Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Government Climate Change Report - 10

History of U.S. Global Change Research Program
This report may be extinct since the Administration of Denial has pulled off a coup (A Tale of Coup Cities - 14).

By "this report" I mean the report required by Public Law 101-606, 104 Stat. 3096-3104 (PDF), passed by congress in 1990 then signed into law by President George H.W. Bush (Global Climate Change Research Act).

(The link under the graphic, above, details the history of that law.)

A copy of the latest draft version of the legally required report is now available (2017 US climate reportPDF, final PDF).

Play it again Sam
This latest report may not see the light of day, because the Fake Based Administration is loony when it comes to Global Warming Induced Climate Change.

The one thing that denialists now in power do not want us to know is the truth that is based upon the facts (The Shapeshifters of Bullshitistan - 2, Agnotology: The Surge - 16).

I suppose we should read the report while we can ... so ... let's look at some of the content:
"CSSR TOD: DO NOT CITE, QUOTE, OR DISTRIBUTE
...
About This Report

As a key input into the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) oversaw the production of this special, stand-alone report of the state of science relating to climate change and its physical impacts. The Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) serves several purposes for NCA4, including providing 1) an updated detailed analysis of the findings of how climate change is affecting weather and climate across the United States, 2) an executive summary that will be used as the basis for the science summary of NCA4, and 3) foundational information and projections for climate change, including extremes, to improve “end-to-end” consistency in sectoral, regional, and resilience analyses for NCA4. This report allows NCA4 to focus more heavily on the human welfare, societal, and environmental elements of climate change, in particular with regard to observed and projected risks, impacts, adaptation options, regional analyses, and implications (such as avoided risks) of known mitigation actions.

Much of this report is intended for a scientific and technically savvy audience, though the Executive Summary is designed to be accessible to a broader audience."
(U.S. Global Change Research Program, p. 3, PDF). Why would the Fake Based Administration not want information about the United States to be available for use by the United States?

Would it really hurt us that "bigly" to prepare, like we do in any insurance policy risk management scenario, for some of this?

For example, sea level change:
3. Relative sea level (RSL) rise in this century will vary along U.S. coastlines due, in part, to: changes in Earth’s gravitational field and rotation from melting of land ice, changes in ocean circulation, and vertical land motion (very high confidence). For almost all future GMSL rise scenarios, RSL rise is likely to be greater than the global average in the U.S. Northeast and the western Gulf of Mexico. In intermediate and low GMSL rise scenarios, it is likely to be less than the global average in much of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. For high GMSL rise scenarios, it is likely to be higher than the global average along all U.S. coastlines outside Alaska (high confidence).

4. The annual occurrences of daily tidal flooding—exceeding local thresholds for minor impacts to infrastructure—have increased 5- to 10 fold since the 1960s in several U.S. coastal cities (very high confidence). Rates of increase, which are accelerating in over 25 Atlantic and Gulf Coast cities, are fastest where elevation thresholds are lower, local RSL rise is higher, or extreme variability is less (very high confidence). Tidal flooding will continue increasing in depth and frequency in similar manners this century (very high confidence).
(ibid, p. 413, PDF). That sea level change section is bolstered by another report, from another source, that has already been released:
"Sea level rise caused by global warming is usually cast as a doomsday scenario that will play out so far into the future, it’s easy to ignore. Just ask anyone in South Florida, where new construction proceeds apace. Yet already, more than 90 coastal communities in the United States are battling chronic flooding, meaning the kind of flooding that’s so unmanageable it prompts people to move away.

That number is expected to roughly double to more than 170 communities in less than 20 years."
(National Geographic). Hey deniers, you can run but you can't hide, because you are in the same boat the rest of us are in.

Anyway, getting back to the U.S. Global Change Research Program Report, I was pleased to see that this report is more accurate and sophisticated than the most recent IPCC report (an international, rather than a national report).

The authors of this report understand that gravity is not a hoax, and even cite a paper by the professor who gives the presentation in the video below (Professor Mitrovica):
"Second, the location of land ice melting imparts distinct regional “static-equilibrium fingerprints” on sea level, based on gravitational, rotational, and crustal deformation effects (Mitrovica et al. 2011) (Figure 12.1a–d). For example, sea level falls near a melting ice sheet because of the resulting changes in the distribution of mass on the planet and thus in the planet’s gravitational field."
(ibid, p. 414, PDF, emphasis added). That is a very good development in the science of sea level change (The Gravity of Sea Level Change, 2, 3, 4), so don't give up hope that they will also pick up on "ghost water" (The Ghost-Water Constant, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Not only that, in another positive move, they are moving away from the "thermal expansion is the major cause of sea level rise in the 20th and 21st centuries" myth:
"Sea level change is driven by a variety of mechanisms operating at different spatial and temporal scales. Global mean sea level (GMSL) rise is primarily driven by two factors: 1) increased volume from thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms, and 2) increased mass from melt additions of ice locked in mountain glaciers and the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Satellite (altimeter and GRACE) and in situ (Argo) measurements show that, since 2005, about one third of GMSL rise has been from steric changes (thermal expansion) and about two thirds from the addition of mass to the ocean, primarily from melting land-based ice (Llovel et al. 2014; Leuliette 2015; Merrifield et al. 2015; Chambers et al. 2016). The overall amount (mass) of ocean water, and thus sea level, is also affected to a lesser extent by changes in global land water storage associated with dams and reservoirs, groundwater extraction, and global precipitation anomalies (Reager et al. 2016; Rietbroek et al. 2016; Wada et al. 2016), such as associated with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)."
(ibid, p. 414, PDF, emphasis added). "One third" (thermal expansion) is not a major factor when compared to "two thirds" (ice melt water flowing into the oceans).

On that issue they are moving in the proper direction, however, they still have a ways to go, because "one third" is demonstrably in error, in terms of being way too high (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction - 21).

Now, go spread the good and bad news.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.





9 comments:

  1. From https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/climate/climate-change-drastic-warming-trump.html

    "The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared with today."

    Seriously? Only half a degree over the next 83 years?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The same type of difficulty arises when you, I, or they attempt to be exact as to most or many estimations of future events.

      I tend to want to focus on the trend rather than on the exactness of an estimate.

      It is sufficient to say that even when a captain commands "full stop" on a large ship, or when one applies the brakes on an automobile, each moving at full speed ahead, it takes an uncertain amount of distance and time before the actual stop takes place.

      We can estimate the distance and time it takes to stop, but not exactly.

      That does not change the trend ("a general direction in which something is developing or changing").

      Delete
  2. and it does say "at least," which indicates it may be more than the quoted figure

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom,

      Yes indeed.

      The history of such estimations is filled with "worse than previously thought" statements.

      Several scientists indicate that significantly more of a temperature increase is likely.

      And to top it off, the reality is that there is no competent evidence, that I am aware of, which indicates anything other than a continuation of fossil fuel usage by current civilization.

      Delete
  3. Dredd, you're doing such a great job exposing the continuous lies by "our government," the constant manipulation of stories and even data in the mainstream (fake news) media, and 24/7 advertising and distraction to "keep the party going" for as long as possible with your blog. Thanks man, it's appreciated.

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Fires in the High Northern Latitudes release significant CO2, CH4, N20, and black carbon,” said Dr. McCarty. “A fire this close to the Greenland Ice Shelf is likely to deposit additional black carbon on the ice, further speeding up the melt.” link

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. IMO, either they misquoted Dr. McCarty or he misspoke, meaning to say "Greenland Ice Sheet" rather than "Greenland Ice Shelf".

      The disparate Greenland ice shelves (on water) are small in extent compared to the Greenland Ice Sheet (on land).

      Ice shelf melt and disintegration won't impact sea level like ice sheet melt will.

      Greenland Ice shelves are not interconnected so as to make a band all around the land mass like Antarctica's are.

      Instead, they are extensions of glaciers, like the Petermann for example (NASA Images Reveal Huge New Crack on Greenland’s Petermann Glacier).

      The crack in the Petermann system is actually on the ice shelf portion of the glacier, which extends from where the glacial ice mass leaves the land and begins to float on top of the water (Satellite Photo).

      Dr. Rignot, who is a formidable cryosphere expert puts it tis way: "The floating extension is breaking apart. It is not a collapse but it is certainly a significant event.”

      I remember that in one of the many videos featuring him, he points out that when the ice shelf extension of any glacier or ice sheet collapses, the land based ice that it was attached to speeds up ... as much as eight times faster in some cases.

      So, Dr. McCarty is correct even if he meant to say ice shelf, because indirectly the albedo change on any ice shelf extension of any glacier near the peat fires can cause the ice shelf to disintegrate more quickly, which will then lead to a flow-speed increase and the glacier will move more quickly toward the sea.

      Delete
  5. Power forces are and have been in the process of deceit. link

    ReplyDelete