global database of regional sea-level reconstructions. GSL varied by ∼±8 cm over the pre-Industrial Common Era, with a notable decline over 1000–1400 CE coinciding with ∼0.2 °C of global cooling. The 20th century rise was extremely likely faster than during any of the 27 previous centuries.


Global Warming Effects on Sea Level

About that Systems Science, here listen to a good talk where an expert explains it in plan english.
This is the stuff that’s educated me, the foundation of my understanding.
This is sort of a classic, not merely because its one of his last public talks,
but because of how completely and succinctly he explained today’s dilemma -
the one we as a people failed so completely - thanks to the relentless flood of garbage
from the likes of MikeYohe and that maliciously dishonest Republican public stupefaction campaign he parrots for.
It’s a must view classic if you want to be in a better position to understand what scientists have been explaining to us about our planet.
None of these fundamentals have changed these past years

Stephen Schneider: Climate Change: Is the Science "Settled"? - (February 4, 2010) Professor of biology at Stanford and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, he unpacks the political and scientific debates surrounding climate change. This course was originally presented in Stanford University's Continuing Studies program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmlHbt5jja4

I cannot believe you are still trying to convince Mike Yohe. This is a lost cause, that is why I have given up on this forum. There is nothing to learn here at all. Any knowledge you might obtain will be subjective or tainted with partiality. Center for Inquiry is a complete failure.

I cannot believe you are still trying to convince Mike Yohe. This is a lost cause, that is why I have given up on this forum. There is nothing to learn here at all. Any knowledge you might obtain will be subjective or tainted with partiality. Center for Inquiry is a complete failure.
CFI's a failure only because so few seem interested in a hardy discussion these days. Why do you think I'm trying to "convince Mike Yohe"? He's one of my star specimens for the intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party, don't tell me I should stop studying him. Other than that, since you didn't ask, I'll share it anyways:
Pruitt's Red Team Challenge goes into hiding.] DECEMBER 25, 2017 Updating Pruitt's Red team Blue team challenge, December 15th, E and E News’ Robin Bravenender reported, EPA air chief Bill Wehrum attended a White House meeting with Trump energy aide Mike Catanzaro, deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn and others to discuss the future of the debate and it has been put on hold. I’m not at all surprised, after all Republicans have way more to lose. Republicans are the ones performing the flim flam. I think it’s a wonderful idea, compose a Blue team of savvy, well spoken, sharp-witted science communicators who have a deep understanding of Republican's war on rational constructive science debate and learning, along with the ability to enunciate today’s climate science understanding under fire. No, not real climate scientists! Scientists have had their constructive debates (among competent experts who understand the details such as the math, science, unexpected complexities and such.). Scientists have published their results. Scientists' work is On The Record! Scientists are busy using their talents to continue the research. Leave the politics to the public arena. Use the Red team Blue team confrontation to force Republicans to show their cards. Seems to me a wonderful opportunity to publicly expose their fraud. That's why I'm working on a few posts related to pursuing the challenge, even if only from a distance. ...
Now I just need to find more time to work on it. ;-)